Dali, Sacre Coeur, food... always food.

Today I went to the Espace Dali in the Musee de Montmartre. The exhibit was a collection of works by Dali dedicated to his best bud/secretary Enrique Sabater. Pretty awesome exhibit. I think the best way to understand how awesome it was is to see it ... so... PICTURES!

I don't know if you can tell from the little photos of these but a LOT of his paintings and stuff in this exhibit were done on the back of something cardboard. The ink drawing it looks kinda like there is reflection in the glass or something, but thats the back of the cardboard with some embossment on it.

Flipped right out over both of these guys. The clock... well anyone who knows dali knows about the clocks so... but the sculpture is based off Alice in Wonderland. If you know me at all, you have probably heard me at least mention my obsession with Louis Carroll. So, to have two of my idols come together into one beautiful sculpture -- epic.

Clocks, crutches, drawers, the dali elephant -- so many Dali things! Gasps abound!

There were loads and loads and loads of dedications in books to Sabater. His signature took on all sorts of forms, sometimes he just drew something epic. Always more than just a signature. AMAZING!

Piano legs! Eggs, ants, clocks, severed ladies -- DALI THINGS! AH!

This giant thing was super cool. I don't quite remember the story behind it, but it was a reproduction of some sort of cathedral that got moved to this museum (which is a basement, by the way.) Watch the video!

Christ St. John of the Cross! STOKED! I did a reproduction of the famous painting of this symbol in an art class -- where I fell in love with Dali. The little contraption over here is honestly pretty hard to explain. There was a little blurb underneath it. It's a contraption to dunk a sugar cube into a shot glass but it's got all sort of other stuff going on. It's hilarious. 

More Alice! And this famous sculpture. The baguette was once-upon-a-time a real one, but people kept stealing it (when it was first created).

Snails and clocks and OF COURSE that moustache. Me and Dali are bff's.

The lips sofa that got him some serious media cred. The little card on it says not to sit on it Seriously... people sat of the couch that was on a meter high platform with no ledge for your feet? Common sense!

More cool sculptures. Giraffe neck + drawer + crutch. Juxtaposition too!

OMG AAAAAAH! Freaked right on out. Sexy lobster phone being all aphrodisiac-y by your mouth. 

One of my favorite things there. He made this really elaborate series' of models and drawings and stuff of the design ideas he had for the home he was going to make his friend. That whale is a toilet, the eyeball a sink, that AMAZING book case, the cutlery... there was also a design of a bidet which was a clam shell.

I wish this photo was better. This was one of my favorite parts of the exhibit. There were all these photos involving his moustache and then the interview questions along with them. This questions was one of my favorites. I hope you can make out the picture! Below is the question a little clearer. 

 

Ants all over the stairs leading out. Aw...

ICE CREAM! Tiramisu ice cream actually. I breathed in over it and choked on the cocoa, as I seem to do a lot with tiramisu-related desserts.

Coolest musician ever. I gave him 2 whole euro, which is a lot for a poor girl in Paris. Pus, everyone else was giving like... 20 cents.

The instrument is called a hang I think, that's what the musician told me at least (I think... conflicting languages have very confusing 'conversations') Listen below to what it sounded like!

I will never tire of panoramic views.

I don't know if this guy was a busker or not but he was juggling like a mad man on this little platform, and it looked super cool with the backdrop of the basilica. 

This guy most certainly WAS a busker. He was not good. He was very nervous, and this is moments before he burnt himself with his heavily tangled fire poi. I think maybe he was trying it out for the first time. 

Ahhhh views...

Ok, so we got some LEGIT New York cheese cake here. SEE? NO crust! Why can't any restaurants in Canada get this right? Wonderful. I meant to photograph my epic 15 euro hamburger as well, but I was too busy eating it. I tried to do it with a knife and fork like the Parisians.... tooooo much work. Especially when the burger is half a foot high. Notably, the ground beef was a lot better than a lot of burgers I've had. Which is ironic, cause I'm from Alberta. It was more the ground consistency of beef tartar, not soooo ground up it was basically mush like a lot of ground beef I've seen. Maybe that's because I would never have bought a 20 dollar hamburger in Canada... holy crap that hamburger was expensive! It came with fries!!!

The tower montparnasse from my window. I finally caught it doing it's rainbow-brite light show on film tonight! Why does this happen? People already hate this tower enough as it is, and they added a cheesy technicolor light show! Well... I like it! This balloon is my favorite thing ever. I will keep posting pictures of it. Notice how there is basically a BUS hanging from it? Can you see that? Take my word for it.

Paper memories of the day! Including my 'quittance', which is basically my receipt for paying rent. I forgot to ask for one before, so it's a good thing my landlord is a wonderful human being and gave me one now. I paid in cash... it would be hard to prove that payment happened without this little guy!

