We Gogh To Paris To Spend All Our Monet

This weekend I flew to Paris to participate in the ultimate throwback where I spent four days playing with the Darnell family relieving our vacation from eleven-plus years ago. I've never been to France without that family, and hope never to do it without them. Except dear members were missing, such as Jessy and Grace and thus our re-enactment of our Eiffel Tower photo didn't quite feel the same with shotty screenshots of them held up on our phones between us. For those of you who aren't aware, the Darnells are my best friends, my second family and I've known them since before birth. I almost don't have a childhood memory without them, and since Jessy goes to Cal Poly (praise), I almost don't have a college memory without them too.

Missy and I started off my Paris experience the right way: with a largely Parisian meal of....Mashed Potatoes and Strawberry Milkshake. There's a reason we were seated in a separate room alone with walls all around us. I don't think my French helped.

The Darnells spoiled me by letting me stay with them in their wonderful rented flat. It was in this great little neighborhood just far enough away from the center to not be overwhelmed by tourists and tacky Eiffel Tower salesman, but still close enough to the metro to keep exploration plans alive. We spent our first big day at Versailles, the famous French palace southwest (?) of the city. We took the world's slowest train to get there, but made it just barely in time for a tour of the private royal apartments. Those were rather spectacular. But my favorite part of the tour was when our audio guide pretended he was the king and said to his wife: "Madame we need to have an apartment party. We owe ourselves to the public." Probably would have missed large amounts of history without that little insight. We also got to go inside the royal opera, that was only used 35 times by royal family members. Versailles is an unbelievably ornate palace and was never officially occupied past the French Revolution meaning it was only lived in for about a century. The hall of mirrors was the best part, except our mirror pic turned out fuzzy thanks to the age of the mirror glass. Disappointing.

We also totally lucked out as the rain kept itself to the little window of time when we were inside the palace, and the clouds parted for some nice sunny moments strolling (more like marching for miles) in the gardens outside the palace. The one bummer was that the statues were bagged for the winter and the fountains were all off, so the place didn't quite have the infamous feel. But the fall leaves and blue sky absolutely made up for it.

We parted ways for dinner, and I took the metro back into the city center to meet my dear friend Madi Kois for dinner. She's a gal from Boulder who just casually took a week off school to visit a friend studying in France and we happened to overlap for a few hours. So we did the touristy Notre Dame thing and then rolled her suitcase with us to dinner. I pointed to a random dish that had lamb in it and was blessed with something beautiful. But even more wonderful was having the chance to catch up with such a dear friend in a restaurant in freakin Paris when we hadn't seen each other in Lord only knows when. God's fun like that.

I made a solo trip to the Eiffel Tower at night to get some self takes. It's kind of awkward to be there by yourself when the annoying street vendors keep trying to sell you champagne. They should know that if I'd wanted a romantic evening, I would have, I don't know, maybe BROUGHT SOMEONE WITH ME? When I got back on the metro, we had a brief glimpse of the Eiffel and it started panicking and lighting up and flashing and freaking out. These guys freaked out with me and I discovered they were both from Barcelona and now working in Paris so I got some recommendations on both ends.

Saturday was another day well spent. We got up nice and early to go climb the stairs of the Eiffel Tower. Debby powered through a hurting knee and we all braved the slightly freezing temperatures at the top to get incredible views of the city--and even the whole shadow of the tower lain out across the river. Mark invariably kept making engineer jokes and tried to test my knowledge of the forces acting in the trusses. There's no winning with him (except that one New Year's Eve where I actually beat him in clue #neverforget). Then Missy and I reenacted our fav Eiffel photo, and I will forever regret not bringing my popcorn shirt. It was also a real low point to later find out Beyonce had been at the Eiffel Tower BOTH times that I was and didn't even bother to say hi. Ugh.

