Vive Paris!: Memoirs of a final visit
After almost a year back home for good, I was rummaging through my collection of photos and voilà these unforgettable photos were staring at me, swirls and swirls of vibrant hues that form the famous waterlilies series of Monet's final and most ambitious gift to the city of Paris...
Back in June 2008, an old friend from Lille contacted me to ask if I would like to spent a few “touristic” days in Paris so that we can catch up with each other. Since I was leaving the country soon, I jumped on the occasion and said yes, if only it wouldn't cost me a bomb, all things taken into consideration (the fact that I was a student and on scholarship...). Well, we managed to book a double occupancy room in Rue Magenta for an affordable rate of 48 Euro a night and cliché of cliché, the hotel was called l'Hotel Grande Magenta, smack at the corner of the street leading to the Gare du Nord. My friend Guillaume was actually in Paris for his summer job training as an animateur but he figured it would be cool to kill two birds with a stone, and also the fact that he does not know Paris well enough, having only visited the city a couple of times in his 26 years of existence as a Frenchman, somewhat akin to someone in Kota Bahru who had only seen KL twice in his life and absolutely can't make the difference between KL Tower and KLCC. Well, NOT all French people knows Paris by default, same here, you get the story...He also knows that I paint and know a bit about art so being Guillaume ( he counts every cents and weighs every events, all the pros and cons and all that stuff in his head ), he thought it would be superbe if I could also double as his 'artistic' tour guide of Paris for the week. Challenge accepted, I headed for Paris and for once, I've decided to buy myself first class ticket for the return journey. I figured that you only live once and it's not everyday that you would be traveling on first class, or at least be able to describe the experience. Well, mine was totally ruined by a bunch of noisy and rowdy children chaperoned by their grand-parents who got their ticket cheap because they traveled with young children ( The TGV allows 50% discount for adults accompanying children on board). I'm OK with children exploring their environment but leaving them to ravage others' peace of mind is totally unacceptable. The couple was totally incapable of minding their grandchildren and they let them scream and play loudly on the train, much to the annoyance of other passengers who couldn't do much but bore the grunt. Some even flashed a polite smile to indicate they've got nothing against children but I can tell you that the French are too polite to tell somebody off even when they're annoyed.
So what else is new in Paris these days? (or rather, back then...) For one, the gas price hike did have some serious effects on city dwellers (called citadins in French) and the city introduced bicycles as a green solution. There are now on almost every street bicycles stations where you can rent a bicycle and park your rented bicycle. I think it's a good idea but I supposed this wouldn't be practical back home with the humid and hot climate, not to mention the lunatics on our roads. I suppose they will resort to the cyclist's lane when caught in a jam. It always amazes me to see how people drive in our country back home: when faced with a jam, turn the three-lane road to a five! However, all is not that perfect in this part of the world either. I was almost hit by a speeding bicycle (actually twice ) when I had to cross the cyclist lane to enter my hotel and trust me, certain cyclists think the roads belong to them just because the cars here respect them and give them priority. I suppose every brilliant idea must have a downside to it at one time or another. Other than bicycles, there are also rollers that can be rented as an alternative mean of moving around the city. I even saw a group of tourist sight-seeing on electrical two-wheelers Segways. Interesting concepts.
A bicycle station outside a posh boutique in Place Vendôme
Back to the story of coming to Paris: well, we both decided to arrive early even though the check-in time was standard 14:00. So, we first unloaded our luggage at the hotel's baggage room and head off straight to do some visiting. The first thing that we visited was the Musée Picasso. To tell the truth, I was a bit disappointed because there weren't that many paintings on display and secondly, no pictures were allowed even without flash. The museum's security was very vigilant and it was a shame that we couldn't get any picture next to a Picasso. Guillaume took note of the paintings viewed as I tried my best to explain the evolution of his art in my own way. In a way, it was also a learning experience for me, especially the explaining part. Well, he could have rented a voice guide for the tour but that would have taken too much time (and his miserly Euro ). In the garden, there was a mini resto but we had brought along our own sandwiches and so we had ours outside in the adjoining park.
