Paris is an extraordinary city, and I really love it, but there are certain things about it that can become frustrating over time. Certainly the lights of the Eiffel Tower, or the splendor of the Louvre, are not brilliances which quickly fade in the mind, but neither is the annoyance of millions of people being slightly aloof. Although I did my best at French (a language I am not fluent in by any means) I was, at best, a nuisance, and at worse, just another American. That's not to say I didn't enjoy my time in Paris, just that it wasn't the kind of welcome I was expecting. In a previous very brief trip to the city the French had been very kind to me, indeed, so I was a little taken aback by their behavior this trip. Oh well, I suppose most Americans would react poorly to a Frenchman butchering English to ask them a question too.
Paris was always a bit of a special case in my journey. I had been given a briefer period of time to plan my voyage than I had initially thought, and thus I was unable to really set up Paris as well as I would have liked. I figured that this would be not big deal, that I would simply work things out from the road, making calls and emails as I traveled. I have been doing this, and yet, I found it to be of no avail. Paris was a maddeningly fruitless city, as far as my standards are concerned. I did do some things which were very helpful for my project, certainly, and I will detail those shortly, but I was not nearly as busy as I would have liked, and this put my in a worried, annoyed mood during some of my time there. Once I arrived in Paris, having had most of my emails either responded to in the negative or simply ignored, I set about calling potential contacts. I had hoped to study the situation of immigrant healthcare in the country, particularly as it pertained to immigrants from France's former colonies in North Africa, West Africa, and Southeast Asia. To that end I called government officials (almost always too busy to help me, despite my having had success in most other countries with their ilk), hospitals (always suspicious of my motives in requesting information, interviews, or tours, despite my having been able to break through that barrier of suspicion in New Zealand, Australia, India, and Peru), scholars (always too confused by my rather straight forward topic or reluctant to help in fear that I might steal some of their research, despite, once again, my success on having spoken to academics in every other country besides India), etc.
While I was there I was certainly not inactive. I found a treasure trove of helpful and informative shcolarly papers on the subject of interest. I traveled to and saw, to one extent or another, several famous, representative, and noteworthy hospitals (including the first pediatric hospital in the world, the Hôpital Necker - Enfants Malades, or Necker Hospital for Sick Children, the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, one of the largest teaching hospitals in Europe, and the oldest hospital of Paris, the Hôtel-Dieu de Paris). I also traveled and visited briefly the Ministry of Health and Sport. And despite all of my early frustrations, I did get on the phone with one women at the High Authority for Health who was quite helpful, although she never did provide her name so that I could thank her properly for her assistance. So, clearly I was not inactive; I did have a good deal of success in the city in finding information and research to use in my project. I was simply a little put off by what I sensed was a reluctance to help the American student, whereas in the other countries I had traveled to there seemed to be exceeding goodwill and desire to help me as much as possible. This was, clearly, a cultural difference, or simply a result of my inability to speak proper French, but more the former than the latter I think. I did not let this slower pace deter me from a few important things. A) I took a bit of a respite from the hectic travel research of the previous four countries and B)I used this time not only to pursue scholarly articles and papers to use in my own project but also to conduct some advance planning for my next two (and last two) stops, Geneva and Peru. I would be going to Geneva for a meeting with a few representatives of the World Health Organization and to Peru to meet specifically with the head of the KausayWasi Clinic in Coya.
Now, having detailed in short order what I did during my time conducting research, I will take the rest of this post over for the purposes of detailing my free time and "sightseeing" in the City of Lights, as they call it. I had a very good time, and I saw an amazing amount of things, helped partly, I suppose, by the breakneck speed at which I visited and toured around the city in order to leave myself a good amount of time every day to work and attempt to find contacts. On Saturday the 17th I woke up at 5:00 in the morning in order to get from Mike's apartment to the St. Pancras Rail Station in London. I would be taking the chunnel to Paris' Gare d'Nord. After some initial trouble getting my ticket I managed to find it, and was whisked through security. Unexpectedly I then had to pass through French immigration control, and so I have been given the truly odd passport stamp stating that I entered France in London. The train ride was mostly uneventful, and I slept for most of it, but the moments of shooting into and out of tunnels really made it obvious how fast we were moving, i.e. extremely. After arriving in Paris I went over to the place I would be staying, near the Gare de l'Est metro station, and settled in. It was a nice place, and I was sure I wouldn't have any trouble with it for the next little while. For the rest of my first day in Paris, still a little tired from all the travel, I took it easy, just going out for some cheap Turkish food and a quick stop in the supermarket. The only other noteworthy event that day was the large Kurdish protest that moved down the Rue de Magenta later on in the early evening, which brought everyone out onto their balconies to see what all the noise was about.
