Four Americans in Paris

(Left to Right) Me, stepdad John and Mother

PREFACE

I usually don't do personal bio material because my life isn't that exciting and I'm not photogenic. So on this rare occasion, enjoy!

TRIP IN A NUTSHELL

I spent 5 days in Paris with my mother, stepdad and brother. We stayed at the pricey Axial Beaubourg Hotel near Rue de Rivoli/Notre Dame in the heart of Paris. The US dollar is at an all-time low, and Paris is expensive anyway, so the high prices were sort of to be expected. We did the standard touristy things: visited the Notre Dame Cathedral, Latin Quarter, Eiffel Tower, Ecole Militaire, Champs Elysee, Napoleon's Tomb. We took a day trip to see the palace of Versailles, and we also took in L'Arche de Triomphe as well as the newer L'Arche de la Defense. On the last couple of days, we also took in the Louvre Museum, the Moulin Rouge (just looked at it from outside), Sacre Couer Church and the cemetery where Jim Morrison is buried. I'm not spell-checking any of these French names, so beware! :-)

LOUVRE MUSEUM

To see the Mona Lisa, you have to walk down the hallway of Italian painters. My mother took strong objection to two of the pictures. One showed the baby Jesus being nursed by Mary. Problem was, Jesus appeared to be five years old. Am not thinking it was anything kinky myself, just artistic license. Then another picture showed Mary cradling the crucified body of the adult Jesus. For some reason, in this one, her breasts were exposed. My Mother wondered how relevant Mary's breasts were to the topic at hand. I have to admit, there is something weirdly oedipal about these two paintings. I'd have to give Mother the "John Ashcroft" award, because I have a feeling she would be covering up some of the paintings if she could.


Field Marshall Bryan and Mother at Versailles

FIELD MARSHALL BRYAN

The whole time we were there, my brother Bryan was in speed-walking mode. He is physically fit, and likes to cover a lot of territory by foot in one day. Problem is, I'm not so fast, and we had two people in their 70's with us. My Mother has bunions and arthritis, so she was definitely not walking fast. I have this silly thing about vacations - I like to take my time and enjoy the scenery. Like to window shop. Don't like to be rushed! My brother and I "had words" over this. My Mother was about to have heat stroke from too much walking, and we had to use the Metro anyway. My brother was disgusted by all the slow people, and opined that our 72 year old Mother needs to "get in shape" (I guess that means cross train) for a possible trip to Rome next year. Oh, that we could all be obsessive compulsive speed walkers.

JIM MORRISON

Jim Morrison is buried in an old, well-established cemetery. The cemetery has other celebrities (Yves Montand (sp?) and Colette) and many wealthy people are interred there. Instead of gravestones, many graves have monuments - small buildings and statues. Morrison's grave was very modest by comparison - but there were easily 20 people visiting it, and the grave was covered with flowers and votive candles. His grave stone said "James Douglas Morrison 1943-1971". Then below, it had a cryptic Greek phrase that means "fighting the devil within". (Which he was I guess, he overdosed on drugs). What was odd was that there were many new graves with shiny new statuary and dates like 2003 or 2004. How could there still be space in such an old cemetery? A friend at work informs me that French graves are rented! You keep the plot and monument as long as you have survivors or an estate that's willing to pay rent. When the rent stops, the bodies are exhumed and put in a public burial place, wherever that is. One can only imagine what the spirit world thinks about this! Maybe we should all get cremated.

THE FRENCH THINK DIFFERENT

I was amused by some of the Frenchiness I witnessed. In multilevel buildings, the ground level is 0 not 1. Confusion aplenty to someone from Texas. I went to a cyber cafe to send an email to friends in the US. Easy enough -- I'll just use my Yahoo account or AOL Mail web interface, right? Turns out the French keyboard doesn't use QWERTY layout. Furthermore, they have 3 characters per key on many keys! You have to press an 'alt group' key to get the 3rd character -- took me a long time to figure all this out. The trendy French love Apple computer and dislike Microsoft. Guess they have a counterpart in the US (We call them Mac-heads) but over there it seems more universal.

The French use a comma where we use a decimal, so we might be thinking that a shirt is 60,00 Euros, way too expensive. Clearly, you would get used to all of this, but 5 days is probably enough for me en France.

CONCLUSION

We all had a good trip, and my Mother was thrilled to see it all. People could tell we were American a mile away, and I'm still not sure what was giving us away. The Parisians were generally very cordial and welcoming. We had one waiter tell us that he loved us, "but not George Bush". On the next trip, we clearly need to get some cardiovascular training, or my brother will leave us all behind.