With our stomach filled up, we decided to visit the famous Catacombes of Paris. I remembered seeing queuing tourists and my brother in-law telling me that they were entering the Catacombes somewhere near Raspail and so off we went but after having inquired with the tourism office, a slight confusion entailed but a call to my BIL confirmed my point. The rest was just a metro ride away. The entrance into the Catacombes wasn't really spectacular but after a long, winding descend down the shafts of the ex-limestone mine, the space opened up and the entrance into the Catacombes revealed itself with these words: ARRÈTE! C'EST ICI L'EMPIRE DE LA MORT (Behold! Here lies the empire of the Dead). According to the information provided, the Catacombes is the final resting place for Parisians in the Les Halles district exhumed from their graveyards due to disease around Paris in 1785. Guillaume had a gala time posing with the skeletal remains. Some people showed some awe, especially the children but generally, it wasn't scary at all. I suppose after five years of ancient buildings and catacombes in every other ancient church everywhere in France, it's hard to imagine beyond the physical proofs. Blasé they called it in French.
Here is it, the famous Parisian Catacombes. It wasn't even eerie despite the obscurity of the place and the hypes surrounding the place.
We went back to our room for our check-in later that afternoon and soon after, fatigue set in and we called for a siesta. Allez, on va pioncer, quipped Guillaume. That same afternoon, a group of tourists checked in but boy, were they a noisy bunch! The just walked up and down the corridor (I think they were occupying rooms that flanked ours), opening and closing doors, laughing out loud, etc...we couldn't nap anymore so we had decided to go out for another visit. We went to the Quartier Montmartre because I for one had always somehow omitted this place from my itinerary of Paris. Guillaume made an appointment with his friend to meet up somewhere here so that we, well, would be able to kill two birds with a stone again...We somehow missed the artist enclave of the Montmartre market square but managed to find our way towards the stairs leading to the Sacré Coeur, a church at the top of the hill and popularly used as backdrop for many films. At the bottom of the street leading to the stairs, there were stalls selling all kinds of stuff and I saw some very nice red cherries sold at an agreeable price (written on its price tag) BUT I would have never imagined that I could be taken for a ride in Paris by a fruit vendor as he told me the price of the half kilo of cherries that I bought. I paid the deal, vowing never again to buy fruits from stalls in Paris. I thought this type of experiences only happen to people visiting third world countries but cheating in broad daylight in Paris? My friend chided me for not arguing with the guy but I was too tired to even try. That experience really killed my day.
Once at the top, I had no more envie (desire) to walk any further and so we ended up not exploring the Montmartre market somewhere down the slopes of the hill. The courtyard and the imposing stairways of the church were teeming with tourists and street shows, one of them being two youngsters toggling with a football to the beat of some hip-hop music. That really attracted the students on tour around the basilica. We stopped for a while, enjoyed the shows and finally head down the slopes to go to the metro for Pigalle where our rendez-vous would be. As we arrived early, we strolled along the wooded street flanked by cafés, cinemas and sex shops. Guillaume suggested that we give the Moulin Rouge show a try, thinking it would cost us like maximum 35 Euro a piece. When I told him that it costs a cool 145 Euro per head for a dinner show, he abandoned the idea faster than the speed of light. So, for souvenirs, we snapped a few photos, sat on the bench, snacked on some chocolate bars while waiting for Guillaume's friend. Incidentally, this was the only time that I bought Kinder Bueno bars and they were actually made differently from those sold back home (I tasted one out of curiosity in KL and it was a total let down, the chocolate being a lot more diluted, sweet and thin ). We finally met up with Guillaume's friend at a sidewalk café next to some sex shop and the conversation lasted quite a while. I think I must have had enough people watching for the day because the only thing that I can think off was going back to the hotel room and nap. Besides, the chill of the evening air started to set in and I wasn't dressed for that...
The Sacré Coeur at the Monmartre area.
Who could miss this icon of Paris made famous by the artists and writers of the late 19th Century? However, don't expect the faux grandeur suggested by the romanticized version in Moulin Rouge! inhabited with the delightful Satine of Nicole Kidman ...