The next day I took one of those "oh so touristy" double decker buses in order to see the city and get my bearings for the remainder of my stay. I felt bad being surrounded by family bedecked in sunscreen and fanny packs, but there really is no better way to quickly see a city and to figure out directionally where you are in relation to everything you might want to see or do. The bus took me past all the main sights, but I did get off on the Ile de la Cite for a quick break. I took a walk down the left bank of the Seine and had lunch in a small Italian place. While I was strolling I saw the Palace of Justice, the Hotel Dieu, and several other sights. On the bus I was fortunate enough to see the Madellaine Church, the Garnier Opera, the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, and all the major sights of the city. After lunch I walked over to a small South Tunisian Bakery, and had some out of this world baklava. After the day of busing around, having also seen the Moulin Rouge and the burlesque district (why this family oriented tour went by a neighborhood housing an establishment known as the "Sexodrome" is beyond me, and I apologize if it offends any of the readers of this blog's sensibilities), I went back to my place and chilled with some bread and cheese. I will say that Paris has really found out how to eat. it is ludicrously inexpensive to have pastry for breakfast and bread and cheese for dinner. This is the way it should be everywhere, in my opinion.
Now, in order not to bog down in a day to day style of blog, I will go over what I saw, or at least the noteworthy things I saw, and then we will be off to the next stop on my trip, Geneva. I was very pleased with my time in Paris, and the rich history and culture of the monuments and buildings I visited certainly added to that. I spent one day visiting the Louvre, Tuleries Garden, Arc de Triomphe, and Avenue Champs d'Elysees. The Louvre, let it be said, is a decadent, opulent, splendid piece of architecture. It is as astounding to look at the palace itself as the artwork which it houses, and it houses some fairly astounding artwork. I spent hours inside, and I still feel like I only scratched the very surface of the collection. Of course I wandered past the two hallmark pieces of the Museum, the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo. They were both surrounded by throngs of people, and, in my opinion, also by much more stunning artwork. The sculptures in the hall with the Venus, in particular, were absolutely extraordinary. Really, even though artwork from this time period (1500 - 1800) is not really my favorite, I couldn't help but be impressed and taken aback by what I saw. My favorites were easily the Persian blue tiled collection, the hall of French statues, and the large tablet featuring Hammurabi's Code written in the original Cuneiform. As a student of political science, it was very neat to get to have seen the first legal code in the world (Hammurabi's) and the first document of rights (the Magna Carta) on the same trip.
The Tuleries were an immense palatial garden which had once been the private playground of the royal court which resided in the Louvre. It was a very well manicured garden, and when I had finished walking through it I took the Metro over to the Arc de Triomphe. This monument to the armies of Napoleon is a grand thing, if a bit ostentatious. I really like it, though, especially the view from the top, which is much better than any other view in the city. The perspective that you can get, going down past all the avenues and wide boulevards is just beautiful.
I then took the next day going to the Cathedral of Notre Dame, the Crypte de Parvis, the Cluny/Museum of the Middle Ages, and the Pantheon. The Cathedral is a real masterpiece of Christian architecture. While I would never wish for all churches to look like it, I am very pleased that one does. Its iconic towers and the enormous rose windows, which are brilliant from the interior, are testaments to how the power of God can inspire men to create visions of heaven on Earth. I don't mean to sound so poetic, but the beauty of religious structures is something I really enjoy, and the Cathedral is no exception. The Crypt is right under the square in front of the cathedral, and it is one of the most overlooked major tourist attractions in the city. It features the remains of Roman, Medieval, and Renaissance Parisian buildings, in a very interesting exhibit. I am very upset that this place does not receive as much notoriety as it deserves, because it is a very cool place to visit. Next I went to the Cluny, but this was a very short stop, because it was closed on Mondays. From there I walked to the Pantheon. Originally built to be a church for royalty, it was reclaimed after the French Revolution to act as a final home for France's heroes, great minds, and patriots. The building is impressive enough, but it is what is inside that is the true treasure. In the main hall are statues of great French men and women, as well as Focault's pendulum, which is a very neat mathematical tool which changes its rotation each hour as the Earth moves below it. Downstairs is the crypt, where are housed the tombs of France's greatest minds, including Voltaire, the Curies, and many others. Surprisingly there was also a memorial to the actions and life of one Toussant L'Overture, despite the fact that he revolted against the French in leading the Haitian Revolution.
