Why Doesn't Paris Have More Museums?

I really hope you know I am kidding! Well, more kidding than not kidding. I say this because almost every time I am in a museum, I feel that time speeds up and it is never long enough. Especially in the Louvre. I joke around with my daddy-o that I could spend from open to close there for 5 days in a row and still not feel like I had my fill. It’s just how I roll people, it’s what I’m into. I also like rocks and will occasionally lick them. We all have our thing! We did have an awesome moment of being thoroughly lost inside of the Louvre and then bumping into a little café that served wine and dessert. It really tickled me that people were studying the menu like they were truly debating on whether they were going to eat there. It says coffee wine and dessert in the title, it’s this place or somewhere outside of the building. There are no other “close by options”. Priorities people, you need to get them straight! Anyway, I love museums, hooray!!

I am very glad that Frank and I decided to get the smaller metro ticket bundle since we walked most of the city. I like seeing cities that way. When I made it to NYC for the first time I walked from the Museum of Natural History to Battery Park. We both love walking cities, and the good thing about that in Europe is that many city centers are small. They had to be, they had a wall built around them for defending the city, like one big fortified house minus the ceiling and second floor and attic. You can still where the ancient city walls used to be simply by looking at an aerial map. The somewhat concentric circular patterns from boulevards you see moving out from the very center, that’s them. Well used to be them, walls for cities went the way of the horse and buggy. Just as those became cars, the walls were taken down (not entirely, some were incorporated into buildings, waste not want not) and turned into boulevards. Makes me thirsty for a boulevardier just typing about it! There was a name invented to describe someone who frequents boulevards, a Boulevardier, now a delicious cocktail!

Alright, beverage break is over, back to the story at hand. We walked as much as we could all around Paris over several days because, well, it isn’t Topeka KS. You can walk for an hour in Paris and see the life blood of a European city, in Top City you walk an hour you might see a few bars and lots of parking lots. It isn’t thrilling stuff. We walked down cobble stone sidewalks and occasionally streets. Sometimes streets were packed, and others we had to ourselves.

One thing about Paris streets I feel it is my duty (hehehehe duty) to mention, they have metal posts that line the curb on a lot of the streets. The intention of the posts, which are about a meter high, is to prevent cars from parking there. People will literally park their cars anywhere they can, it’s a thing. However, and I do mean HOWEVER! They are at a very aggressive height, like attack you in your soft bits if you aren’t careful type of height. I was constantly in fear of moving through a crowd, not noticing one, and then being viciously attacked by one right in the solar plexus. I get heart burn just thinking about it.

With all our soft parts intact, we museum hopped, ate croissants, checked out the sites, took as many routes to as many parts of the city as our legs would take us. We had been lucky with the weather for the most part, Frank only having the hoodie he had to purchase to keep warm when it got slightly chilly at night. One day we started out with pastries, a little later than usual thanks to the super rad Canadian Embassy Pub bartender we befriended, and headed off to explore the city in a yet undiscovered by us direction when we happened upon a park. Parc Monceau will live in our hearts forever! It is in this park we had the best waffle I have ever had in my entire life. It was made to order, crispy & crunchy yet maintained a moist cake like inside, and was covered in Nutella that melted slightly from the warmth. It melted my heart.

Part way through eating it, the light sprinkling of rain we, as Seattle-ites, were mocking turned into something pretty substantial that sent us running for cover under a tree. We didn’t want to ruin the waffle, we have priorities. So, there we are in hoodies, fingertips covered in Nutella huddled under a tree when a woman exercising in shorts and a sports bra skips by. Nothing like perspective in the moment of gluttony. We were so happy to be on the drier side of things with a dessert and here is this person also thrilled but by keeping healthy and soaked in the rain. The universe is a crazy place.

The rain subsided enough for us to continue our walk, it never even occurred to us to find the metro. It stopped altogether for around 30 mins, so we bought an umbrella just in case. Apparently, that was tempting fate and about 4 minutes after we bought that umbrella the sky erupted. I know what you are thinking, it’s just water you’ll dry off. It wasn’t just rain y’all, it started freaking hailing. Granted the hail was tiny, but ffs, that with a torrential downpour is just rude. It’s hard to look up at buildings and appreciate architecture through a wall of water. Like the champions we are, we ran to the first bar that was open. We proceeded to have a few glasses of fermented juice while the gods poured their juice on the city. That sounded stickier then I intended. Moving on!!

Once it calmed down we were back on the streets. We have water we want to see and it’s not the kind pouring from the sky, it’s the Bassin de la Violette, which is part of the canal system. Thankfully the day shaped up nicely, the sun popped out and started drying the streets and less people than usual were out and about. We strolled through the music district and as we appreciated the warming up of the day we were greeted by the sounds of a French horn from an open window. I wouldn’t say the sound drifted down to us, so much as it jumped down to the sidewalk from the window it originated from as well as bouncing off the building and windows on the opposite side of the street. It was a lovely precursor for the music shop lined streets with store fronts full of harps, pianos, violins, and wind instruments. There were even several Luthier’s, which proved that every day is a learning day. A luthier is a person that makes stringed instruments, now maybe you’ve learned something new, too.

Our fieldtrip continued finally to the canal/artificial lake and happily ends with the Paname Brewery where we have the chance to sit outside and catch the sunset while drinking a pint. Overall, not too shabby of a day. Or a second time of being in Paris. Don't worry, we didn't forget about Sacre Couer, Moulin Rouge, and a multitude of other places, we were in Paris for a week and stayed busy with the explorations.

We did a lot before we left the city and its beautiful inhabitants, both sentient and non, to their wonderful existence. My soul will always long to see you again Paris, you are why the phrase parting is such sweet sorrow will forever ring true.

One of an estimated 132 different recipes for stew.

View from the steps in front of Sacre Coeur.

There was a matching one on the side we were walking on as well. You think they would have switched it up but perhaps they wanted to avoid everyone thinking the grass is greener on the other side of the water?