That night back at the hotel room in rue Magenta, we discussed our next day's itinerary and decided to make it an art/museum tour. Later that night, I couldn't sleep well because at almost 3:00 am in the morning, I was awaken by repeated footsteps and opening and closing doors' sound all over the place. I don't generally attach to the idea of phantom experiences but three nights in a roll? I asked Guillaume if he had heard anything and the answer given was obvious, he heard nothing. (He sleeps with ear plugs!) Errhh...
The next day, we moved early so as to avoid putting up with long queues at the Louvre museum. Once there, we wasted no time with the queue that was already building up and made our way to the galleries. Both of us paid full entrance fee, seeing neither one of us was below 25 years old, even if I was still a registered student...The Louvre is such an enormous structure that you can easily loose your way if you don't organize your visit. Well, aspiring to make a complete tour of the museum is futile if you have only a day to burn. So, you have to choose what to see and that's when you need to study the map provided for free at the entrance. Incidentally, you can only access works up to 18th century.Anything post-dated would be elsewhere ( like contemporary art at the Centre George Pompidou, 19th century art at the Musée d'Orsay and primitive art, called Art Premier at the newly opened museum at Quai Branly near the Eiffel tower) the Louvre is complemented by two satellite museums called the Orangérie and the Jeu de Palme at the extreme end of the Tuilleries Garden. We tried our best to make a good tour of the place for half a day. First date was of course with the Italian and Spanish wings that house the famous La Jaconde (Mona Lisa). This time, I noticed that they have increased the viewing distance of the Mona Lisa that is already not a very big painting. I suppose security concern tops everything else. It is also known that camera flashlights can have adverse effects on old paintings and visitors are advised not to flash. That did not stop anybody from using their flash and the guards are just plainly fighting against the odds. With millions of visitors in its corridors and galleries every year, the guards can hardly keep up. We managed to finish up to the oriental wing and at one point, I could no longer walk because of tiredness and so, we rested for a while and call it a day. We found a Chinese restaurant tuck up in a street adjacent to the exit of the Richelieu Wing and we had our lunch there. At 7 Euro per head for a meal in Paris, and a Chinese one that is, who can complain?
Next, it was choice between The Jeu de Palme to see David's glorious paintings that celebrated the new Republic or the famous waterlilies of Monet, his last testament to the city. Guillaume opted for the first while I really wanted to see the latter. I managed to convince him for the latter. The queue was not that long this time but the wait was quite. Once inside, I was not very impressed with the size of the museum, having just visited the gargantuan Louvre. Well, the main exhibition hall was consecrated for the waterlilies series of Monet in an infinity-shaped hall (like the sleeping number eight). The paintings were conceived to envelop the viewers and to evoke the airy feeling of the water gardens that Monet cultivated for this purpose in his home in Giverny. It was a lovely concept, even for our time but unfortunately, drolls and drolls of visitors crowding around the paintings did not exactly help. Guillaume is not a big fan of impressionism and he found the paintings boring so we did not stay any longer than necessary. Dommage. We then descended to the lower galleries that house other collections belonging to art dealers ( I forgot their names) and finally, we get to pose with a few Picassos. The names were all there even though there weren't that many paintings on display: Cézanne, Renoir, Rousseau (le douanier ), Modigliani, Matisse, Utrillo, Soutine... After having visited the Orangérie, we have decided that a visit to the adjacent Jeu de Palme would be an overkill. So, it was back to the hotel for a siesta. Guillaume had made arrangement for an outing with his friends tonight. Pizza night.
Part of the gallery that houses the Monet waterlilies. The lighting was a bit poor but getting an empty view like this is rare. This is the autumn-winter waterscape.
That evening, after a few changes of metro which I couldn't remember, we arrived at the rendezvous point somewhere in the 1st arrondissement and we went to this 'unlimited' pizza restaurant called Flam's. It was quite OK as far as pizza is concerned for me. What caught my attention was in fact what's right opposite the restaurant: a bar called “Wolf”. Well, the title didn't quite sank in at first but when I noticed that I only see 'bear' guys smoking and chatting outside the bar, I finally got the picture. It was a gay bar meant for 'bears'. Oh là là...I wanted to snap a photo of the place but my friend told me not to, for being politically correct. Oups.
