I spent day 8-9 visiting all the famous areas in Paris: Notre Dame, Sorbonne, Montmartre, Hotel De Ville, Eiffel Tower, the Louvre museum, Champs Elysee, Bastille, etc. There are tons of movies, novels, pictures, and galleries, doing much better job at reporting what I saw than I could ever do. I realized most of what I knew about Paris and most of what I imagined about this city was from novels I used to read as a teenager. I came to the conclusion that I used to read much more about France or any other country for that matter, in my small room in Iran than all my years here. That was a sad realization.
Interesting facts I learned, some of which from the children book I bought for my nieces as souvenir, are the following:
- The Eiffel tower was built by Americans and initially the French did not like it because it was just ugly. I understood what they meant when I saw it from a close distance. The tower looks nice from far away as a whole, but the actual tower itself is just made of metal pieces connected to each other. Also, did you know at the very top of it, there are TV antennas broadcasting signals to Paris?
- Louvre was initially built to be a palace, and then became a museum. It was modified and completed over centuries before becoming like what it is today.
- I did not know French completely eliminate the handshake when greeting each other. Iranians somehow kiss while shaking hands. My cousin finally had to whisper in my ears: "they do not shake hands here", after the third time I was failing at a proper greeting with her friends.
- Historically the word Hotel means mansion in French (e.g. Hotel De Ville).
- Sacre-Coeur, meaning Sacred Heart, has remained white because its surface has a chemical material that acts like a bleach every time it rains. It was on the hills in the famous Montmartre neighborhood, where the movie Amelie was mostly recorded. I had a great view of Paris from there. They had a wine harvest festival that day and it was very crowded. Wines and Champagnes of different cities of France were being sold on the street and music was playing. It was too perfect a day to be true.
Visiting Sorbonne was a nice treat since I had no mental image of it beforehand. Many activists were standing in front of it. They were protesting against capital punishment globally. They had a brief description of countries, including Iran, that currently exercise capital punishment. Seeing names of so many political prisoners in so many different countries with issues I had no idea about, made me feel ignorant. I should read more on many countries and their people's struggles.
Although I had some expectation of how Louvre would look like, I never thought it was so huge and magnificent! I only had two hours to spend inside the world's largest museum before they close. Of course, Mona Lisa was the first stop, and as you have heard it from others, it is disappointing to see how small and dark it is. I was happier to see Hammurabi stone, remembering the first time I read about it in elementary school, and of course the Napoleon's apartment, reminiscing the Desiree novel I enjoyed reading so much as a teenager.
Oh, and how happy was I to finally walk in Champs Elysee and have a meal there, and of course seeing the Eiffel tower. Well, we had quiet a French experience the night we visited Eiffel. We were getting ready to head back to our hotel. We were tired and it was kind of chilly. Laleh suggested we have hot chocolate before taking the metro. I welcomed the idea. We went to the restaurant behind the closest metro stop. The waitress asked us if we were there for dinner, and we said no, just coffee and desert. She immediately took away the table cloth since we did not deserve it anymore for being cheap customers. I got a cappuccino and she got a hot chocolate. Can you guess how much was our bill? I am embarrassed to acknowledge this. My cappuccino alone was 7.5 Euros, or $11. That is by far the most expensive (small) cup of coffee I have had in my life, on a metal table with no table cloth! So, if you went to visit Eiffel tower, do not you dare stop for a meal, or even tea, at the restaurant behind that park and metro center.
Enough with the French! Back to England. I visited St. Paul cathedral, V&A museum, and I took the bus to Oxford for one day. When I visited V&A museum I felt like I had an overdose of museums. So, I avoided the sections they had on China, India, etc, and looked for something unique to that museum, which was not hard to find: V&A museum was the first museum in the world that had a photography exhibit. So, I just went to see their photography collection. They had a very nice collection, many of which were about life in the U.S. Here are some interesting and surprising pictures I saw there:
Oxford was a lovely college town with gorgeous trees and fall season. I did not have a map and did not need to search for anything. There was something to visit in every corner of the city: colleges, churches, of course the Oxford campus, natural history museum celebrating Darwin, Oxford's museum, beautiful parks, homes of the first person who made an automobile in U.K., editor of the Oxford dictionary, etc. I think I broke a record for number of museums one had seen in two weeks during my vacation. As I sat in a coffee shop for lunch and coffee, I could not help over hearing the conversation of the table next to me between an old Oxford professor and his female student. He was one of these professors everyone loved to take his classes. I already wanted to talk to him. He was advising his student with such care and patience. It reminded me of my own adviser and graduate study years. All of a sudden I missed both my adviser and being a student. I wish we were having a meeting like they were. As they finished talking, the professor stood, looked at me, and the book I had on my table. Without talking, his eyes told me I wish I could talk to you but I got to run to a meeting/class, what are you reading/studying?, a smile, and goodbye, and I had told him I wish we could meet and talk too, and no problem, I understand. It was an interesting silent conversation.
The last weekend I saw a musical in West End neighborhood in London, an area like New York's Broadway. They seemed to have many more theaters there though. We saw Wicked, and it was quiet a pleasant experience and a nice way to end my trip.
It did not turn out to be such a summary, did it? You got it all.
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