I also went to the Musee d'Orsay, which is my favorite museum of the trip. It is an immense museum housed in an old, and very elegant, train station, and the collection focuses on art from the 1800's through to the first half of the 20th century. This includes impressionist artwork, which tends to be my choice in any selection of favorite artwork. The paintings of Monet, Manet, Cezanne, Van Gogh, and others were all there to move my heart. Needless to say, I spent a good deal of time there. I even found my favorite painter of all time there, or at least his artwork, in the painting of Paul Signac. This day I also stopped in a French pastry shop after lunch, where I picked up a meringue, which was the size of a football. I then went to the most interesting non-artwork museum of the trip thus far, the Museum of the French Legion of Honor and Orders of Chivalry. This museum is dedicated to the various Heraldic Orders of the nations of the world. They have a copy of the various orders from most countries on the planet, or at least those that give such orders, including the United States (where the orders are the Congressional Medal and the Medal of Honor). The jewels and gold involved in some of these orders, and the extensive collections of some countries, such as the United Kingdom, Spain, and most monarchies, were an awesome sight to behold. It was an extremely worthy museum of the hour I spent there, and I wish it was mentioned in more overviews of the sights of Paris. It is literally right next to the d'Orsay, and so it couldn't be located any better, and yet it was completely empty when I visited. From there I walked to the Orangeries Museum in the Tuleries Garden, which was renovated in order to house the famous lily pad paintings of Monet, which were very beautiful. I also managed to stumble upon a statue of Simon Bolivar along the Seine, donated to the city of Paris by about 15 different Central and South American countries where Biolivar played a role. The man was nothing if not prodigious in his ability to birth nations.
I also stopped by the Centre Georges Pompidou, which was an intriguing building, what with all the pipes placed on the exterior of the building and painted in bright colors, but I was not a fan of the artwork housed inside, which was mostly modern and postmodern in style. The only noteworthy exhibit was a temporary one which focused on the various visions of the future provided by the past, including Las Vegas and EPCOT. In the bookshop of the museum were several books detailing the work of a relative of mine, a Mr. Ed Rusha, which was a very cool find. I spent the remainder of that day visiting the Jewish Museum, which was a moving tribute to the sizeable Jewish population of pre-WWII France and European Jewry as a whole. The documents and paintings on display were simply extraordinary, including the first book ever printed in Portugal (printed in Hebrew I might add) and numerous paintings by renowned artist Marc Chagall. In their bookshop I found some very interesting books, one on learing Ladino and another on the arguments put forth in past Latke-Hamantash debates at the University of Chicago. I decided right then and there that I need to make this debate a reality at the University of Miami. I also quickly stopped by the Jewish Deportation Memorial on the Ile de la Cite, which was a moving, somber testament to the lives lost because of the atrocities committed in Paris and France during the Nazi regime, not least of which was the deportation of tens of thousands of Jews to their deaths in concentration camps in Poland and Germany. To finish off this particular day I went to the Galleries Lafayette, in honor of my sister, since it is a very similar immense shopping mall to Harrod's in London. There I found a huge tub of Nutella as well as a 16,000 Euro bottle of wine from before the First World War. Honestly, I can't imagine it being anything but vinegar now.
The next day I took a walk through the Luxembourg Gardens, another of Paris' former palatial gardens that are now given over to the public. This one was very nice, with the French Senate overlooking it on one side and a nice lake in the center where little children could rent toy sailboats and race them against each other. The scene was only interrupted by the unharmonious noises of an American high school band, who began to play (I wish I were making this up) Stars and Stripes Forever before I had a chance to leave. I also walked around and under the Eiffel Tower, although I did not go up it because this would have taken an entire day, what with the lines being the way they were. That night I climbed atop the Arc de Triomphe for a view over the city once all the nighttime lights were on. It was an enchanting sight, especially once the Eiffel Tower lit up.
