Saturday, August 30, 2008

The Aftermath

Well. I'm glad my last post from Europe was articulate, eloquent and insightful. Really, really nice, if I do say so myself.

The backstory on that is that at around 3 am I came across some little internet stations in the course of my wanderings. I was gleeful until I saw that they cost 21 EURO AN HOUR. Yeah, Germans, go figure. Anyway, I had a few 1 euro coins leftover so I deposited one just to see how much time it would get me. Turns out about a minute and a half. So, in my haste to update, trivial concerns such as punctuation, spelling and coherence had to be sacrificed. Hence, "gpooing."

We're not exactly sure how, but we survived our wild night in the Frankfurt airport (which included, at one point, me falling asleep standing up). Now we're back, both with colds. I've uploaded all pictures and created a few photo albums on Facebook, which non Facebook users can check out by following these links:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2045034&l=b5c6c&id=32402591
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2045035&l=a5937&id=32402591
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2045044&l=05836&id=32402591
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2045070&l=cb515&id=32402591
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2045071&l=7f6cd&id=32402591

The coming weeks might see posts on fighting through the jet lag and plane cough while shilling uniforms during the height of back-to-school season, but for now I am just too sleepy!

Sunday, August 24, 2008

we are in the frankfurt airport gpooing crazy!!

Last post from Paris #...3? 4?

It's pouring down rain here in Paris, which we're taking as a sign that summer is ending and it's time to go home. We're going to eat a couple croque madames, drink some coffee and then head over to the train station for our train to Frankfurt. Our flight tomorrow morning is at 9:45, so we've got a long night of card games and taking turns sleeping in the Frankfurt airport ahead of us. I think we're both sad to leave such a beautiful, exciting city, but the golden retriever we saw today reminded us that home will be lovely too.

Stay tuned to NO PANTS for pictures of the trip!

Also, leave it to me to put off mailing postcards until the last day I'm here, which is Sunday, which is when all the post offices are closed. Thus, all postcards will be sent from Portland. Sorry!

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Quick post from Firenze

Due to some unfortunate train circumstances, we have to leave Firenze tonight, which we're both quite sad about--if our 36ish hours in this city have shown us anything, it's that there is much, much more to see and do here than we thought. Our hostel is a block away from the Duomo, and we can walk just about everywhere in 10 minutes. We spent last night chatting up our charming Italian waiter, drinking Coronas and strolling on Ponte Vecchio. This morning we went to the Uffizi Gallery where we had to wait in line for about 3 hours. Not worth it you say? Au contraire. We met a lovely couple from Dubai while waiting and got to see some extremely rad art on the inside, including several Giottos, Botticellis, Da Vincis and more. In the last few hours before our train leaves we might try to find a park Mom remembers from her visit here about 30 years ago...

Next stop: PARIS AGAIN!

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

This post co-written by the one, the only....

...DIANE SEMET!

Greetings from Firenze all you little goobies! Mia mamma is sitting here with me in a very dingy little internet cafe that, gloriously, only charges 1,50 € per hour. We arrived after a wonderful, incredibly relaxing stay with our family in Zurich who pampered us beyond belief--we ate fantastically well, had hot showers and were escorted about the charming Swiss countryside. Annie, Lizzie and I got into Zurich on Friday night after two nights in a fun but not so comfortable hostel, and, needless to say, the hospitality my second cousin Patrick and his wife Ana showed us was very, very welcome. After allowing us to take 30-minute showers they fed us a veritable feast of a breakfast and showed us around Zurich until we met my mom at the train station that afternoon. We all went for a huge dinner up on a hill overlooking the city and lake of Zurich and then I had to part ways with my travel buddies of the last couple weeks, as they were taking an overnight train to Berlin. The next day we toured the little town of Lucerne, ate more rich Swiss food and had several cups of very strong coffee, which made us never want to go back to the Starbucks, ever. The next day my great uncle, Albert and my great aunt, Hanni drove us through the mountains to Lugano, which was a drop-dead GORGEOUS drive, complete with chalets and cows making that cheese we all know and love. We had to say good-bye in Lugano, which was sad after such a lovely visit, but we had the train ride to Firenze to look forward to in the morning, which went smoothly.

