You don’t have to tell me, this post is so out of date it is hardly worth posting. I went to paris in early September. It is now late October. What can I say? I’ve been incredibly busy. Mori came from Japan, and we had a two week adventure. I moved into a new apartment (without internet…unitl today!), and I went to an absolutely kick-ass wedding last weekend. Now I am back, somewhat settled, sitting in the least comfortable chair ever made, and I am back. Since I can hardly remember Paris, I’m going to make this quick and painless for everyone. I considered just skipping it, but I think there are some nice pictures, and nice pictures don’t get old and spoil with age, so they should be just as good now as they were when I took them. Rather than a news post, this is like a history post. Either way, with no further ado, Paris.

I think we settled the “Paris is beautiful” discussion with the last post, but just in case you had forgotten: Paris is beautiful, especially in the early morning.

Also beautiful, but in a different way - Livia, my cousin.

While we were in Paris, we did some kind of wacky things. We went to an art opening at a museum of contemporary art, and one of the events at the opening was a “mini motorcycle ballet.” I would try to explain further, but seriously, that is about as close to describing the ridiculous spectacle we saw as you can get. See for yourselves:

There was a story, something about a motorcyclist killed in a crash, but mostly it was just absolutely bizarre. I am auditioning as soon as I have some free time.

Not to be outdone, across a courtyard from the motocycle ballet was the World Championship of chainsaw art. That sounds like a joke but it isn’t. Something like 15 guys from around the world were there to have a chainsaw showdown. Everyone got a couple saws, a giant piece of wood, and one full day to make their masterpiece. If my motorcycle ballet auditions don’t work out, this is my second choice.

In the end, with much drama, I think the guy from Sweden won. Look at how many people are watching!

We also went to the Musee Du Carnavalet, a museum that is kind of off the beaten track. It is a museum of Parisian life through the ages, and one particular thing caught my eye and has stayed in my mind as probably the most wonderful thing I have seen in a long time. It is a model for a tombstone, never completed.

I want this tombstone - I mean, look at it! On my grave, I want a statue of myself. That isn’t good enough though. I want a statue of myself, standing in my coffin. Still not enough. I want a statue of myself, standing in my coffin, while a beautiful naked woman passionately tears off the boards. Furthermore, I want to be giving her a very serious glare, as if to say “and just what do you think you’re doing, young woman?” If I had that over my tomb, I think I could be satisfied that I was being properly memorialized.

The Carnavalet also had a bunch of whole rooms from old Parisian palaces. What do you do in this room? I think the answer is obvious: Party, party party.

A huge market, spanning dozens of blocks - I don’t have much to say about it, I think the pictures speak for themselves.

Wonderful. I love markets. Anyway - on the same day as the market, returning to our apartment, my family came up out of the metro at the Place de la Bastille only to find the usual buzz of traffic missing. Instead of hundreds of cars, there were thousands of kids, mostly in their teens. As we looked around to try and figure out what was going on, we noticed that the vast majority of them were dressed up as if they were going to a rave. It being 3pm, and there not being any huge raves around there, we grew even more confused. Eventually someone told us that this was Techno Parade 2006, but that didn’t help much either. What on earth is a Techno Parade?

As it turns out, a Techno Parade is when giant trucks that are essentially and engine, wheels, a sound system, and a dance floor go driving around Paris blasting (and I mean blasting) techno music, and hundreds of thousands of kids follow the trucks around like lemmings, dancing in the street, taking off their clothes, and forgetting that it is the middle of the day in the middle of Paris. It was actually pretty great to watch, each truck passing with louder music, bigger sound systems, and more dancers. After about ten trucks, we gave up and went home, ears ringing and heads shaking in amusement.

Those are the dancers, that giant black wall is just all the speakers lined up at the back of one of the trucks, and on top are the best dancers and the DJ. Ridiculous.

Trucks had smoke machines, snow makers, strobe lights - you name it.

And that was about it. How can you possibly follow a Techno Parade? You can follow it with your cousin’s Bar Mitzvah, but I feel like putting photos of a Bar Mitzvah after photos of a Techno Parade does a great disservice to both of those events, so I will leave you with a picture of mysterious Boston which I have never visited. From 30,000 feet it is nice looking, but that’s plenty close for me.

Ok, so this is late, but in my defense, since I got back from Paris, I have been very busy. Really. I started a job, got my life in order, and now I’m getting ready for Mori (of Ben in Japan fame) to come visit. He gets here in five days, and I am pretty excited. I am leaving for Saratoga Springs tomorrow afternoon, and I suddenly realized that this was my last chance to write a blog for quite a while. It will be quick, but hopefully enlightening.

A week in Paris can be a wonderful thing. If you haven’t gone, I would encourage you to go see what all the fuss is about. The clichés are abundant - the city of romance, accordion players at tiny street side cafes, sipping tiny coffees, old men walking home with a baguette - and somehow Paris manages to take all that corny stuff and make it as wonderful as you could imagine. It’s a city where twenty million tourists visit a year, but it never feels overrun by tourists. It’s a city where every cafe serves the same types of coffee and the same sandwiches, and they are all good. It’s a place where you could go expecting the very worst, and chances are you would find some good. For me, Paris is about beauty. I just spent ten minutes trying to write out what I found so beautiful, but I failed. Maybe pictures will help.

I want to have a driveway like this.

One day we walked up to Sacre Coeur in Monmartre. Sacre Coeur is the giant white church on a hill where Amelie led her prospective lover around with blue chalk arrows. It was also Hitler’s last stop in his tour of Paris, and one of the few places in Paris (other than the Eiffel tower) where you can get a view of the city from high up.

Looking down at what is a very normal row of apartments in the center of Paris.

Looking up at an often photographed site. We watched people taking pictures for a while, and based on some rough calculations, this view is photographed about 3 million times every two years.

Sometimes it is photographed and video taped at the same time, and that is not so amazing. What is amazing is the way she is balancing that baby in order to take the picture. I would think that if it were me, I would just ask my husband to do it.

This was more or less it for our first few days in Paris. Things got much more exciting in for the rest of the week (motorcycle ballet, techno rave parade) but at the beginning it was mostly pretty streets and beautiful weather. We did a lot of walking in the evening, and I think my favorite time in Paris is after sunset but before the night, when the sky turns deep blue, and in the beautiful old apartments that line the big streets, the lights start coming on. I’ll leave you with two pictures of that, because that is a good way to end.

Mori comes with Fumiko from the 3rd to the 16th of October. I don’t know if I’ll be able to post then, but I’ll try.