After a night of blister-popping (sorry, but hearing about it can't be anywhere near as painful as experiencing it) I woke up with really sore calves and aching feet. deterred Pushing past the pain, I set out for breakfast. I had read about a supposedly fantastic market close to where I am staying, and I was hoping to find there some fruit and possibly cheese that I could supplement with a boulangerie item or two for breakfast. The market was not great. It might be better on the weekends, and granted the strawberries I had were so sweet I could eat them with their leaves still on, but that was my first let down of the morning. The boulangerie I had in mind (another recommendation from a blog) was closed and there was a big sign on the door with only two words I understood: "closed" and "police"- not a great combo.
Yesterday, I found a lovely spot to eat my mandatory macaron looking out at people basking on the sun-drenched banks of a small canal close to Bastille. Having failed in the bread and cheese department and quickly approaching my chosen picnic spot, I decided that my punnet of strawberries would have to do.
The beautiful grassy areas I had seen people sunbaking on yesterday had the sprinklers going so I had to sit on the stone edging of the grass, which was pleasant until some crazy gardener came over talking to me in French about my strawberries. I explained that I didn't speak french and couldn't understand him but he continued to babble wildly in French, then proceeded to try and grab the strawberries out of my hand, and kept saying the word "allergic". I had to rescue my bag from being drenched by the hose he was watering the flowers with, and as I stood up to get away from him my camera fell from my lap into a puddle.
So I faced my metro aversion head on and made my way to Jardin du Luxembourg where I planned to read my book in peace until it was time to head to the Tim Burton Exhibition at the Musee du Cinémathèque that I had pre-booked tickets for. In the spirit of wanting to see as much of Paris as I could I got off the metro at the Hôtel de Ville so I could walk through Île de la Cité. This was a bad idea. I was hounded by vendors, beggars, and people wanting donations for charities, all of them making the mistake of thinking I had any money to give them. Also I grossly misjudged how far the gardens were from here. 28 degrees, bad mood, screaming feet. I was desperate for some aircon, a seat and a drink so I popped into the McDonalds right next to the gardens. I sat with my drink lamenting the events of the morning. I considered finding the nearest metro and just going back to my hotel, I was just in no mood to enjoy myself. But, since I had made such an effort to get there, I decided I should at least look at the gardens.
This was where the day lifted. These gardens are my new favorite spot in Paris. There were kids playing, toy boats on a pond, a beautiful palace and best of all grass you were ALLOWED to sit on. I truly lost track of time lying there in the sun, reading my favorite book, laughing quietly at this guy who was doing a mixture of breakdancing and karate.
Luckily I set the alarm in my phone to give me enough time to get to the Tim burton exhibition, otherwise i would have been there til sundown. The travel gods did their best to ruin my trip to Tim Burton, with a sign pointing me the wrong way and my taking the wrong 5 flights of stairs in the museum to end up at the end instead of beginning of the exhibit. But a nice security man lead me through some secret doors to the front and despite him explaining with a little too much enjoyment to the girls taking tickets that I had climbed the wrong stairs and looked so exhausted that he felt sorry for me, my feet were glad he didn't send me down again.
The exhibit had me literally ooh-ing and ah-ing and even laughing out loud. I am a huge TB fan and it was the sole reason I stopped in Paris before I met my friend Rachel in Barcelona. The Nightmare Before Christmas and Sleepy Hollow are among my favourite movies with Edward Scissorhands coming in as my all time favourite. I stood for a good 5 minutes examining every inch of that costume, not to mention repeating over and over in my head "Johnny Depp wore this, Johhny Depp wore this".
I took 2 photos before being told off but it was the same security guy as before so he accepted my excuse that I hadn't seen the signs at the entrance. So a great end to a kind of crappy day. Nothing improves my mood like Depp/Burton magic.
Good to see your day pick up! Would of been a shame to go back to hotel...
ReplyDeleteMcdonalds is always a good place to go if your feeling over everything foreign
I saw that Edward Scissorhands costume when the exhibition was in Melbourne - amazing detail