World Trip

Mexican Princesses

May 30, 2005

Got up early today without any problems and headed off on foot to the Leuven train station, as the busses were not running.

Earlier in the weekend Drew claimed that the cops in Leuven are nonexistent. They are never seen around in public unless something bad happens. Well, Drew, they do exist. As I was walking to the train station I came to an intersection and all the crossing light were red. On the street I was about to cross was a Politie car. So I waited about twenty seconds, no lights changed, no cars drove, so I crossed the street. The cop actually yelled at me. First in Dutch, but then in English when I told him I don't understand him. He tells me the light was reed, as if I did not see that standing on the corner waiting for something to turn green. I told him that his light was red as well so it must have been safe to cross. His light turned green, he said something to me in Dutch that didn't sound too nice, and drove off. Moral of the story: the Belgians take their traffic lights very seriously, unlike anything else in their country. Second moral: I think cops don't like me. God save me when I go to Russia.

I am now on a fast Thalys train cruising fast in the general direction of Paris, where I need to find a hostel and see a lady named Mona Lisa.

I found the hostel without problems. This one is different from most of the other ones. It is huge, and filled with really young kids. There is obviously a mix of people from different countries and different ages, but I never stayed at a hostel with a group of grade school kids. Additionally, the cafeteria reminded me of a cafeteria I used to eat in grade school. Since I got there early I still had time to catch breakfast. While eating two really cool Mexican girls from Hostel Couilancourt ran into me. We started talking and realized that our plans for the day were very similar. We decided to head off to the Leuvre together.

The Leuvre is amazing. Amazing is not even a right word, but since I am not a great writer and the effects of kissing the Blarney stone seem to be wearing off much sooner than the purported seven years, I will have to let you use your imagination. We did the whirlwind tour and saw countless paintings, but decided to concentrate on Greek and Egyptian parts of the museum.

La Jaconda (Mona Lisa) was not in itself impressive. You can get a much better look at it in many other places, since you really cannot get close enough to it to see it like a painting should really be seen. However, the atmosphere in the hall where she hangs is electric. Hundreds of tourists shuffle about and gasp, concentrating on the little Mona painting while ignoring the rest of the amazing artwork that surrounds them. People are taking photos of her probably expecting great results, only to be disappointed when they eventually take a look at them as to how they came out. I personally snapped a photo of the crowd gawking at the Mona Lisa, turned my behind in the general direction and spent a good deal of time admiring the immensely huge depiction of the feast at Canaan that hangs opposite of it.

After spending a few hours walking around as Clara and Monsi took countless snapshots of themselves posing with statues from around the world and throughout time, we decided to get a look at another famous lady that stands in the Greek statue section, armless. Personally I enjoyed the Venus de Milo statue a lot, as here facial expression and graceful pose are truly mesmerizing.

Other parts of the Leuvre that were really enjoyable were the Egyptian mummies and the room that houses the top of a column from the temple of Darius. It's size is indescribable and it is truly humbling. I cannot imagine what a temple of over 100 of such columns would look like. My favorite painting from the Leuvre is a tiny little depiction of Abraham's sacrifice, whose title and painter escape me at this point.

After the Leuvre we were all hungry and on a budget. We walked around for a while, found a little shop where prices were twice as much as those in similar little shops in less famous parts of Paris, yet still reasonable. We got some bread, cheese, and wine and went off to find a place to picnic.

The picnic was nice. The bottle was opened by a Frenchman skilled in arts of opening wine without a corkscrew, by pushing the cork in with his knuckle. After a thorough cleaning of the neck, the wine was good to drink. We ate some bread and cheese and drank some wine. All of a sudden, two police officers approached us. We got a lecture on how it is not allowed to drink alcohol in public in this part of Paris because of all the little kids, who looked suspiciously much like students and vagrants drinking wine in this park. They explained that the fine for such an offense is quite high (150 euros), but were nice enough to let me dump the wine and get off with a warning. I think they felt bad about almost running me over on the previous Thursday.

Fed and quenched, we proceeded to the Notre Dame cathedral, stopping along the way for a crepe with bananas and cinnamon for desert. Besides touring the catacombs, taking a photo from the top of the Notre Dame tower of a gargoyle overlooking the city was the only other thing I really wanted to do in Paris. Unfortunately, my plan was thwarted because the top of the tower was closed, so we went into the church and partook of a short mass.

After more relaxing around the square in front of the Notre Dame we went back to the Leuvre and down Champ Ulysses (sp?) towards the Arc de Triumph. The only thing that can be said about said Arch is that it is the mother of all arches. The little Arch de Triumph found in Manhattan Square park could take its family of all the other little Arch de Triumphs scattered throughout cities all over the world and have a picnic under the real thing.

Afterwards we veered left and went down to the Eiffel Tower. The plan was to see the sun set from the stair-accessible second level. Needless to say, the stairs closed early, and we opted to sit on a curb and watch the light show and sunset from there.

The evening was amazing. Clara and Monsi were delirious from exhaustion and began to sing songs in Spanish. We ate more bread and cheese, haggled with street vendors trying to sell cheap bling-bling light up Eiffel Towers we had no intentions of buying (they really haggled with us), took tons of photos, and talked. I learned that I spent entire day with two Mexican princesses. We stayed there for over two hours, as no one really wanted to move.

Eventually we made it home on subway, but it took a really long time because somewhere on the line another train had a "tragedie" and we had to detour by three more trains. I hope nothing serious happened, and if it did, I am alright, but "tragedie" was the only thing I could understand from the announcement. Sleep came really easy at night.