On Sunday the 25th I went over to the Champs d'Elysees and watched the Tour de France as it finished up in Paris. It was a fun experience, and the French treat the event like their Super Bowl. To watch that many cyclists go around a tight track in such well organized packs would have been entertaining enough, but there was also the spectacle of the advertising floats, which came before the cyclists and played loud music and threw things to the adoring crowd. There were large numbers of Spaniards and Luxembourgers present, as a result of the top two contenders for the prize being from those two countries, but the most boisterous nation, by far, were the Norwegians, for no obviously discernible reason. The next day I went to the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, which is a glorious, Byzantine style church built up on a hill in Montmartre in gleaming white stone. I also took the yellow Metro line out its terminus in the Defense area of Paris, where they have built an artificial CBD. The buildings are very urban, and reminiscent of Manhattan, but with their own indescribable French flair.
The next day, the 27th of July, was my last in Paris, and so I did something I had wanted to for a long time, ever since my mother had given me the idea. I took the Metro out to the Catacombs, where I quickly found myself in a terribly long line. I waited in said line for about two hours before I finally made it all the way to the entrance of the Catacombs system. The reason for this was that there was a set number of visitors allowed in the complex at a time, and so no more could be let in until these exited. I had arrived at 10, when the complex opened, but I was beaten to the chase by a significant number of people. Once I had gotten in I was led down a hallway, at the end of which I found a stairwell. This stairwell led me down, down below the city, below the sewers, and below the Metro system. Once down in the cool, damp, dark tunnels of the Catacombs I had to walk a long, solitary, spooky pathway to the first tombs. Once there the complex soon began to show its most extraordinary sights. I was soon surrounded by the skulls, femurs, and bones of millions of Parisians, placed here centuries ago when the city's funerals had lost their ability to deal with more corpses. The bones down in the Catacombs are intricately arranged into religious displays, and the effect is certainly macabre, if not downright evil at times. The number of bones really put into perspective how many people used to live in this city, down through the centuries. Once I was done there I went back to my place for the night, had dinner at a Jewish deli, and packed my bags to move on tomorrow to my next port of call, Geneva, across the border in Switzerland.
The next day I took one of those "oh so touristy" double decker buses in order to see the city and get my bearings for the remainder of my stay. I felt bad being surrounded by family bedecked in sunscreen and fanny packs, but there really is no better way to quickly see a city and to figure out directionally where you are in relation to everything you might want to see or do. The bus took me past all the main sights, but I did get off on the Ile de la Cite for a quick break. I took a walk down the left bank of the Seine and had lunch in a small Italian place. While I was strolling I saw the Palace of Justice, the Hotel Dieu, and several other sights. On the bus I was fortunate enough to see the Madellaine Church, the Garnier Opera, the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, and all the major sights of the city. After lunch I walked over to a small South Tunisian Bakery, and had some out of this world baklava. After the day of busing around, having also seen the Moulin Rouge and the burlesque district (why this family oriented tour went by a neighborhood housing an establishment known as the "Sexodrome" is beyond me, and I apologize if it offends any of the readers of this blog's sensibilities), I went back to my place and chilled with some bread and cheese. I will say that Paris has really found out how to eat. it is ludicrously inexpensive to have pastry for breakfast and bread and cheese for dinner. This is the way it should be everywhere, in my opinion.
Now, in order not to bog down in a day to day style of blog, I will go over what I saw, or at least the noteworthy things I saw, and then we will be off to the next stop on my trip, Geneva. I was very pleased with my time in Paris, and the rich history and culture of the monuments and buildings I visited certainly added to that. I spent one day visiting the Louvre, Tuleries Garden, Arc de Triomphe, and Avenue Champs d'Elysees. The Louvre, let it be said, is a decadent, opulent, splendid piece of architecture. It is as astounding to look at the palace itself as the artwork which it houses, and it houses some fairly astounding artwork. I spent hours inside, and I still feel like I only scratched the very surface of the collection. Of course I wandered past the two hallmark pieces of the Museum, the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo. They were both surrounded by throngs of people, and, in my opinion, also by much more stunning artwork. The sculptures in the hall with the Venus, in particular, were absolutely extraordinary. Really, even though artwork from this time period (1500 - 1800) is not really my favorite, I couldn't help but be impressed and taken aback by what I saw. My favorites were easily the Persian blue tiled collection, the hall of French statues, and the large tablet featuring Hammurabi's Code written in the original Cuneiform. As a student of political science, it was very neat to get to have seen the first legal code in the world (Hammurabi's) and the first document of rights (the Magna Carta) on the same trip.