Day 3 started a bit unplanned as my friend made another rendezvous with his friend for lunch in some business district. It was a clear but windy morning and we started out by going on a marathon tour. We first visited (only briefly) the Bastille Opera house, followed by the very open park behind the Grand Palais, on the other side of the Pont Alexandre towards Les Invalides. Les Invalides is actually an ex-army barrack that now serves as an arm museum. After an uninspired lunch at a sidewalk stall in a nondescript business district that includes the headquarter of Carrefour supermarkets (a very windy one indeed, and Paris is NOT one of those cities that is user-friendly if you are a tourist with an over-active bladder and by this time, the weather had already taken on a cloudy and gloomy allure, typically Parisian), we headed back to town. This time, we headed for the Galleries Lafayette in Boulevard Haussmann, the shopping to go to if and when you are in Paris but what many tourists didn't know is that at the rooftop of this shopping complex, you can have a splendid view of Paris and the Sacré Coeur, completely free of charge. There were a tad too many shopping tourist that afternoon and my friend is not exactly the type you want to bring along for shopping either. Actually, the prices of luxury items gave him the jitters. I don't understand. It's not like you're obliged to buy anything once you're in a shop. So, being insensitive, off I tag him along to Place Vendôme, the place for haute joallerie (fine jewelery). Well, it was actually for visiting Napoleon's monument at the center of the square but a peep at the display windows encircling the square won't harm nobody...apparently, there was some picketing at the place earlier because we could still find traces of pancarte used for the picketing, called grève in French. At the price of items displayed at the shop windows, who won't faire une grève! I saw watches sold at over 1oo thousand euros each on the display windows! This was too good a place for window shopping highs because even astronomical prices are displayed on items, against those hidden price tags of items displayed in shopping complexes in Malaysia. I'm not sure if the hidden prices were meant to deter attempted robberies or to avoid lawsuits from window shoppers suffering from heart attacks. Or maybe because ambulance services in France are extremely prompt...hmmm, that might be an interesting subject to study in the future.
A view from the rooftop restaurant of the Galleries Lafayette. The building at the top of the hill is the Sacré Coeur. The other side will offer you another view of Paris, beginning with the gilded domes of the famous Opéra Garnier.
Well, there were nothing for the common folks like us at Place Vendôme and soon, we were walking along streets we did not recognize, that is to say that we were actually...ahem...lost. Paris is quite an easy place to steer around and if you're lost, look for the nearest metro and you will soon find your way. That is, you must first know what a metro station in Paris look like... That took us next to the George V metro station in Champs Elysées and of course, we were going to visit the Arc de Triomphe. We hung around that place for quite a while because Guillaume was hesitating between wanting to see the parade in honor of the war dead or making the bee-line to go up (The honoring ceremony happens everyday, yeah, everyday, so don't panic if you think you'd just missed it). It was an easy decision for us: Go for the free one. So, we waited under the arch. As the people started streaming in and taking their positions, we were pushed further and further away until frustrated, we called it quit. There was so much hype I wasn't sure it was worth it. Besides, it wasn't my first time. We took the underground tunnel and came out next to Cartier's boutique and guess what, the parade started to form over here as well. Since they couldn't leave us alone, we tagged along then, I mean literally tagged along the parade. That done, we decided to end our tour that day at the La Defense area. It is the most futuristic looking part of Paris and on a clear day, you can actually see it from the Arc de Triomphe. There is a Museum of some ICT stuff at the top of the arch-shaped building, connected from the bottom of the stairs with a transparent bubble lift. I really think that we had enough of museums for that day. That particular moment at the La Defense felt like an anti-climax of all museum visits and I felt I could have screamed if we were to enter another museum of any sort there and then. The day took a turn for the worse as the sunny weather mutated to a really windy, gray and drizzly evening, typically Parisian weather. That evening, tired and a bit weary, we had a kebab dinner a stone throw away from our hotel. It would be hard to leave a country that I had called home for 5 years. It was even harder to leave a friend of five years...
