8-bit paris

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pour Lise

How to become Parisian in one hour

I DID laugh a lot in this show tonight, and the best thing is: I'm now officially Parisien - so tourists, watch out!!! ;)

Because I'm such a nice person (ehehe), I'll share some of my newly acquired knowledge with you. Summarizing, the basic recipe for achieving parisien-ness seems to be: strip off all your carefully groomed good manners and let the world know it bothers you... I mean, it's just being honest!!
Turns out to be surprisingly hard, even for the supposedly oh-so-rude Germans among us ;) Maybe this sounds a bit simple (it might even be), but then, Parisian habits contrasted with famous American stereotypes, presented by a capable mime really gives an unbelievably funny cocktail, highly appreciated by a very international audience as well as the locals.

Top-down-approach

I've been wanting to post this for ages, but then I did choose not to. Why? Maybe at first the reason is not entirely obvious - some random stairs in some random forest - why should or shouldn't one bother to publish the pictures? Well, the it is kinda straightforward (once known) and a little bit egoistic:

I did not want to scare off my visitors!

Because what you see on these pictures is the only way to get from my room to the train and vice versa, whenever there is no bus (which is on weekdays after 9pm, on sundays, holidays, or when there is yet another strike)...which makes it a close to daily (or nightly, for that matter) experience for people living or working on the campus.

So chances are that one is taking these wonderful stairs at least once when coming to visit (and, no, I was not joking, nor encouraging eco-tourism when I asked if you had a big rucksack ;).

Funnily enough, no-one really bothers informing you about this 'fact' when you prepare your stay at the university, so the first ascension is literally a lot of 'fun', especially if you bring a lot of luggage.. I have seen quite a few people dragging huge suitcases up and down, so the way is lined with the odd cracked stair, or some suitcase handles.

I suppose, so far I do not sound too positive about the whole thing.. but I'd like to stress that - given enough time till the next train departure, and maybe no rain - I quite like the walk DOWN there (on which I had enough breath to hold the camera and take non-shaky pictures..) as there are a lot of birds singing, one can meet echses and hedgehogs, and the wind blowing through the trees is really pleasantly refreshing. So in fact, I appreciate the peacefulness of this walk and prefer it a lot over the bus!

The only part which I don't like is this last bit, and if you look closely, you can see that there are no stairs.. just gaps in the concrete. At first one would think ' how pleasant', but with casual shoes things can get tricky: the whole thing is quite steep and extremely slippery even without rain.. (and maybe you see the 'solution' to the problem on the right side of the pic: they added a handrail!!!) apart from that, the irregularity of the steps and gaps really need some practice and a good eye.
So equipment in this case matters - especially if you have less than 10 minutes to catch your train...

Tourist Weekend

This saturday I finally managed to do one thing being on my list for ages: visiting the famous (and freshly renewed!!) castle of Versailles. On arriving, I was instantly impressed by the size of the castle, but what really amazed me was the fact that on the tourist map I could hardly find it, as its garden is ginormous in comparison. If you don't know what I mean, check it out on google maps!
For entering the castle there is of course a very long queue, which takes up to hours to finish. To save yourself all that time, here is the thing to do: check in your wallet (or wherever you keep it) if you don't aready have a free ticket in the form of your ID card - proving that you're a European citizen and under 26! If yes, you can directly enter the castle (yes, without a ticket)!

palaiseau plage

definitely the most spectacular dining venue on campus - i adore this place, it's magical!

love paris by night

ain't it pretty?

Napoleon and Lisa

Finally, after some months in Paris, I made it to the Louvre!! I'm obviously very proud of myself, culturally aware and so on... (well, to be honest, the weather was awkward, which kinda influenced my planning ;)

As it was my first visit, I originally intended to do it 'the right way' - entering the museum by it's famous pyramide (which was build in 1989 - I was surprised it is actually that old!). But, as on bad weather obviously all the tourists were looking for shelter, there was a huge queue.. forcing me to redefine the 'proper' way of getting in: Getting in without a queue...

It turned out that the side entrance is really good for that! There was one person in front of me, so I got my (free!) ticket in under 3 mins. And no queue for entering the museum either!

In the side wing, I found an amazing collection of original art - traditional art of all kinds of tribes. As there weren't may people visiting it, I decided to give it a look and even got a private guided tour of some of the artworks. Of course afterwards I had to go to the gallery of italian paintings... and this was definitely where my visit became anything but peaceful contemplation of art.

Tourists are literally flooding the corridors, the flashlights of their cameras giving the impression of being in a club, and the noise level getting there too... all leading you to the probably most famous item of Louvre's collection: the Monna Lisa. I had a quick look, as I couldn't be bothered to queue for ages just to get in front of her.

Instead, I dedicated more of my attention to the other amazing pictures hanging on the walls next to Lisa. To her right, I made a funny discovery: there is a portrait of a very elegant lady (presumably an venetian courtisan) which is displayed looking bored out of her mind as no-one is paying her any attention. And, in fact, everyone but me was turning their back to the painting :D

The together of all these impressions later triggered the creations of this collage, called 'Lonely Napoleon' or 'Napoleon and Lisa'...