Day 2

Saturday, June 7th, 1997

Security is very tight in Paris

Hotel de l'AVRE

My joyful trip in Europe really got started today. The train arrived at Paris East Station early in the morning. The security was so tight in Paris that all the lockers and storage station were closed in fear of somebody planting a bomb in the locker. So I had to go find theHotel de l'AVRE from which I had reserved a room for two days (a requirement to get a visa to Europe since I stupidly mentioned that I would also visit France in my visa application to German Consulate). Unlike what I heard, people in Paris were quite friendly to help me find the hotel in an abscure conner near Eiffel Tower, even though I could only speak English (but you better learn a few French before you go). 


I quickly unloaded my luggage and jumped on the subway to the Arc de Triomphe.  The Arc is located in a square where 12 avenues including the famous Champs-Elysees, converge.   The Arc was much bigger than I imagined -- only "huge" can describe it.  I climbed up to a small museum inside the top of the Arc.  Basically the museum was about all the wars the French had fought, including the most recent one-Algeria independence war.  I bought a tourist picture book about Paris written in Chinese so that my parents could read it too when I went home after the trip in Europe that summer.








Arc de Triomphe 





Walking up a few stairs at the other side of the museum I was on top of the Arc.  A thunderstorm was developing over the city.    I barely had enough time to take a few picture of the views on top of the arc before the rain began to pour down.  I got back to the subway  and took the train to Luvre.    After waiting in the subway station under Luvre for half hour the storm finally ceased and the clear blue sky and beautiful white clouds made it a perfect weather for taking the pictures of the statues outside Luvre.









Luvre






Luvre, a medieval fortress, the palace of the kings of France, and a museum for the last two centuries. The architecture of the Louvre Palace bears witness to more than 800 years of history.  At the center of the square of the Luvre was the controversial grass pyramid designed by the Sino-American architect Ieoh Ming Pei.  The pyramid also serves as the entrances into the Musee du Louvre.  The collections of the Louvre Museum represent works of art dating from the birth of the great civilizations of the Mediterranean area until the western civilization of the Early Middle Ages to the middle of the ninteenth century. The collections are divided into seven departments including Oriental Antiquities (some Chinese collections), Egyptian Antiquities (a lot of stuff there were taken by Nepoleon from Egypt), Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities; and, covering the modern period, Paintings, Sculptures, etc.   Among the most famous are the Aphrodite (known as the "Venus de Milo") ; Nike on a ship's prow (known as the  "Winged Victory of Samothrace", right at the entrance of the Greek Sculpture department in a very impressive setting); and of course, the mysterious smile of Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci, which attracted the biggest crowd and was the only painting protected by shaded grass (too many splash light from numerous photographer; I was so suprised that flashing light was allowed in Luvre.)












Perfect Weather for Photography






I was, of course, one of those photographers.  Soon I realized that I ran out of films.  The films sold in the museum were too expensive for me to afford that I decided to go back to my hotel to get some films.  I took a shower and changed my clothes since it's really hot that day and I was sweating a lot.   I decided to go to the Eiffel Tower when I left the hotel because the weather was so good outside to be wasted staying inside Luvre.  The Tower, again, is much bigger than I expected. (By the way I guess the Great Wall will appear bigger to most first time visitor too I think).  However it took me two hours waiting for the elevator to go up to the top of the Eiffel.  But the gorgeous scenery seen from there well deserved the wait.   As the city was just washed by a heavy thunderstorm the visuability was very good and  clouds floating above Paris  really contribute a lot to the nice scenery pictures I took that day.







Eiffel Tower





Aross the Seine from Eiffel there is a huge fountain pond before the Palais de Chaillot, a museum for  anthropology, ethnology, paleontology.  Large crowd of people were relaxing and sunbathing on the mown beside the pond while enjoying the splendid display of waters erupting from the cannon-like fountain.  Everything in Praris was grandeur and magnificient.

