Museums in Paris

Oh, wow, what could possibly be worse than breaking my camera? Sigh. (Well… probably losing it…?) Here’s the last picture I took with it, before I bought my new one:
I straight-up cracked the screen on it… if you’re curious how I managed that, I basically put the camera in my back pocket… and sat on it. I’ve done it hundreds of times, I just did it the wrong way this time. :( (Also, I’ve got an odd nose… Where did I get that?)

You’re lucky I didn’t lose it some other way, because I think this batch of photos is a particularly interesting one. I’m kind of jealous of you that you get to be experiencing them for the first time now!

First, I went to visit the local science museum. There was a cool ‘genes’ exhibit, one about sound, and a huge one about light. All for the cool price of only €3:

Yea, I know, I always wear the same sweater… sorry. Good promo for Old Navy, though. 

They had a bunch of cool demonstrations of all sorts of optical illusions and trickeries. The coolest thing they had was a ‘corriolis room’, a windowless chamber that spins around just fast enough so that everything you do is pushed to the side, but not strong enough for you to feel the room rotating. (If you’re curious, I felt like I was drunk while walking around in there.)

I took way too many good pictures of the Louvre and its exhibits to put on here, so I’ll only give you a few of my favourites before moving on to the awesomeness that is the rest of Paris. I got to see a crowd of people in front of the Monna Lisa:

And here’s the Venus de Milo:

My  favourite thing about the Louvre is actually surrounding the art. I mean, the paintings and sculptures are pretty cool, but remember - this used to be a palace. Imagine walking around in your jammies in here:

Another really cool thing are these (ancient?) stairs that have actually been somewhat flattened by the huge amount of people who’ve walked on them over the centuries:

A few cool Egyptian items:
 
Dude… that thing on the right is a straight-up, genuine, badass mummy. There’s some famous dead guy wrapped up in bandages in that thing…

Yesterday, I went on a whim to see the Chateau Versailles. I spent an hour walking around getting lost in the garden out back:

There, I ran into a pair of swans who were looking for trouble:

I keep stumbling on this stunning architecture:

Even the modern buildings are really cool:

I went for a drink with Julien’s cousin, Ariel:

The next night I went to a jazz bar:

I felt a little homesick on this street:

I couldn’t help but take pictures of the Asian tourists:
 If you look closely, you’ll see… they’re actually making peace signs!!!

Frenchisms

-People have an odd naming system here:

-Double-decker trains!!!

-There are free toilets outdoors everywhere in Paris:

-And pay-as-you-go ones indoors (this one’s in the train station):
Seriously, though, 1 whole Euro?  

-Speaking of trains, the metro cars and RER trains (so, like, overground tram-like train thingies that there’s no equivalent of in Montreal) are all horribly graffitied:

-My favourite thing about Paris? People selling roasted chestnuts on the streets:

-People take forever to get through ticket lines. This might only apply to lines in museums, I’m not quite sure. It’s so bad, I keep thinking there’s some kind of complicated procedure at the front of the line, but I always manage to get through in 30 seconds.

-Employees aren’t very nice, here. I’ll explicitly say “can I please have some help?” and they’ll look at me like I’m an idiot. I was somewhere I wasn’t supposed to be (the front door was open, but apparently they closed at 5, and it was 7) and instead of politely letting me know, they practically gave me the boot. This is world’s away from Ireland, where you felt like you were practically family with people you had just met minutes ago.

Travel update: I’m on a high speed train towards Amsterdam, right now. It looks like I’ll be spending three nights there and two nights somewhere in Belgium. Also, for a physicist , it’s pretty exhilarating to see what 300 km/h actually feels like. Here, have a look:

Sorry for the glare, but the sun is setting beside me.

Paris, France

A quick google search will reveal about 300 different government plans to release free wifi (pronounced ‘weefee’ in French) in all of the public places in Paris (parks, libraries, etc….) The truth is that these are very difficult to find (or login to). For these reasons, the posts might be fewer and further between for a while (or might be why I haven’t posted in a few days). If you’re counting on me to show you the world, then, I’m sorry for the delay.