Fun little addition -- I bought these shoes. They were 6 euro at Tati -- super discount store with crappy stuff for really cheap. They were supposed to be like 20 euro I think but then she had to do a price check since mine didn't have a tag and they came back with that price. I did not argue. Even if I wanted to, I wouldn't know how to say it in French! WOO!

Well, that's my day in photographs! Tomorrow I think Kendra and I are heading to the George Pompidou centre -- excited! There is a Matisse exhibition there right now. I love that this stuff is EVERYWHERE in this city! Also, that it's super cheap for me because I'm young and live here. WEE!

Tourist times

Wow. So on Thursday night Bradon came in around 11 pm and for the next two days we did crazy amounts of touristy things. Such as ...

We checked out the Trocadero Gardens (and the view of the Tower from there)

The Louvre was practically empty when we went for FREE on the Friday night (Under 26's get in for free Friday 6-9:30 pm). Which meant...

... no competition to see the Mona Lisa. 

So... I bawled my eyes out and had a minor heart attack when I saw her. Oh man... what a lifetime of anticipation can do to your emotions!

I was also pretty stoked on seeing this here painting (Gericault's The Raft of the Medusa). I only knew to recognise it because of a french para-surrealist play I wrote my final Theatre History research paper on. HAH, THE PLAY WAS RELEVANT, 'TEACHER'. Ehem. Notably, the research on this play was a huge push for me to want to come to France. Ah inspiration. (Play = En Garrrde by Rene Daumal) 

We spent a good couple hours wandering the Louvre and then we both got hungry and sore so we made out way back to the tower where we knew there would be 1) pretty sights and 2) fast food.

We happened to walk up to the tower just as the light show began = magic. Then we grabbed a crepe to share and metro'd home.


The next day we set out a plan to tackle some more monuments and stuff. We started off with the Jardin Du Luxembourg, which took us a surprisingly long time to find!

It started off a pretty gorgeous day, and the garden was also pretty quiet despite it being lunch-time on a Saturday. We grabbed Crepes near by at a little hole-in-the-wall place. The crepes were half the price of the ones by the Tower, and way better. The guy could tell we weren't french just by the way we were standing cause he was like, "You speak english, yea? Come here." I still tried to order in French, despite mispronouncing jambon in every possible way.

We made our way to the Pantheon, realising that we had walked directly in front of it on our search for the garden before (literally... in front of it) without even noticing. It's a pretty mammoth structure to miss!

Inside were crypts of people like Voltaire, Victor Hugo and select revolutionaries, and Bradon and I got in for free cause we were young and the ticket guy was super cool (and apparently likes Alberta).

... Foucault's Pendulum. In a nutshell, the pendulum swings in the same way constantly because of some kind of trigonometry genius-ness and it tells time because the earth/clock beneath (NOT the pendulum) is rotating some 15 degrees an hour. Pretty freakin' cool way to demonstrate that the earth is on an axis. 

So, mind's sufficiently blown, we made our way to the island where Notre Dame is. The bridge we ended up crossing had ribbons locks with lovers' names on them all over it. It was a super cool little surprise to stumble upon. Apparently (according to Bradon) they have bridges like this in other parts of Europe. I'm excited to see more! So cute!

So we walk up to the Notre Came Cathedral and gawk for a bit before heading around the side to a line-up we assume is to see the inside of the cathedral.

The weather was getting a bit chilly by then, and the lineup wasn't the fastest, so Bradon grabbed some hot wine. Which, by the way, is AMAZING. The lineup felt like it started moving a lot faster as soon as we had a hot beverage, so we had to down the wine so we wouldn't have to throw it out before heading in. Turns out, as we get to the front of the line, that the lineup is for the TOWERS not the cathedral! We got in for cheap because we are considered youths, and climbed the 400-something steps to the pretty incredible panoramic views up top.

My head takes up too much of this photo, but you get the idea. 

After the tour of the towers we made it into the cathedral in under five minutes and that was pretty epic too. The stained glass windows were amazing, but we weren't about to take flash photos so... no photos! Sorry! One of the cool things was there were these 'confession booths' that were almost like offices with glass walls. There were confession places for different languages with waiting rooms! Really intense, and strangely modern for inside such an old building. 

After we went on down for a really quick look at Montmartre (it was getting super chilly and drizzly by now). We basically ran around avoiding everyone cause we were afraid of dying (Even though, I guess it is quite safe. But coming from boring Calgary to a district with people yelling in an unfamiliar language and sex shops everywhere as it's getting late and dark = scary!). We (Bradon) snapped these photos despite our rush. 

Sacre Coeur! It was cloudy so the view wasn't so great, but the basilica was beautiful! We left pretty quick because there were soooo many people trying to sell stuff.

The Moulin Rouge! Serious Baz Luhrmann moment. Ah...

We giggled while walking down this street. We are children.

We then hopped into the nearest metro station and made our way back to the Arc de Triomphe (again just checking it out from afar) and hopped a bus back home. 