I took the subway back to Luvre and finally found Venus before the museum was closed.  Wandering past  numerous statues in the Tuileries Gardens I arrived at the Place de la Concorde.  This huge plaza is often associated with the bloody events that took place in French history.  During French revolution,   revolutionaries set up their guillotine on it and  Louis XVI lost his live here.  In the center of the plaza is the Obelisk of Luxor which was presented as a gift to Charles X by the Egyptian viceroy Mehemet Ali.  With heavy traffic roaring through the plaza endlessly, it's hard to believe this was a place that I had imagined to be solemn enough to bear the rich history it endured. 








Arc de Triomphe as seen from  Eiffel




I was extremely hungry and tired when I arrived at the subway station under Hotel de Ville (the site of Paris municipal government).   I found a small food store/cafe in the exit of the subway station.  Embrassingly I found I barely had any French currency left at my pocket and apparently the store was too small to accept any credit card or traveller's check.  The Chinese lady who ran the store could barely speak English so she asked a teenager Chinese girl to talk with me.  They seemed to be willing to help while a little bit hesitant.  I then said it's fine I could go make some changes since the money exhange places were everywhere in Europe.   After I came back I found the store was half-closed, and there was a third Chinese lady there talking anxiously with the other two.  They were very happy when they saw me back.    They ask me if I can speak Chinese.  Of course I did.  "You should had spoken Chinese when you came" The lady said "We should had treated you with good foods for free, but we thought you were a Japanese a while ago."  

It's already past the time they should had closed the store and almost all the food  left were cold.  They cook me some Chinese food right away and asked me to sit down and took time to eat.  These Chinese people are immigrants from Cambodia in the seventies.  Only one of them have been back to mainland China once.   But seeing a person coming from China was the biggest pleasure to them.   I ate almost nothing the whole day and it's so unbelievable that I could enjoy such wonderful home-cook Chinese food in a city that I had no anquaintant there at all.   Never before had I felt so strongly how much the motherland and its people mean to the oversea Chinese (esp. those who didn't grow up in China).    The ladies insisted that I must not pay them and ask me to come to eat in their store whenever I was hungry in Paris.    I left the subway station, thinking to myself: what a wonderful world!







Sunset at Seine












Queen








Notre Dame was on an island (Ile de la Cite) across Seine from Hotel de Ville.   As it's already closed I could only had a view of this impressive Gothic masterpiece from outside.   The dying sun painted the cathedral in golden color.  I sit in the square in front of Notre Dame for a while, trying to digest the heavy load of Chinese food I was fed by my compartiots.


I walked along the left bank of Seine. The scenery was so romatic but the smell was far from pleasant.  Some homeless people dwelled along the bank, and some spots under bridge were apparently utilized as a natural toilet.  Nevertheless I got some nice pictures of the sunset at Seine.    As I returned to the Place de la Concorde the sky finally turned dark.  I walked up toward the Arc de Triomphe along Champs-Elysees, in order to take some picture of the Arc at night.  Heavy rain began to fall suddenly when I was half way through Champs-Elysees. I had to escaped into a telephone booth beside the street, and do a little street watch from the booth.  Guess what I saw: a young couple DANCED along the street in the rain--this is Paris, the city of love.    


The Arc seemed to be fairly close from Place de la Concorde but that was an illusion because of the huge size of the Arc.  It took like forever until I finally reached it, when I realized something was wrong with my watch--it stopped at 9pm!   I remembered Carole, the secretary of our department told me that the subway of Paris closed at around midnight.  She learnt it in a hard way--she and her husband were stranded inside the subway one time, and had to stay there overnight, even though it's for free and safe, because they were locked inside the police's office in the subway until the subway starting running again the next morning.  I asked a person on the street about time -- it's almost midnight!!   I rushed to the subway station below the Arc and luckily I was able to get back to my hotel in time.  The march along Seine and Champs-Elysees exhaust all the delicious Chinese food I had.  I grabbed  some foods in a Berger King beside my hotel, took a shower, and called it a day--what a memorable day in Paris!