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Paris - Day One
Friday, April 11, 2003
The first day of my trip to Paris, the first weekend of April 2003. I edited this shortly after posting on it, since my comments were way too lazy, so if you read this within a couple hours of its original appearance you might want to scan it again. Days Two and Three coming soonish.
There's not much of a view from the Chunnel, is there.
Sacre Coeur is outrageously lovely. Sadly, the gardens which descend down the front of the hill were closed, so I couldn't re-enact that pivotal scene from Amelie, but I'm over it. I came straight here from the Gare du Nord right around the corner, taking a brief detour through one of the sketchier parts of town on my way (although if that was the sketchiest that Paris can throw at you, I'm impressed... it basically just reminded me of Canal Street in NYC which is so not the sketchiest thing WE have on offer).
A cool lion doorknob on the entrance to Sacre Coeur. I like that this picture almost looks like a color-negative...
Sacre Coeur continues to be outrageously lovely from varying angles. I went inside, where it was also outrageously lovely, but decided to respect their "no photography" request.
This is, maybe, the coolest font in the entire world.
The Moulin Rouge: nowhere near as impressive as you'd think. I like the "Sexodrome" down the street, though.
The Place de la Concorde, brought to you by Adidas.
The Seine is undoubtedly the prettiest urban river I've ever come across. The Thames doesn't measure up, and don't even get me started on the rivers in New York; I could write an entire post on the squandering of the gorgeous space in front of the rivers in NYC. Although I do kind of have a water thing, so maybe it's just me who's bothered by this. Also, this picture suffered from the wide-lens problem I complained about on my blog; the Tower and the gorgeous Alexander III Bridge were actually looming much larger in the real-life view, but I couldn't get the picture to capture the proportions properly.
This was right around the corner from where I was staying. Damn. The Eiffel Tower has a certain charm, but it doesn't actually go terribly well with the rest of Paris... I'm not sure if I can really call myself a fan, though the Parisians seem to have embraced it, contrary to popular belief.
The road I stayed on. I had delicious chicken from that Chinese place, but I think it made me a bit queasy. Supposedly the American groceries at that other store ("The Real McCoy," small sign visible on the left) were way overpriced or else I might have indulged in some Kraft mac & cheese...
The stairs up to the top of the Arc D'Triomphe, all two-hundred-odd of them. Was a surprisingly easy climb, actually.
Montmartre, looking northeast from the Arc.
Looking southeast from the Arc.
Looking northwest to La Defense against the painfully bright sunset. Sorry about the blatant tilt of the photograph, but it was actually too bright to see the viewfinder screen...
The Arc really doesn't look anywhere near as much like the Washington Square Arch as this picture might have you believe, honestly. For starters it's a whole fucksight bigger. And there are arches on all four sides of it as opposed to just the one dimension in NYC. And the French are kind enough to not deface the Arc constantly, so they don't have to put a chain-link fence around it. Honestly, New York. Show a little dignity for once.
And here is the restaurant on the northwestern edge of town at which I had the best God-damn steak frites of my life holy shit. You got two helpings for twenty Euro, and the steak was covered in this quasi-pesto-y, apparently olive-oil based sauce that was utterly inexplicable but pretty much phenomenal. Ummmm.
04.11.2003 | 05:35 PM
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It's "Sacre Coeur," not "Sacre Couer." Couer would be pronounced koo-AY, which is not right. Or if you wanted to be perfectly correct, write Sacre Cœur.
Ahem. Excuse me. :)
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I *knew* that looked wrong. Sigh. I studied French, I swear. Thanks.
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