The next morning, Will's mother gave us a driving tour of Paris on our way to Musee d'Orsay where I saw the Arc de Triomphe, Invalides, Le Grand Palais, Le Louvre, Le Tour Eiffel, and lots of other wonderful buildings whose names I cannot recall. The weather wasn't nice at all but it takes much more than a few rainclouds to hide Paris' charm and elegance. Will and I enjoyed thoroughly confusing the people we saw at the info desks; he would first speak perfect French while wearing his MIT sweatshirt, and then turn to me and speak English, so people who saw us never knew what language to speak to us or where we were from. Le Musee d'Orsay was as amazing as I envisioned it would be and I felt like I had jumped into the pages of one of my impressionist art books that had been my favorite when I was little. The building the museum was in, a building originally intended as a railroad station, also made the visit more than worthwhile.
After the museum, Will and I made our way, somewhat lazily, towards the Notre Dame Cathedral. We stopped to people watch along the Seine and in le Paradis des Fruits for some fruit smoothies. The Cathedral, when we finally reached it, was breathtaking, despite being overrun by tourists. It was not its size that made it stand out; the beauty and elegance of the architecture and stained glass windows in the cathedral were what justified its place as the most famous cathedral in the world. We stayed in the area for a while longer that day, watching some fun street performers and also following the crowd that was trying to see Obama in Paris. Half of Paris seemed to be closed down for him, and the police were very unhelpful telling us whether we would get to see him or not. There were lots of Americans and English speaking people there who seemed sure they would get to see Obama as he entered Notre Dame and that he would be there soon, but when Will asked the police in French what was going to happen, they said flatly that the whole courtyard would be evecuated and that Obama wouldn't be arriving for another few hours. We left soon after.
After unsuccessfully trying to find a subway, we took a cab to Le Champs-Elysées for dinner with Will's parents and cousin. We got into a very political discussion with the cab driver who apparently worked in some secret government organization (or at least he wouldn't tell us). He and Will disagreed. A lot. To put it mildly. But the discussion was very fun and good-spirited and though unfortunately, my French wasn't quite enough to truly participate in their interruptions of each other, I understood everything they said :-). We ate dinner at Bistro Roman where the food was delicious and the portions were big. I, however spent most of the time regretting having just eaten a huge baguette before dinner as I was completely full before my main course even arrived which was quite a tragedy. The company was great though, and Will's family had a really nice and open dynamic amongst themselves. The play that we saw was fantastic for me because they spoke slowly and it also had an actor who was supposed to be playing an American and so spoke some English, though his real identity remained a mystery for us. I won't go into too much detail about this play about multigenerational love and affairs, but it was a small production with just 3 actors, (including Lina Renaud) all of whom were terrific.
Afterwards, we walked around Paris a bit and I saw the beautiful nightlit Tour Eiffel. We were home extremely late, so Sunday morning, the morning of mother's day, or la fete des mères, we slept in a bit. Then Will and his father adorably fussed around to make a beautiful lunch and get a beautiful cake as a surprise for the lady of the house. I tried to make myself helpful, but I ended up just watching as they arranged and rearranged the food on the plates and the plates on the table to make them just perfect. Lunch was outside and then dessert was moved inside as the cousins were coming over and it was getting chilly. Everyone I met was perfectly lovely and friendly and even though it was getting late, I felt in no rush to leave. We watched a few minutes of Roland Garros and then Will's mother and I sang a bit from the Sound of Music which was great fun.
The evening was reserved for Le Chateau de Versailles. The palace was huge and grandiose as was expected. My first thought upon seeing the inside of the palace was that now I can understand why there was such a violent French Revolution. Otherwise, it reminded me quite a bit of Peterghoff in St. Petersburg (not surprising since that palace was modelled after Versailles). It was opulent and big and a few rooms like the Hall of Mirrors and the Chapel were particularly beautiful. At one point I passed a Russian guided tour, and though I'm no expert on French history, I could tell within a minute that the guide was just amusing himself by making up lavish conspiracy theories and feeding them as history to the elderly Russians on his tour: what a familiar sight. After the inside of the chateau, we had a bit of time to roam the gardens, and then I was off to the train station where my train left 20 minutes late again.
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