We had some trouble at the Firenze train station getting our ticket to Paris--both of us were near psyhcological collapse, but after some deep healing breaths in the shadow of a beautiful cathedral (not quite sure which one, but hey, it was pretty and served its purpose), we reentered the train station and got our shiz taken care of, which, I think, is pretty much the definition of NO PANTS. So now we're going to find some pizza and gelato and a stiff drink and make our plans for tomorrow. Perhaps one more update from Italy tomorrow to let you all know how the David was and then we head out for the last leg of our fantastic voyage!

Friday, August 15, 2008

ACTUAL last post from Paris

We spent the last two nights in a hostel to save ourselves some ca$h money and it was an amazing, amazing decision, despite the fact that there's no curtain on our shower. First of all it's about 30 € a night less. Also it's everything you'd ever expect an international backpacking experience to be and more. Instead of going out to expensive bars with the same American kids from our class every night, we spent the last two nights sitting on the hostel terrace talking to kids from all over the world into the wee hours. Everyone goes to the supermarché around the corner, gets about 5 € worth of food, brings it to the terrace and eats and shoots shit. Last night there were about 10 or 11 of us there and about 8 different countries were represented. It's humbling to talk to people my age who speak 3 or 4 languages fluently, but everyone is ultimately just really curious and friendly.

Our train leaves for Zurich tonight at 6ish. We bought groceries for the whole day this morning, so our plan for our last few hours in Paris is just to lounge around in the sun eating cheese and Nutella (aka Divine Food of the Gods) and finishing off the bottle of wine we bought last night. It's been lovely, uplifting trip and I'd stay here for years and years if I could.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Change of plans

No more Nice. Paris for a few more days. The free apartment we thought we were going to have in Nice fell through so we decided to stay here until Friday when we head over to Zurich. Which actually works out great because I got all of my "Things I Need to Do Before I Leave Paris" stuff out of the way yesterday so now I have a few days to just let things happen to me which strikes me as a better way to enjoy Paris.

I indeed went to the Orsay one last time yesterday and indeed went to the top of the Eiffel Tower and indeed had an amazing dinner of moules Paysanne (mussels with mushrooms, bacon and creme fraiche). The Van Goghs and the Manets were just as stunning as the first time I went to the Orsay and the Eiffel Tower entirely deserves to be as famous and iconinc as it is. I wish I could post pictures from this computer because that's really the only way to show how staggering the view is. I almost didn't go because people were saying that it was going to be ridiculously expensive, but it wasn't--as long as you can walk up the first two levels it only costs about 8 euro which is less than most museums, so don't ever, ever skip a trip to the Eiffel Tower because of what you heard. The lines are worth it. C'est vaut le voyage (it's worth the trip), as a dude on the metro told me last week.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Au revoir à Paris

It's my last full day in Paris and I don't want to leave, ever. I was whining about this to the falafel man who we've all befriended over the past two weeks and he said I could work at his falafel shop if I wanted. It is so very, very tempting...

I'm spending my last days here at my favorite places, the Musée d'Orsay, which I already gushed over, and the Shakespeare and Company bookstore, which is modeled on the original bookstore that first published Ulysses in the '20s and was the favorite spot for all the Beats in the '60s. They have beds and comfy chairs and a piano there and yesterday I spent about 3 hours reading a volume of James Joyce's letters while someone played the Moonlight Sonata. It was pretty idyllic.

So today I'm going back to the Orsay one last time to see the Van Goghs and wish I lived in Paris where I could see them any time I wanted. Then the few of us who are still around are going up the Eiffel Tower and splurging on an amazing Paris dinner before we all part ways--most are either going home or staying in Paris a little bit longer but Annie and I are heading to Nice tomorrow for a couple days and then to Zurich and points beyond. I'm incredibly excited for the rest of the trip but I'm pretty sure I'll always compare everywhere to Paris and find that it never quite lives up.

Saturday, August 9, 2008

Sorry sorry sorry

So, since I woke up to a text from my dad that said, "MOM IS FREAKING OUT ARE YOU ALIVE" I figured today might be a good day to update. The problem is I have no idea where to start...

