Paris, Day 1 1/2. We survived the night, just barely, but it appears all the rugby fans are still hungover, so hopefully tonight will be quiet. We had an amazing day in Paris. We slept til 9:15 a.m. (Mitchell and Alex were up by 7 and out for croissant and coffee with the non-rugby- fan-Parisians carrying baguettes under their arms for breakfast) and then regrouped to go to Eric and Crystele’s new apartment for brunch. We took the metro, and passed by an amazing Sunday farmer’s market — fresh fish on ice, cheese spread, baguettes — on our way to their place. They live in a lovely neighborhood and have this super-cool 5th floor apartment with a loft and a 2-person elevator lift. They fed us an amazing breakfast of croissant (and everyone converted to the religion of The Almond Croissant, as in it’s what they eat on Mount Olympus), ham, cheese, pan au chocolat, lox, strong coffee, cherry chocolate cake — the list goes on and on. Will was basically in a diabetic coma by the time we left to go to Notre Dame, the Roman Ruins beneath and the Pompidou.

Will loved the ruins — we saw 1st century B.C. ramparts, which had 3rd century buildings built on top, including some public lavatories and communal hot baths, which had 6th century buildings built on top, then 16th century buildings built on top — you get the picture.
Notre Dame has incredible stained glass, soaring ceilings, of course, and beautiful architecture.

Other highlights of our walk: Passing the front window of the rodent control store, with the several dozen rats hanging from traps inside the store window, featured in the movie “Ratatouille.” As we were walking, we were passed by a group of a thousand or more roller skaters, led by Paris police and trailed by two Paris ambulances. Turns out it’s a Friday evening and Sunday afternoon ritual, this skate around the streets of Paris. We also joined Chrystele and Luka for Luka’s first ride on a streetside carousel in front of the ornate Paris City Hall, or Hotel de Ville.

It was late afternoon by the time we got to the crazy steamship like sculptures outside the Pompidou. We weren’t quite in the mood for the prevailing sense of sarcasm and anger of most of the modern art exhibits in the Pompidou museum. For instance, the naked woman doing the hula with a hoop made of barbed wire seemed to leave Will rather unimpressed. But we had a great whirlwind tour of early 20th century art with the museum’s amazing collection of artists such as Picasso, Braque, Duchamp, Matisse, Man Ray, Kandinsky and on and on. Will puzzled over a rendition of Duchamp’s famous found object, the urinal — “Is is art?” To his credit, he noted the clean lines and geometric vent holes, before moving on. Will did, however, have a strangely harrowing experience — I guess all par for the course at a modern art museum. After he used the toilet — not a Duchamp — the toilet began speaking loudly and angrily in French. We’re not sure what it said — Rick tried to go back to investigate — but it left Will in an apoplexy. “It talked, it really did,” he said. “It sounded like a radio.” Creepy, if you ask me.

So after taking in the view of the city — it had cleared up and was gorgeous, we had a snack of streetside crepes and waffles, then we took the Metro to the Tuileries, an amazing garden and plaza stretching several miles from the Louvre past the Place de la Concorde to the Avenue des Champs-Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe. It was our favorite sight of the day, a slowly arriving sunset casting beautiful light on the statues, fountains and ponds of the Tuileries, with children pushing sailboats around the water with long sticks, people reclining in chairs in the nice early spring weather, and the lights coming on, steadily, across the Paris skyline.

We crowded into a cab (“I don’t take five,” the cabbie said, before relenting) past the beautifully lit Eiffel Tower back to our neighborhood, where we sat down for dinner at a very nice Italian restaurant recommended by Courtenay’s classics professor at Stanford, who had spent a year in Paris. We met the proprietor, who is planning to come to Oregon to pick up a large sailboat in the next few weeks, had a great dinner, shared several bottles of red wine, emerged from the restaurant and promptly got good and lost trying to find our way back to the hotel After 30 minutes of wandering a maze of back streets, squinting at a partial map in the dim light, asking a cabbie, a fish monger and several others for directions, we walked past the same Gap store at least twice, we finally emerged safely and happily back on the Boulevard Saint Germain, where we found our bearings and arrived at the hotel. Or at least until Mitchell found his bearings and got us home.

Now after a good night’s sleep (Will is still snoring gently) we are gearing up for a big morning at the Louvre, an underground tour of the crypts, a going-away dinner with Eric, Crystele and Luka, and a late-night visit to the Tour Eiffel.