This city is incredible. I’ve been in Paris since Saturday evening, but I still feel like I just got here. Julien’s grand-father happily greeted me at the door:

He’s been incredibly accommodating, providing me with everything! Well, besides internet… but, whatever. I couldn’t be too picky.

(I’d like to add, on the topic of Julien’s grand-father, that I’m becoming quite the photographer along this trip:) This, apparently, is what a physicist’s attempt at being deep must look like…  While we’re on that topic, why do people keep saying “oh, well, since you’re in the sciences, you must not get this-” when referring to some kind of art? I’m not that one-dimensional! I listen to quite a bit of music and read quite a lot, actually… I dunno, I’ve just heard that statement like 3 times this week….

The weather is wonderful – I think I’m going to have to figure out how to ditch my (p)leather jacket soon. It has so far still only rained once (the evening I landed in Paris, oddly).

Now, let’s talk Parisians: for every drunk in Dublin, there are about 4 or so people sitting together outside a cafe in Paris. This place is littered with terraces, which makes walking around both interesting and slightly awkward. The cafes are also extremely expensive – at about 7 Euros (over $10) per cup of coffee, it’s basically unaffordable (or at the very least, unjustifiable) on my budget.  It also makes using their free weefee very uncomfortable.
 
There are much fewer tourists here – wait, let me correct that: In Ireland, there were many tourists younger than me – college kids on Spring break, up to party on St. Paddy’s. Here, there are many old people walking around and taking pictures of the many sites.

Speaking of sites, the most amazing thing about this city is that it’s virtually impossible to walk for five minutes in any direction without hitting some kind of landmark or historic figure. For starters, here’s what my front door looks like:

Five minutes walking in any direction will reveal statues, obelisks, parks… too many things to show here. But seriously, though, where else can you walk just ten minutes in a straight line and then stumble on the Louvre: 
Or L’arc de Triomphe (ok, I kind of lie, this was about an hour away):

I also walked along the Seine river: I’m really crazy about these rivers, actually. I really enjoyed the Liffey in Dublin, too.

I haven’t gone to visit the Eiffel tower yet… Here’s me standing with it in the background, though: 
I don’t think I’m going to bother going to visit it, though… I’ve already been. Evidence (from circa New Year’s 2004):Uuumm…. yea, I think I am wearing a turtleneck here… I’m just as confused as you are…

By the way, from all of my walking in Dublin, I’ve become a walking machine. Admittedly, I had pains in my knees, legs and ankles for a few days a couple of weeks ago, but now I really have no problem walking for hours on end. It’s pretty awesome.

French Bixis!!!

Also, if you’ve ever wondered why Square Victoria metro looked so different and weird, now you know what they were trying to emulate:

People take their metros pretty seriously, here. They’re actually all decorated differently, which turns out to be really interesting:

Oh, and this one’s just for the pageviews:

This next section is purely me venting and bitching, so you can stop reading here without worrying about missing out on anything too important or interesting:

No post describing Paris would be complete without mentioning my traveling to Paris. In an effort to save money (like, what, 100 Euros?) I decided to fly from Shannon, Ireland instead of Dublin. I have one of those all-you-can-travel-3-month train passes afterall, so I might as well take advantage of it when I can.

So I booked a Ryanair flight from Shannon Airport to Paris-Beauvais. Shannon’s only about 2 hours from Dublin, and so I figured I’d catch a Dublin-Shannon train, and then fly right into Paris.

If only it were so simple. The first thing I learned is that “Paris-Beauvais” airport is not Paris. Beauvais is a small city 82 km North of Paris. I would have to take a 14 Euro shuttle into the city.