We dropped by the boulangerie across the street from me to grab a baguette. The first thing I say is, "Bonjour Madam!" Which would have been great, had it been daytime. She poked her head up from the counter and said, "Bonsoir Mademoiselle?" I giggled like a moron and said, "Oui! Bonsoir!" Then she said something in french and I panicked. I basically made a complete ass of myself during this exchange, making her repeat, slower, etc. for a good minute or two. Finally I asked for a baguette and then she asked me which one I would like, we grabbed it, paid, and practically booked it out. My first bite of bread in six years was pretty magical, and I didn't get sick! I can't make a habit of it, but oh man, gluten is good. 

And so concluded our crash course in touristy-ness! Within those days, we also managed to do a trip to the local Carrefour which feels like a Costco cause it's so huge and cheap. It took us forever to find it cause I was determined to just keep walking until we found it (I didn't bring the map...). We managed to walk by the botanical gardens and the major Tennis stadium/museum where the French Open takes place. Neat! (Fun fact: Earlier in that day we went to grab an air mattress and we went to a sporting goods store located in Aquaboulevard which is a massive wave pool/fitness centre a la West Edmonton Mall. So random.) So in Carrefour I finally got a pay-as-you-go cellphone (HURRAY!) with Bradon's help. It was only like 30 Euro so I hope I filled out the (french) registration card correctly. After 15 days if they don't receive the little form they cancel your phone, so it's kind of crucial. I also got a little iron (10 Euro!) and an umbrella -- both of which seem to be pretty crucial to Parisien life! Today I dropped in there again and bought a hair straightener, which is pretty crucial to my life. 

Sunday Bradon had to catch a train at the Gard du Nord so we made our way down via Metro and JUST missed his train (literally saw it pull away as we figured out the right gate). Panic ensues, and then a lady exchanges Bradon's ticket for one an hour later without charge! So nice! So we hung out around the train station for a while, basically dodging people asking for 'just a signature' (*cough* addressdonationphonenumber *cough*). Bradon caught his new train, and I headed home, alone boo. 

I did some ironing for the first time. I admit I was tentative, so the stuff that actually needed ironing still needs ironing. The t-shirt I 'practiced' on, now needs to be ironed because I creased it. Merde. 

I then met up with a friend-of-a-friend (now, just a friend) named Laurence in Montmartre. I was excited to see Montmartre in daylight, and on a Sunday ... No one would kill you on a Sunday, right? Montmartre was super charming in daylight and Laurence gave me a mini tour, showing me the cafe that Amelie worked at in the movie, and the windmills. I didn't bring my camera, but even if I had, I was enjoying my company too much to whip it out and go all 'tourist' on her. 

Laurence then took me into my first cafe! AH! I couldn't keep up with all the french going on and then Laurence and the waiter were both looking at me. I looked at Laurence. She said, "Go ahead". I looked at the waiter, he said something in french. I looked back at Laurence, she said, "Order whatever you want". I panicked because I couldn't just point at something on the absent menu and smile, so I frantically mumbled (yes, you can frantically mumble) "Un Cafe Creme, s'il vout plai" (which, for all I know, could be the wrong way to say that), nearly saying "Por Favor", which would have been AWFUL. The coffee came and it was amazing. It came with cute little paper-wrapped sugar cubes, which I didn't use (but I should have kept... dammit) because they were too cute. After the cafe stop, we walked around a little more and parted ways. 

I got super lost somehow on the way home, but it was easy to get back on track once I figured out where I was. Do not blindly get on a subway because the station happens to have the train you want! I was too excited about my cafe experience to notice before I'd gone a good 8 stops in the wrong direction. I ended up at the end of the line on another train, waiting at the deserted station awkwardly for a few minutes, before I realised the train I wanted to be on was the one I'd just gotten off of (as it headed back where it came from). Super annoying, but it's not like I had somewhere I had to be right away! I walked home from the station in the random down-pour of rain that lasted only five minutes before returning to the drizzle (how very... Calgary!). I made crepes, ate half a jar of Nutella and skyped all night with the family. Very nice! 

Today, I did laundry for the first time, which is now hanging in my window. My window was open, but today is exceptionally chilly and windy, so I had to close it and opt to hang my wash... inside. I have underwear in my kitchen. I would post a picture, but it's my underwear. I have some dignity, despite having to dodge my panties while cooking dinner tonight. 

Today, being so miserable, I am just bumming around home writing and drinking wine. It is pretty awesome. I did that little bit of shopping, but the shelves at the grocery store were eerily empty. It must be a Monday thing, I guess we will see if that stays consistent! I did manage to get a huge chunk of blue cheese for only 2 Euro. I am super super stoked on that, considering how much it would have cost in Calgary. I bought carrots and cheese... dinner will have to be inventive. 

That's all for now! Au revoir!