...and oh yes, we decided also to make it for Ionesco's famous absurd theatre piece La cantatrice chauve - The Bald Singer. It has been running succesfully since its connception at Theatre Huchette in the 50s until today but unfortunately, I really couldn't remember the name of the theatre that day...Desperate, we sought help at FNAC and ended up buying tickets for modern improvised version at Theatre Sylvia Monfort at rue Briancion in the 15th Arrondissement. Regretfully, the near-mile distance of this theatre from the nearest metro station did not help the tired mind to wind down when the body was wanting for rest. What I found disappointing was the unnecessary vulgarisation of the maid and the absence of the crazy clock that was a necessary element in the original setting (it was replaced by a video remote control used by the protagonists). Very tiresome evening indeed. On top of it, it was really in an uninspiring coin (corner of the neighbourhood) that has nothing to do for tourists...
Our trip was cut short a day because Guillaume was obliged to attend his training a day earlier (well, actually half a day) and so, I have decided not to stay at the hotel for the final evening. That morning, we did some shopping at the Gare du Nord district but I bought nothing. There were tons and tons of very cheap clothes and shoes but they were all synthetic-made-in-China-a-penny type of apparels and they didn't interest me. That day, I called up a friend who lives in Mirabeau and got to stay over for that night. Soon, it was bye-bye time and after check-out, I sent my friend to the station. That afternoon, to kill time, I kept my luggage at the hotel's luggage store and went for window shopping in Avenue Montaigne, Rue Royale and Champs Elysée. I didn't have any plan nor big bucks to spend but the window shopping was fun, especially the wandering tourist thing. Most of the shops treat you well even if you're only browsing. What's important is attitude. Always show the right attitude and nobody will ever accuse you of wasting their time even if you're only browsing. Avenue Montaigne in Paris is like Star Hill Gallery in KL spread over two sides of a manicured road, only bigger and better. What a bang, wandering aimlessly in one of the most luxurious shopping district in the world to mark the end of my sejour in France. To top it off with a long lunch Chez Clément at the Champs Elysées was beyond description. To sum up a five-year relation with one of the most fascinating cities in the world was difficult. Paris is a city that doesn't change. It permutates and opens herself to you with the changing of the seasons and if you're lucky, you might stumble upon a street, a corner or a place that will be your special place to keep...here in your heart for always.
The cozy interior of Chez Clement right next to the Arc de Triomphe at the Champs Elysées. This is my favorite lunch restaurant, especially if I'm on my 'wandering' mood and absolutely not rushed for anything in Paris.
Words from a picketing worker “La reforme: Une cerise sur un gateau d'indifférence, de mepris, de menaces. Ça suffit!” meaning “ The reform: The icing on the cake for indifference, for contempt, for threats. We had enough!” The people were obviously picketing against new economic reforms by the government headed by Monsieur Sarkozy and what better place to show this than on the most decadent square in Paris (Place VendÔme)? Strong measures adopted in trying times proved to be bitter medicine for many in a gloomy economic situation. France has one of the best social welfare system in the world.
Cultural notes:
superbe – French version of super!
pioncer – familiar french for sleeping
resto – shortened version of restaurant.
rendez-vous – notice how the original French version is written in a hyphenated form as it is in fact a nominalized verb from the conjugated pronominal verb se rendre of second-person singular of the polite form (you -vous), which is in turn used in the imperative form before becoming a noun. Hmm...French grammar for the 'amateurs'.
Rousseau (le douanier) -Rousseau the custom officer, is in fact a famous naive-art painter, not to be confused with the philosopher.
Carrefour – actually means 'crossroad' in French and pronounced as [kaRfuR], keeping in mind of the glottal [R] in French.
faire une grève – to go picketing.
sejour -stay
pancarte – placard (for picketing)
The Centre Georges Pompidou is popularly known as Beaubourg by Parisians.
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