As the post title says, we are in Paris! We arrived on monday night after a long journey. We stayed at Jonny's brother in Oslo for one night before heading to Gardermoen Airport and landing in Orly. The hotel is a thousand metro stops away from Orly and apparently in France elevators are not very popular. We were carrying over 15 kilos of baggage each and we had to drag along the suitcases over lots and lots of staris. We arrived at the hotel late at night completely exhausted. After lots of metro trips so far, it si safe to say that public transportation in Paris is very discriminating towards people with special needs (aka wheelchair users or people with mobility difficulties). Time to update the network, Sarkozy!
Transportation apart, we have been getting to know the quarter our hotel is at. We are staying in Saint-Maurice, a neighbourhood south east from the city centre. Even thought it is not very touristy, it is kind of expensive too. Yesterday we ate at a local French restaurant. We payed 62€ for a meal for two. I must admit though that the red wine we ordered costed 30€. But hey, we only live once! I ate pork stomach. I wanted to try something typical. I shouldn't have. The whole thing looked kind of "intruiguing", tasted awkward and smelled like a really bad fart. We've also visited a castle named Château de Vincennes, though only on the outside because the whole country was on strike yesterday and the attractions were closed. Here's the castle:
These are three bottles of Coca Cola light designed by Karl Lagerfeld
Today we've been at The Palace of Versailles. It was magnificent! It's by far the biggest palace to ever be seen and probably the most luxurious as well. When you are there to see all that richness you can better understand the origins for the French Revolution of 1789. While Frenchmen were living in the most absolute poverty, facing difficulties to provide food and shelter for themselves, their royals were living HERE:
No wonder they ended up dead. I would have been pissed too. It is hard to think the royalty could live in such amounts of richness while their own people were starving to death.
Oh, there is a new exhibition at Versailles by a Japanese artist named Murakami. His work is inspired in the Japanese anime and it's really cool! While taking a picture of one of his sculptures I was interviewed by the Japanese TV!!! They asked me if I liked Murakami's art and of course I had to say 'yes'! It's so colorful and eye-catching! Just take a look:
Pretty, huh? Those sculptures would make a lovely child bedroom!
Oh, and at the end of the day we visited the royal gardens and the Marie Antoinette residence. The bitch had her own place because 26 m2 of a palace is just too tiny of a palace for her royal majesty! Here is a true example of how greedy the human species is: the more we have, the more we want. Maybe Spain should start cutting heads off those Bourbouns soon? :-) (Do you think the Interpol is going to arrest me for writing this?). Anyhow, look at the queen's residence:
I found a little umbrella to protect me from the rain!
I really liked the visit to Versailles. Though I have some mixed feelings. On one side I think everybody likes to drool a little bit and dream away while staring at gold and marble. It's luxury at its highest and I was really impressed. I wowed everytime we entered a room and I had been looking forward to this visit for ages! It really matched all my expectations and more.
On the other hand, it is very sad to think that the royals could be so selfish and care so little for their people. It took them Frenchmen to attack their palace and decapitate them in order to change the situation they were in. Think about how much they starved in order for them to do such a thing. So yes, Louis XIV, Louis the XVI, Marie Antoinette and all of them assholes can burn in hell as for what I care. They got what they deserved. And as for Versailles, it is a lovely place to spend a whole day in no matter what. I just hope the Frenchmen of the time could have had the chance to experience it in a different way. Too late to change history now but France has sure learned from it.
Tomorrow we're going to the Eiffel tour and Notre Dame. Looking forward to it. Hopefully it will not rain!
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