We then made our way to Musee d'Orsay. I had the cathartic experience of discovering that I'm not a complete eggplant when it comes to museums as I previously thought. I actually thoroughly enjoyed myself the entire time. Although, that was probably largely due to the fact that after a few hours of serious art, Missy, Debby, and I approached delirium and succumbed to the temptation of photographing ourselves reenacting the statues in a museum where photos are STRICTLY prohibited. This resulted in Debby showcasing her breast, Missy and I portraying desire, and two photos that involved kissing Missy's eye and biting her neck. For the latter two these two guards wavered between dying of laughter and trying to reprimand us. They kept half getting out of their seats but half not being able to handle it. I panicked and ran away when they finally came over since we were causing a large scene. But apparently to Missy they only thought it was necessary to comment on how red my face was. This is also something that was caught in a photo and I dearly apologize to everyone who has witnessed that side of me. It's more horrifying than I thought to see my face turn shades of red not yet discovered by mankind.

The one part of the museum that I did not enjoy and still am confused about was their special exposition. They have a temporary exhibit on Sade. Yes, Sade as in sadism. It was one of the creepiest things I have ever seen, but in the way where you can't really stop reading or taking your eyes off of it. They had this horrible timeline of his life and abusive acts towards women and horrible quotes interspersed between really dark art. And amid all of this the entire exhibit lauded him for his courage to go where no one had gone before, and his willingness to speak freely and openly about sadism and death and liberty. All I could think was how can this man speak of freedom when all of his disgusting ideas involve denying freedom to some poor woman for his own satisfaction. Really really disturbing that France thinks his works are worth preserving as literary and art forms.

We ended our evening with a quick stop at Arc de Triomf and a beyond delicious Italian dinner where Missy took on an Italian lover. The Darnells departed for Italy the next morning and I packed my last few French hours full of crepes, macaroons, pan au chocolat, and a couple more sites.

Per recommendation from Mark, I went to Sainte Chapelle, a beautiful, almost entirely stained glass chapel. I've seen some pretty incredible stained glass in my time, but this church was absolutely breathtaking. They tell the story of essentially the entire bible from Adam to Jesus and Judgement Day  in wall to wall stained glass. Gorgeous. I then made my way to Invalides (Napoleon's absurd tomb) and Musee Rodin. Musee Rodin was another museum that I greatly enjoyed. It is home to some of Rodin's most famous sculptures and has this wonderful layout of sculptures placed throughout this gorgeous rose garden. The Thinker was by far the favorite and had a really cool view of that work, Invalides, and the Eiffel Tower all in one shot. That concluded my little piece of Paris and left me really wishing I was there longer. But I don't think I could afford it. This concludes my adventure portion of this blog. The rest is a Catalunya history/current event lesson.

It was totally worth coming back in time to see the end of the November 9 independence "vote" in Catalunya. The city wasn't quite as decked out in independence flags as it was on September 11, but independence posters and posters encouraging citizens to vote, regardless of their opinion were everywhere. I'm going to make this a brief current event lesson because I think it's fascinating, and I want to remember being here for this piece of history when I'm old. NPR does a great job of summarizing the event if you don't want to listen to me. Catalunya went forth with the poll although the central government condemned its constitutionality and really tried to stop them. Which to me almost even more enforces the validity of Catalunya's claims that the central government refuses to address their issues. The poll had two questions: the first was should Catalunya be a state? The second was if yes, should Catalunya be an independent state? Basically the way I understand it is that although Catalunya is a recognized region and has its own regional government, they are still denied the ability to implement real changes catering to the needs of their people (such as their own taxes or autonomy in the education systems). If they became a recognized state, it would change Catalunya's relationship with the central government to be like that of the federal and state governments in the US. If they become completely independent, obviously that's very different and largely more complicated. It's been really interesting to read and listen firsthand to reasons why people support independence. Some harbor resentment from the Franco regime where Catalan and all associated customs were forbidden. But more seek distance from Spain's economic crisis and current government. Catalunya has a large portion of the industry and money in Spain and many feel they're bailing out the rest of the country when they could be much stronger separately. It's been really interesting talking to friends, roommates, and classmates about this here. Over 2 million people voted, and the numbers say 80 percent voted yes for both questions, 10 voted yes to the first, no to the second, and 5 voted no to both. I'm very much looking forward to following this exciting time for the rest of my stay here and even when I return home. It's crazy that countries are still changing borders and building walls today.

"Independence is liberty"

"A country where I can create a business with ease." "A country where I can leave the house at 18." "A country where my kid can find work." "A country that is responsible with energy."

Some of the Paris photos are borrowed from Missy Darnell :)

xoxo.