Sunday, October 24, 2010

Paris Days 4-6

Okay so it is now almost midnight Paris time, tomorrow is our last day and we're leaving at 4:30 am on Tuesday.  Starting a blog entry that covers three days of an "action" packed trip (if you call slowly wandering about numerous art museums action) at this time is probably not the wisest move ever, especially as Google seems to have [unwisely] changed the image uploader to clear the cache of images every time you select an image to upload, making the process of uploading (and annotating) pictures from three days a major pain and a time-consuming process.  So I'm not particularly optimistic about finishing this blog post in one go...but you'd never know that because you won't realize that I started writing this just before midnight Paris time if I don't post it until tomorrow morning.  So here I am having cross-time conversations with a reader which may or may not be effective and it's impossible to extract oneself from such a situation gracefully.  So now I could just delete the above little bit but then what's the point of my typing this out?  Ugh.  I think I need a new venue for pictures...or I could just shut up and show pictures without text.  Also, I'm going to try interspersing smaller versions of pictures that, while not particularly awesome in any way, serve to illustrate what I'm talking about.

Moving on.  Day 4 of the trip we caught a train to Giverny, the area where Monet lived and painted a lot of his works.  We rented some bicycles to make the four kilometre journey to Monet's house and garden.  The only problem (for me especially) was that the bicycles were not mountain bikes, which I'm used to using, and thus their top gear was still extremely slow and made my little job of racing ahead from being with Patrick and my mom to Uncle Glenn and Jordan and Abigail and back again to deliver messages a real chore.  With all my scurrying back and forth I probably rode double the distance.  Add to that the problems of my bike having a bashed up basket in front that kept swinging down to the side, the brakes being practically useless, and the handlebars so loose I could never be sure that turning them would turn the wheel, and you have a very interesting bike ride.  The ride was very nice, however, despite the cold and awful bike; the scenery was just amazing. 

Japanese Bridge Monet 1899

  We got to Monet's house and garden and took a tour of it.  I must say; I'm really thankful my uncle is here now and I'm not the only one taking forever with pictures...especially with having to switch macro filters every few shots.  Anyways, in the garden we got to see the famous waterlily pond and the bridge that Monet painted.  It was pretty cool to first see the paintings in the museums during the days before and then see the subject in real life after.  I spent a good fifteen minutes waiting for the bridge to be devoid of humans to take a picture of it without people.  The best part?  Just as it emptied and I was about to get the shot I had been so patiently waiting for who should walk onto the bridge but my uncle and sister who had given up on waiting about a minute prior.  Oh so frustrating.  I did finally get a shot that has the bridge pretty empty...I only have half the bridge in the shot; the other half being covered by trees.
Japanese Bridge Me 2010
  Monet's house itself was next.  Only one word: WOW!  The place was HUGE!  We only were able to see half of it legally but even so it was massive.  What was cool was in one room they had a picture of Monet standing in the room...you could see that all the furniture was basically the same.  So awesome.

The Inverted Pyramid
Day 5 we visited the Louvre.  This was not a very picture intensive day; only 25 shots.  This is partly because A) taking pictures of artwork in a museum never works B) once again there was an unlisted ban of tripods (leading to an interesting series of events with security, the bag deposit, and getting lost) and C) does anyone else feel awkward taking pictures of artwork depicting nudes?  The Louvre itself was pretty awesome, though.  The building is massive, and then the glass pyramids built in the front courtyard relatively recently look cool as well.  Interesting fact: the architect who designed these glass pyramids was a firm believer in balance and yin/yang, so there is actually an inverted pyramid as well which is in the centre of mall area underneath the Louvre.  Fun fact: the points of the inverted pyramid and the little one underneath don't perfectly line up.  They're off by a centimetre or so.  Yeah only dorks like me notice stuff like that. :-P
  The artwork: fantastic.  By now I'm starting to be a little sick of paintings and art but even so I could appreciate the incredible artwork I was seeing.  We also got to see the original Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci.  Coolness.  What's interesting is the reason it is actually famous; it's not so much the painting itself, but it got a lot of publicity when it was stolen back in the early 1900s.  Apparently, the only person who noticed that it was missing at the time was an artist who was copying the artwork.  Just think: if some idiot hadn't stolen the painting, it's only claim to fame would be that it is one of twelve paintings by Leonardo Da Vinci.

