This is a continent-wide celebratory weekend that basically allows all Federal Buildings to be open to the public for 2 days and that most museums and monuments are open and free of charge. My host family insisted I take part of this once-in-a-lifetime weekend to go tour some buildings that were only public for these two days. Of course! I'm not one to pass up an opportunity that will be gone so soon.
Thursday and Friday night consisted of thoroughly researching the places that were opened solely for this weekend and that would be interesting to see.
My plan was to go early to Le Palais de Elysee (The President's Palace) but that plan was thwarted once they shut down the tour to anymore people since there were so many already in line. Dang it! While I couldn't get in line to see it, I did watch them perform the whole pat-down, scan- pat-down, scan again, procedure of each person. Worse than an airport!! I wanted to see this palace because, when compared to a rectangular building called The White House and having seen the capabilities of French Architects already, I wanted to stand in awe at a real, living Palace. But....I couldn't, so I found option number 2: Assemblee Nationale. The Senate building for French Parliament.
Very cool building/basically-a-palace. In all of the Federal buildings that I toured in Paris and in Versailles, not only are the rooms crowned in gold and velvet, but they have exquisite ballrooms and dining rooms fit to feed a host of Kings. Like, what do I need to do to get invited to those dinner parties? And in the Assemblee Nationale, they had a 4-person orchestra playing in the ballroom to entertain as guests meandered through. Standing under massive crystal chandeliers in a sparkling ballroom with cherubs painted on the walls and ceilings surrounded by gold crown molding and tapestries the size of Texas, I closed my eyes and imagined I was in the Disney movie "Anastasia", twirling and floating through a royal ballroom, draped in magnificent fabrics and decked out in some fancy jewels. A girl can dream, right?
That basically sums up all of France's political powerhouses.
Emily and I toured the Ministry of Defense building and it's gardens, the Ministry of Agriculture and the local food fair set up inside it's courtyard, some other Parliament buildings with libraries full of old records and Victor Hugo's books, more exquisite gardens, and finally the Paris Sewers. With 10 minutes until closing, we sped walked our way through Paris to get to the Museum of Paris' grossest export: human waste. Not something I have always wanted to do but not something I was about to pass up. After all, it was free and thankfully, Emily was game.
The Paris Sewers... I had imagined something like two sidewalks on either side of a river of poop water, but thankfully it was a bit better than I had thought. It is a museum so there were things to read and tunnels to follow underground, but seriously, the poop river is like two feet below you and wide open so you can literally see all of Paris' waste. Imagine a look out deck to see a distant waterfall or something. Ya, not a crystal spring like the ones at home. Stinky and very Jean Valjean with hommage to Victor Hugo's "Les Miserables" as part of the tour. But GROSS! I thought I was tougher than how I'm pretty sure I acted and definitely felt. Got that one off my list. (Gagggg)
After the sewers, we were in desperate need of some chocolate; both to fill our nostrils with some non-toxic air, and to reward ourselves for having done something disgusting and brave (dumb?)
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