The Tuleries were an immense palatial garden which had once been the private playground of the royal court which resided in the Louvre. It was a very well manicured garden, and when I had finished walking through it I took the Metro over to the Arc de Triomphe. This monument to the armies of Napoleon is a grand thing, if a bit ostentatious. I really like it, though, especially the view from the top, which is much better than any other view in the city. The perspective that you can get, going down past all the avenues and wide boulevards is just beautiful.
I then took the next day going to the Cathedral of Notre Dame, the Crypte de Parvis, the Cluny/Museum of the Middle Ages, and the Pantheon. The Cathedral is a real masterpiece of Christian architecture. While I would never wish for all churches to look like it, I am very pleased that one does. Its iconic towers and the enormous rose windows, which are brilliant from the interior, are testaments to how the power of God can inspire men to create visions of heaven on Earth. I don't mean to sound so poetic, but the beauty of religious structures is something I really enjoy, and the Cathedral is no exception. The Crypt is right under the square in front of the cathedral, and it is one of the most overlooked major tourist attractions in the city. It features the remains of Roman, Medieval, and Renaissance Parisian buildings, in a very interesting exhibit. I am very upset that this place does not receive as much notoriety as it deserves, because it is a very cool place to visit. Next I went to the Cluny, but this was a very short stop, because it was closed on Mondays. From there I walked to the Pantheon. Originally built to be a church for royalty, it was reclaimed after the French Revolution to act as a final home for France's heroes, great minds, and patriots. The building is impressive enough, but it is what is inside that is the true treasure. In the main hall are statues of great French men and women, as well as Focault's pendulum, which is a very neat mathematical tool which changes its rotation each hour as the Earth moves below it. Downstairs is the crypt, where are housed the tombs of France's greatest minds, including Voltaire, the Curies, and many others. Surprisingly there was also a memorial to the actions and life of one Toussant L'Overture, despite the fact that he revolted against the French in leading the Haitian Revolution.
I also went to the Musee d'Orsay, which is my favorite museum of the trip. It is an immense museum housed in an old, and very elegant, train station, and the collection focuses on art from the 1800's through to the first half of the 20th century. This includes impressionist artwork, which tends to be my choice in any selection of favorite artwork. The paintings of Monet, Manet, Cezanne, Van Gogh, and others were all there to move my heart. Needless to say, I spent a good deal of time there. I even found my favorite painter of all time there, or at least his artwork, in the painting of Paul Signac. This day I also stopped in a French pastry shop after lunch, where I picked up a meringue, which was the size of a football. I then went to the most interesting non-artwork museum of the trip thus far, the Museum of the French Legion of Honor and Orders of Chivalry. This museum is dedicated to the various Heraldic Orders of the nations of the world. They have a copy of the various orders from most countries on the planet, or at least those that give such orders, including the United States (where the orders are the Congressional Medal and the Medal of Honor). The jewels and gold involved in some of these orders, and the extensive collections of some countries, such as the United Kingdom, Spain, and most monarchies, were an awesome sight to behold. It was an extremely worthy museum of the hour I spent there, and I wish it was mentioned in more overviews of the sights of Paris. It is literally right next to the d'Orsay, and so it couldn't be located any better, and yet it was completely empty when I visited. From there I walked to the Orangeries Museum in the Tuleries Garden, which was renovated in order to house the famous lily pad paintings of Monet, which were very beautiful. I also managed to stumble upon a statue of Simon Bolivar along the Seine, donated to the city of Paris by about 15 different Central and South American countries where Biolivar played a role. The man was nothing if not prodigious in his ability to birth nations.