Umm...what?
Day 6.  Today.  Well, yesterday now...it's 1 am now.  We went to Versaille.  Like the Louvre, it was all artwork, but at least this time most of it was the building itself.  Unfortunately, there was a Japanese modern art exhibition going on so a lot of the rooms had these ugly statues in them that makes one wonder "Why the bloody heck was this ever even considered to be allowed in here??"  Half the statues looked like something from Salvador Dali's worst nightmare while the other half was tacky as ---- and probably stuff Gaudi would regard with disgust.  I originally wasn't going to take any pictures of them but halfway through decided to get just one to show you guys just how bad it was.  So I didn't get any of the "Dali's worst nightmare" ones.  For those just imagine a little midget thing with legs, arms, a head, three eyes (all looking in different directions), a slightly evil smile that looks like a D, and fangs.  Oh and are also completely random in colour.  Or imagine something that looks like a rainbow threw up on it, has more arms than that Hindu goddess (whose name escapes me right now), and looks like a fungus sitting on a toadstool.  And also looks like it will kill you while you sleep (okay I should stop I'm scaring myself with the memory of it now).
  Back to the actual artwork of Versaille.  First there was a seventy minute wait in line in freezing cold weather, then it was the security line (where once again I had to leave behind my tripod...at least it was actually announced before hand...also, is it just me or are security guards very condascending in their manner?), and then into Versaille.  Finally.  The paintings, murals, statues, rooms, etc. were all just amazing.  I couldn't imagine living in a place like that; I'd be afraid to breathe for fear of breaking something.  And imagine going to sleep in a room with about a hundred people painted on the ceiling.  No thanks.  I did get some pictures inside, though they're not really that great.  Poor lighting (but better than the Louvre), lots of people, and no tripod aren't good combination.  And again, a lot of the images were a wee bit awkward to take pictures of.
  After going through all of Versaille that we were allowed to see, we went out of Versaille and through the garden to get to [name of place that I'll edit in tomorrow, hopefully].  Now here's a clever moneymaking strategy/royal nuisance; Versaille and [name of place that I'll edit inmorrow, hopefully] have free admission for those under 18.  The garden, however, does not.  So we had to pay to get through the garden to get to [noptieit,h].  I can't decide if that's sheer brilliance or pure retardedness.  Also taking up a prominent place in the garden was this gigantic gold-coloured piece of Japanese junk I mean art.  It looked like a thistle had become alive and was contemplating something...probably how to best kill you in your sleep (the question is again, WHY???).  The place we were going to was Marie Antoinette's "farmhouse" where she and her children could "live like farmers".  Well.  All I can say is that I'd have been right up there with the revolitionaries.  The "farmhouse" was a lavish three-story house with golden embelishments on the walls, marble floors, and tons of expensive art and furniture.  Honestly?  Just wow.  These French aristocrats really were pigs.
  Finally, we came back home and after dinner my uncle and I went out to get pictures of the Eiffel Tower at night.  Even though it was freezing outside and we constantly had to switch the tripod attachment from camera to camera (which became increasingly painful as our hands got number) it was a lotn to just be out there taking pictures of the Eiffel Tower all lit up.  We each got some great shots from it. :D  I only wish that it was summer and we each had our own tripod. ;-)


Monet's Garden:









The Louvre:




Jordan, Abigail, and my uncle goofing around at Versailles.





I'm intentionally in this shot...








And, of course, the Eiffel Tower:







This shot I thought was going to be ruined when the bus drove through it...turns out I actually like it.


There is still one more day's worth of pictures to upload...after all this...

