La Paris gruyère

There are many nicknames for Paris ; La Ville-Lumière, The City of Love, Paname, but the one which I was most surprised about is La Paris Gruyère. Gruyère is a type of French cheese that has holes in it. Paris is named after this cheese because it too has holes throughout the city. The Métro, the sewers, the catacombs make up the tunnels that burrow all around the city.

Le Métro

Having lived in Paris for near to seven weeks now I have had many experiences on the metro to both male me love and hate it. It is in dispute as to whether the Paris Métro is better or worse than the London Underground, personally I think it is. The trains on the metro are squarer than those of their London relatives this means that I can stand up straight even when I am right next to the doors! I know isn’t life marvelous!

Depending on what line you are on the underground is air conditioned  is a God send on hot summer days! Also the seats are often wide enough to actual sit on without being on top of the person next to you.

On line 1, which is the line which goes parallel to the Champs D’Elysée from Saint Paul all the way to La Défense, there is no driver at the front which means you can see right out the front of the train like a roller coaster! I was sooo excited when I first saw this.

La Mairie de Paris auditions and allows only the best to play here. There is a fantastic String Ensemble who play at Chatêlet. There are also unofficial buskers who actually go on the metro who aren’t actually supposed to be there. However, I quite enjoy these and they often make a journey more enjoyable. There is this Michael Jackson impersonator who I have seen on the trains a few times. His dancing on a moving train is more than impressive. Unfortunately I never understand how these people make a living because I rarely see anyone give them any money.

On the otherhand, the older trains on the metro can be small with very uncomfortable seats and certainly no air conditioning. There are often very strange people on the Métro as we found out in April when we saw a man with a cat in a sock in his hood! Bizarre!

But all in all the metro is a very good service and I have barely had a probably with it since arriving.

Les Catacombes

This is the attraction I have queued for most out of everything since arriving in Paris. I went the day I dropped Dad of at the station and went directly there at about midday. Stupidly had forgotten any water or food and ended up queueing for a total of two hours, because there is a restriction on the number of people allowed down there at once. This is probably for the best, because some of the places I've visited have been so jam packed that you really can't enjoy them as much because you feel like your just being herded like cattle.

The catacombs are  2 km long and the temperature drops to 14C down there! Maybe it's because I had gone delirious from the lack of food and water, but I found it incredibly interesting. There was lots of information provided for you along the route about how the tunnels were first made for limestone quarrying when Paris was a lot smaller, then as Paris grew over the top of tunnels they were forgotten about until they started to collapse behind buildings. It was then that they blessed the tunnels and started moving the bones from the overcrowded cemeteries  of Paris down there making the largest underground ossuary in the world. The bone lined tunnels seem to go on for ages, so much that it almost didn't feel as if they were real. It is fantastically creepy and I felt like I was entering the Court of Miracles from Hunch Back of Notre Dame.

Les Egouts

So the last and final chapter of this holey post is les egouts, the sewers! Yeah it doesn't sound all that appealing, but I was thoroughly recommended it by my trustworthy former French Assistant, Pauline. So when my mother came to visit instead of going to Monet's house and gardens, which are a little way outside of Paris, we decided to go here instead. Now in my imagination I had conjured up this experience where we got to go down the sewers in a boat or something, but now it is quite a small exhibition with a lot of not very interesting information about how the sewers were developed to deal with the growing population of Paris. The most interesting thing was imagining Jean Valjean  dragging Marius through them. Apart from that it was just smell and damp and I don't really recommend it. I don't even have any pictures of it. Sorry Pauline!

That sums up why Paris is sometimes referred to as gruyère, because under the surface there are lots of holes.

Les marches aux puces

Just had to tell you about my day yesterday. I have had a very casual weekend not really doing much at all, but yesterday I thought I would check out the flea markets in the north of Paris, just the other side of the Peripherique. They are ginormous! Full to the brim with old bits and bobs from old photographs and coinage to full renaissance dining sets. Full of secrets and wonders you can spend hours searching through this labyrinth of hidden treasures, there is bound to be something for everyone. Unfortunately I did not take much money and I didn't take any pictures, but I am sure to return so will definitely take some next time!