Last post I believe I promised some prose about the Monet gardens? Yes? Well, like everything else in Paris and surrounding areas, they're fantastic and beautiful and full of tourists. We woke up early and took an hour long train ride to Giverny where Monet built himself his little lily pad oasis and painted some of his most famous masterpieces (which, of course, we got to see the next day--more on that later). My first thought on entering the gardens and seeing the house was "Mom would go ape shit over this." Those who know my mom probably have a pretty accurate mental image of Giverny going, but for those who aren't aware of the extent of Diane Semet's obsession with flowers, here's the best I can do: FLOWERS EVERYWHERE. You can immediately see the appeal for an Impressionist painter--the colors are overwhelming, and it changes every second as the clouds move around the sun. The ponds are fascinating too, especially when you've seen some of Monet's Nymphéas murals because you realize that those paintings are more about what's reflected on the surface of the water more than anything else. Of course there are a shitload of tourists who crowd the famous Japanese bridge taking pictures (there was a camera case floating in one of the ponds), but you don't have to work too hard to imagine Monet there and to get a deeper understanding of his artwork. The next day we went to the Orangerie where the Nymphéas murals--the 22 HUGE panels Monet painted of the lily ponds at Giverny--are kept. It's about five minutes from the Louvre and, for my money, I'd pick the Orangerie over the Louvre any day. For one thing, there are way fewer tourists snapping pictures of all the paintings instead of looking at them. In addition to the Nymphéas, which were mind-blowing, we saw some of the best post-Impressionist artists' works there--Cezanne, Picasso, Matisse to give a few familiar names and Soutine and Derain to name a couple I had never heard of before.

My internet time is running down so I think I'll end this post the same way I ended the last one, with juicy tidbits of things I may or may not write about the next time I scrape together 4 euro for an hour of internet: the Catacombs, the Picasso museum, the Pompidou and a pigeon pooping on me in the Luxembourg gardens. Intriguing, no??

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Okay. So.

Get ready for an extremely short, typo riddled, woefully inadequate first blog post from Paris! I have 30 minutes left on this 'puter which I can't really afford in the first place, the European keyboard is QUITE challenging, and I'm pretty much sweating through my shirt. All of these factors, however, have silver linings: I successfully navigated the process of purchasing internet time entirely en Français, the crazy keyboard has a çirconflex on it, and I purchased the shirt in question at a superrad flea market.

Which leads me to my next point:

PARIS IS THE BEST CITY IN THE WORLD.

I rolled in on a train from Frankfurt a little over a week ago and in that time I've crossed more items off of my "Things to Do Before I Die" list than I have in my entire life up to this point. Here are a few highlights, which is kind of silly to say seeing as how EVERYTHING HERE IS COOL:

La Musée d'Orsay
This is where I saw the bulk of the art that I've been going crazy over since I was a little kid. Every painting is a million times more beautiful in person than it is in books or prints. I remember my mom telling me once that when you see a Van Gogh in person the colors vibrate--I can't think of a more accurate description for those and so many others that I saw there. I've been twice so far and I'll definitely go back as often as possible.

The Paris metro:
Maybe it's silly to say that this is one of my favorite things here, but I LOVE IT. I've never used a subway system before, and I love being able to zip wherever at the drop of a hat. Without going into too much detail, Paris is organized into sections called arrondisements--there are 22 of them, and the numbers get higher as you move farther away from the center of the city. To give a sense of the radness of the metro, yesterday we travelled from the 5th, where our hotel is, to the 18th in about 10 minutes for about 1 euro. SEATTLE NEEDS THIS SO BAD.

La Musée Maillol
This was one of those things I fell in love with unexpectedly. Artistide Maillol was a sculptor I had heard zero about before coming to Paris and who is now very, very high on my list of kickass artists. Look him up and then come to Paris where you can see all of his best works in one museum.

ARRRGH this is so not even close to a complete list of all the things I love about this city and all the things I've done so far, but time is running out and, quite frankly, I'd rather spend my euros on museums and beer! Will try and post pictures soon. A tentative previewof next post: Monet gardens, James Joyce and the Eiffel Tower. A bientot!