Friday, October 22, 2010

Paris Day 3

Day three.  Today we were supposed to go to Versaille (I think) but we ended up being cruely beaten by jet lag again.  So instead we took the subway to L'Arc de Triomph and and walked down to Les Champs-Élysées along the avenue there.  Oh, and did I mention it was freezing cold the whole time?  It was fun anyways. :)

L'Arc de Triomph is a spectacular building, standing 160 feet tall.  It has four large sculptures, two on the front and two on the back, and the top has a ring of high relief sculptures.  Under the arch there is a tomb of an unknown soldier with a fire burning above it.  That fire has been burning since 1920.  My brother and I were very tempted to try to put it out, being the idiots we are.  :-P  There is also an observation deck at the very top, after a stairway consisting of 284 steps.  Most of these were on the large spiral staircase in one of the legs of the arch.  The top provided a spectacular view of Paris; I wish I could go their at night when everything is lit up.  Sadly, there is a ban on tripods at the top of the arch, so that wouldn't be much photography-wise.

We walked down the avenue towards la Place de la Concord.  In the square there was an obelisk standing some twenty-six metres tall. It was the obelisk of Luxor, donated to France in 1830.  There were many other buildings in the area as well, all famous for something; i.e. from one the Crown Jewels had been stolen.  In la Place de la Concord we got lunch, consisting of hotdogs with ketchup and VERY strong mustard, and then crepes.  Crepes are awesome.  Period.

Pictures. Mostly of L'Arc de Triomphe.











Thursday, October 21, 2010

Paris Day 2

Yeah...I didn't get this post up last night as I intended.  I school to do and was busy being distracted by other things.  Anyways.  Moving on.

After a typically late start to the day (jet lag is SO annoying when on a vacation) we went down to the dock and got onto a "hop on/hop off" boat tour.  Normally a city will have tourist buses like that; you buy a ticket and can get on or off this bus at any stop in the city.  Same idea here, just on a boat.  We naturally started at the Eiffel Tower stop, as that's right where we live and took it down to Notre Dame.  No, it's not pronounced Noater Daim.  Nuttre Dam is an anglified pronounciation of it for you...roll the "r".  Moving on.  Notre Dame was amazing.  Just wow.

One of the things about traveling and seeing historic places like Notre Dame is that often there are regulations regarding cameras; in some places, particularly museums, there is a flat out ban.  Other places you can't use flash.  Sometimes they specify that tripods cannot be used.  Etc.  Naturally I very carefully keep an eye out for signs such as these, and was very surprised and happy to see that no such restrictions existed in Notre Dame.  As is probably obvious, in a dimly lit place like Notre Dame (I hope you're pronouncing it right now) a tripd is necessary to have good pictures as the flash will be useless.  I was happily snapping away, moving along the designated pathway, and so on, past several workers there (all of whom saw my tripod and said nothing), when another worker came past me and told me to pack it up....and proceeded to leave without any explanation.  Frustrating.  Not a single sign saying they couldn't be used and yet they expect people to know not to use them.  So for the rest of the building i only got one or two decent shots, and those were of stained glass where you can have a shutter speed of 125 and up since you're shooting directly into the light.

Continuing on, we got back on the boat and went to Le Musea d'Orsay (I probably spelled "Musea" wrong...) with the intention to see some paintings by Monet.  What's interesting about this museum is that the building that houses it was originally a train station.  No, it's no a train museum; it's an art museum.  As Murphy's Law states, the one exhibit we had come with the express intent to see was the one exhibit being renovated.  While it wasn't a complete waste of time to go there, it was rather frustrating that the reason we went wasn't there.  Apparently, however, the paintings had been moved to another exhibit in another museum nearby, in the Petit Palais.  We went there, and after waiting for a good half an hour/forty-five minutes in the freezing cold (the high that day was about 45 F...this is now in the evening so approaching freezing) we finally got in.  Our wait was rewarded as the exhibition here was a special Monet exhibit with paintings from galleries all over the world.  Monet did a lot of "light studies"; painting the same scene at different times of the day to see how much the light changes things.  So here in the gallery there were all these scenes side by side so we could compare them easily, but they were coming from different galleries, so at no other time would these paintings be able to be viewed side by side.  Pretty cool stuff.  Needless to say, neither art gallery allowed photography of any kind, so my pictures yesterday were somewhat limited.





I did get some shots of the interior with the tripod before being told to stop using it.  Lucky you guys. :)