Another issue is that there is no train station in Shannon. I was forced to take a train to Limerick (switching at Limerick junction!) and catch a shuttle from the Limerick train station to Shannon Airport…

which I would have done if I had caught the 10:00 train at Dublin. Seeing as how I missed it, I ended up having to take a 37 Euro taxi to the airport. (In hindsight, it turns out that I would have made my flight with plenty of time to spare if I had caught the next shuttle since the flight left like an hour late… stupid Ryanair…)

The flight itself was pleasant enough; I spent it sitting beside Breda and Aindriù (Irish spelling of Andrew, apparently. The accent above the u is known as a ‘fadda’ in Irish):
Aindriù spent most of the flight kicking the seat in front of him and yelling. His grandmother, Brida, was clearly unimpressed.

So let’s do the math – save about 100 Euros, spend about 50, then waste (hmmm… 10AM to 8:30PM…) 10 hours in transit. I am never flying Ryan again.

Belfast, Ireland

Yesterday, Apratim and I woke up at 6 in the morning to catch an early train to Belfast for the day. From there, we caught a coach bus on a tour around the northern part of Northern Ireland. (In case you didn’t know (I didn’t), Ireland is split into two parts: Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, and thus doesn’t work with my awesome Eurail train pass and uses British pounds instead of Euros, and the Republics of Ireland, which is independent of England and uses Euros.

Along the way, we got to see a beautiful view of the Irish countryside:

The first tourist attraction is the Carrick a Rede rope bridge. It’s on the north-eastern coast of North Ireland, and the view from there was stunning:

The next attraction, the real reason we trained up to Belfast in the first place, was the Giant’s Causeway (the word ‘Causeway’ meaning: a raised road or path, as across low or wet ground). It’s this odd natural formation of rocks that look like a huge cobblestone road. See for yourself (I pay the fee and do the travelling, you reap the benefits):

I hope you enjoyed the pictures. The travel was extremely exhausting, though I’m proud of the result, and it gave me time to catch up on my blogging. By the time you read this, I’ll be in Paris. I’ve already been there, but I’m hoping to see and do new things. See you on the other side!

Dublin on St. Patrick’s Day

This is the first post that will be co-written with somebody – Ankita’s cousin Apratim, who joined me in Dublin, will be inputting his insight and comments on the events of the week.

Irish people apparently don’t care about Paddy’s day – it’s just another day off for them. That is, another day for them to drink all day, as usual. They do, however, party like mad the night before Paddy’s, leaving Paddy’s night for the tourists. After all, they all have to go back to work the day after Paddy’s day.

St Patrick’s day really begins with the parade. It’s utter madness – 650 000 people attended the parade this Wednesday to watch 3000 performers. They wear leprechaun hats, spray paint themselves green, wear green scarves and sunglasses, and in one case, a green leotard:

Even animals get in on the action:

People do anything they can to get a good view of the parade. Some brought their own stepladders and workbenches to see over the crowd. Others were just lucky:

Others yet were even more creative:

Luckily, I met up with my friends Guy and Casper from Galway/Australia:

The floats in the parade were really cool, with talented acrobats, musicians and machinists:

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Right after the parade, O'Connell street was evacuated and the city was packed with tourists and countrymen thirsty for their first Guinness. Of the hour. (That joke might be lame, but it was certainly accurate):

The girl standing beside me is a Montrealer / McGill student doing a semester exchange in England, who came down to Dublin for Paddy’s.

St. Patrick’s day was utter utter madness – there were just too many people to have fun. There was no standing room inside any of the bars – I definitely couldn’t imagine extending my arms out to get a good photo of anything in there.

It was awesome.

The day after St. Patrick’s Day (yesterday), Apratim and I decided to be good tourists, so we went down to get a tour of Trinity College (home of Hamilton, Beckett, Walton and Oscar Wilde) and to see the Book of Kells:

We saw Dublin city hall:

We went to visit the Guinness brewery:

where I learned how to pour the perfect pint:
 

Funny tagline – you don’t know how badly I wanted to eat here:

Apratim and I spent the day in Belfast today. I’ll post on it tomorrow, this post is already getting rather lengthy…