I also stopped by the Centre Georges Pompidou, which was an intriguing building, what with all the pipes placed on the exterior of the building and painted in bright colors, but I was not a fan of the artwork housed inside, which was mostly modern and postmodern in style. The only noteworthy exhibit was a temporary one which focused on the various visions of the future provided by the past, including Las Vegas and EPCOT. In the bookshop of the museum were several books detailing the work of a relative of mine, a Mr. Ed Rusha, which was a very cool find. I spent the remainder of that day visiting the Jewish Museum, which was a moving tribute to the sizeable Jewish population of pre-WWII France and European Jewry as a whole. The documents and paintings on display were simply extraordinary, including the first book ever printed in Portugal (printed in Hebrew I might add) and numerous paintings by renowned artist Marc Chagall. In their bookshop I found some very interesting books, one on learing Ladino and another on the arguments put forth in past Latke-Hamantash debates at the University of Chicago. I decided right then and there that I need to make this debate a reality at the University of Miami. I also quickly stopped by the Jewish Deportation Memorial on the Ile de la Cite, which was a moving, somber testament to the lives lost because of the atrocities committed in Paris and France during the Nazi regime, not least of which was the deportation of tens of thousands of Jews to their deaths in concentration camps in Poland and Germany. To finish off this particular day I went to the Galleries Lafayette, in honor of my sister, since it is a very similar immense shopping mall to Harrod's in London. There I found a huge tub of Nutella as well as a 16,000 Euro bottle of wine from before the First World War. Honestly, I can't imagine it being anything but vinegar now.
The next day I took a walk through the Luxembourg Gardens, another of Paris' former palatial gardens that are now given over to the public. This one was very nice, with the French Senate overlooking it on one side and a nice lake in the center where little children could rent toy sailboats and race them against each other. The scene was only interrupted by the unharmonious noises of an American high school band, who began to play (I wish I were making this up) Stars and Stripes Forever before I had a chance to leave. I also walked around and under the Eiffel Tower, although I did not go up it because this would have taken an entire day, what with the lines being the way they were. That night I climbed atop the Arc de Triomphe for a view over the city once all the nighttime lights were on. It was an enchanting sight, especially once the Eiffel Tower lit up.
On Sunday the 25th I went over to the Champs d'Elysees and watched the Tour de France as it finished up in Paris. It was a fun experience, and the French treat the event like their Super Bowl. To watch that many cyclists go around a tight track in such well organized packs would have been entertaining enough, but there was also the spectacle of the advertising floats, which came before the cyclists and played loud music and threw things to the adoring crowd. There were large numbers of Spaniards and Luxembourgers present, as a result of the top two contenders for the prize being from those two countries, but the most boisterous nation, by far, were the Norwegians, for no obviously discernible reason. The next day I went to the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, which is a glorious, Byzantine style church built up on a hill in Montmartre in gleaming white stone. I also took the yellow Metro line out its terminus in the Defense area of Paris, where they have built an artificial CBD. The buildings are very urban, and reminiscent of Manhattan, but with their own indescribable French flair.
The next day, the 27th of July, was my last in Paris, and so I did something I had wanted to for a long time, ever since my mother had given me the idea. I took the Metro out to the Catacombs, where I quickly found myself in a terribly long line. I waited in said line for about two hours before I finally made it all the way to the entrance of the Catacombs system. The reason for this was that there was a set number of visitors allowed in the complex at a time, and so no more could be let in until these exited. I had arrived at 10, when the complex opened, but I was beaten to the chase by a significant number of people. Once I had gotten in I was led down a hallway, at the end of which I found a stairwell. This stairwell led me down, down below the city, below the sewers, and below the Metro system. Once down in the cool, damp, dark tunnels of the Catacombs I had to walk a long, solitary, spooky pathway to the first tombs. Once there the complex soon began to show its most extraordinary sights. I was soon surrounded by the skulls, femurs, and bones of millions of Parisians, placed here centuries ago when the city's funerals had lost their ability to deal with more corpses. The bones down in the Catacombs are intricately arranged into religious displays, and the effect is certainly macabre, if not downright evil at times. The number of bones really put into perspective how many people used to live in this city, down through the centuries. Once I was done there I went back to my place for the night, had dinner at a Jewish deli, and packed my bags to move on tomorrow to my next port of call, Geneva, across the border in Switzerland.
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