I then went to Montmartre to find some food. I eventually chose a cafe after walking past a thousand (it's a terrible syndrome I have where I can't ever stop I just keep walking past cafes until I get so annoyed with myself that I actually have to stop.) Being entirely French now I ordered the tartare which is raw meat. Usually it is mixed with herbs and spices and is very refreshing on a hot summers day, but this was literally just a slab of raw meat. Which wasn't very pleasant and as always the waiter was extremely grumpy. So grumpy in fact that when I said thank you and goodbye he said nothing! Parisians!

Today I walked to Bercy and discovered a lovely park which in my opinion is the best Park in Paris I've been to so far! It was great to see a more modern side of Paris. There was a skateboard park and everyone was having picnics and playing Frisbee and what not on the grass. I crossed the river to find the BnF (Biblioteque National de France) which was a very impressive, very modern building next to the Quay Bercy which is home to the well known Batofar bar as well as several others and looked like a trendy place to go out of an evening.

Wandering around I stumbled across what I had been looking for; A great woppy old building that looks as if it's about to crumble, but covered in fantastic street art. This is known as Les Frigos and it is the studies of young artists. It is open to the public, it wasn't today but I will return, and you can wonder in and talk tot he artists about their work and chat to randomers, which sounds perfect for helping my French. There was some people sitting outside and I really regret not going to talk to them, but I let my nerves get the better of me. I have decided that I need to stop being so afraid to talk to strangers so I'm going to ask someone a question tomorrow and start a conversation! Let's do this!

MAM and Rodin: A cultural evening

So I have become quite lax on updating this blog. Which is exactly what was not supposed to happen.

Paris is a creative city. Everywhere you look there are remnants of a long history of artists, writers, musicians, designers, architects. A trait that has been inherited by the Parisians of today. Every time I walk through the streets of Paris I feel inspired. My venture to the Musée d'Art Moderne (MAM) and the Musée Rodin left me very much in this state; itching for a pen, a pencil, a paintbrush or anything with which I could fashion a creation of my own.

MAM is an impressive building overlooking the Right Bank of the Seine. On a lovely summer evening the tables on the verandah are bustling with young artists and below them the steps are frequented by skateboarders who enjoy testing out their skills on the rails and ramps there.

This summer at MAM there has been a fantastic exhibition of the lifetime works of Keith Haring. Advertisements for the exhibition has covered the boards in the métro since I arrived, tempting me to go and see what all the fuss about these stick figures was and what the artist had to offer. As it turns out, a lot!

Haring was a fascinating man who started his career in the Subway of New York. He believed that art should be available for everyone so he started to sketch in chalk on unused blackboards in the underground. This way thousands of people could see his work everyday. He later moved his street art to Paris and other cities around the world. If you have ever been to Paris you will know that Street art is massive here and it is partly due to this man who made it very popular.

His work is quite cartoonistic and I was unsure whether it was going to impress me at first, because I can be quite harsh in my criticism of art sometimes, but I was pleasantly surprised. The bright colours were immediately captivating and a welcome change from the worn colours of the portraits I had become accustomed to in the Louvre and Orsay. There was a lot of striking imagery, much of which was symbolic of politics and wider issues of consumerism and capitalist societies that is still current to us today.

I would thoroughly recommend the exhibition to anyone who has the opportunity to see it. It was enlightening and certainly showed a side of art that I certainly hadn't been exposed to before.

After MAM I took the metro the Left Bank to the gardens of the Musée Rodin which are open to the public until 23:00 on Wednesdays in the summer months. These famous statues by Rodin that are dotted around the gardens draw many aspiring artists who come to draw or photograph these monumental figures. I was recommended the gardens by an old friend of mine who is in fact Parisian and she was right to do so, because they are beautiful.

It was amongst the sculptures, the artists with the poised pencils and the beautiful pathways that I had that moment of inspiration. That bolt of lightening that strikes down everyone that has ever visited Paris. (If you have visited Paris and you don't know what I'm talking about you are soulless.) It happens to me daily, but on this occasion it was particularly strong. I pledged to myself in these gardens that I could never have a job that wasn't creative. I guess it was the spirit of Paris washing off on me. It has finally sunk in. This is why I am back to blogging, because what better creative outlet is there than the internet.

(I apologise that I was unable to take a still picture of Le Penseur (The Thinker) I assure you I took several to no success and this was the best of the bunch.)