Oui Oui, Paris...oi oi

15-07-2009


Right, well there is probably one person in the world that will laugh after reading that title. For the rest of you, too bad. You had to be there.

There being Paris of course.

I am just back from a five day break to Paris with the lady friend and it was a pretty damn amazing break I can tell you. Hands down one of the best, if not the best, holiday I have had in many years. It was laid back, it was fun, it was relaxing, it was interesting, it was new, it was drama free, it was just what the doctor ordered.

The hotel that we stayed in was fairly well positioned with regards all the big events and tourist attractions. We had a metro station about five minutes from the hotel door that pretty much opened up the entire city to us for next to nothing. It puts the Dublin transport network to shame, and I am lumping darts, buses and taxis all into that basket. This thing is fantastic. Once you get your head around the crazy map you can easily figure out what stations you want to jump to and what direction you are headed in and boom you get around the city in a second.

Of course it was a little packed during rush hour but still a brilliant system.

There was also a small hiccup had with a "free" push bike system that is around the city. But that was a lesson learned fairly rapidly. While it was a nice idea in principal there was obviously some kinks to work out of it before it became really tourist friendly. More on that little saga another time maybe.

Did all the usual things, The Tower, The Arch, The Mona.

The Mona Lisa, good lord. I am a little bit of an art head (among all the other hobbies and interests I have picked up over the years) and had a lot about the Mona Lisa in my skull but still, seeing it for the first time really was an experience in itself. Forgetting the mob, because a crowd is something different, of people around it looking at it. Once you clap eyes on that thing for the first time you realise that you will never draw or paint anything that is even a tenth of a millionth of a googleplex as good. I will be popping photos up on my facebook when I get a chance, but even those don't do this thing justice. It was fantastic.

Shame that the mob of people seem to loose all manners. Rather than a nice little system of people standing at the back and getting closer to have a better look you see pushing and shoving and elbows flying. One family even used the three children in some twisted sort of mountain climb method to mark their space, throwing one child forward, then pushing towards them as the next one was shoved ahead more to get the next spot.

The worst I saw, while being patient (which is unusual for me) was a family of five. The mother was taking a picture of her husband and three kids in front of the painting and a man was standing just to the left of them. He raised his arm to take his photo and the husband from the family pushed it down, no word of sorry or anything, because the stranger was after putting a tiny bit of his arm in the family photo.

Seriously, you couldn't have waited five seconds for the stranger to take his photo. And these people were fat as well, fat and rude.

At one point the pushing became so bad near the top that I just told the lady friend to stand in front of me and did a little trick I have called "being a big ignorant fuck of a ginger man that doesn't move no matter how hard you push him". It did the trick. About twenty seconds of pushing into me resulted in a little opening for the two of us to nip up front and get a picture or ten, then turn around to an elderly American couple and offer our spot to them.

See, manners.

The funniest Mona Lisa Moment was as we left the room it is stored in another American couple entered and the man stopped just inside the doorway and declared "That's close enough for me, I can see it. I've seen it, I am out of here".

Why come all that way and not try and get as close as possible? It boggled my mind.

One thing I would recommend getting if you ever go to Paris, is to get the Museum Pass for the number of days you are there. It lets you into about 60 different places, all the big ones really with the exception of the Eiffel Tower, and is really well worth the cost. You skip the massive lines and get in a lot faster and as many times as you want. We used it to visit the Lourve twice, just because we could. Well actually because I got a migraine on our first day there and we had just been enjoying the experience (rather than do the moronic thing of rushing to see the one painting and missing out on all the other fantastic art) and had to cut the rest short. But still, being able to do something like that, leave due to a migraine but not worry because you could come back, well worth the cost.

I could rant on and on about how perfect a holiday this was. From having breakfast at a nice little cafe just down the road to the total and utter peaceful feeling as we strolled through the streets just looking for a place to have dinner. No rushing around, just total calm. But I won't, I will finish on this one point.

If you ever get the urge to see the Mona Lisa, attack that mob with vigor. It is worth it in the end.

Blue_jester