Anna Rankin

So, the Père Lachaise Cemetery is a nice, quiet place to walk around and look at dead people’s efforts to not be forgotten. There are a lot of famous folks interred here - Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde, Daumier, Balzac, and many more. We enjoyed the beautiful graves a lot more than hunting for names, however.

This is rushed because we’re about to watch Lilo and Stitch on the using Crystal’s PROJECTOR and my computer is necessary, but here, enjoy some pictures of the La Basilique du Sacré Coeur de Montmartre, or the Sacred Heart Basilica at the top of Paris. It’s gorgeous, and you can go on the roof and into the crypt AND the main church. Awesome.

Disclaimer: I love early 19th century medical drawings and paraphernalia. So when we heard about a small medical museum in Paris, we had to go. I apologize if some of this stuff is gross, but it’s really cool to think students were using them to learn with and people actually utilized this stuff back in the day. Squeal!

Anyway the museum was quiet, hidden away in a university, and very small. It was only one room, but this room was chock-full of models, old surgical implements and medical tools. Very cool.

Ok, so here’s one of the most awesome things to date: La Musée des Arts Forains, aka the Carnival Museum.

Crystal had found out about this place, which was only tourable by appointment and in French, and it was on her “must-do” list. I am not sorry she scouted it out, because it was bonafide awe-inspiring. I must have had a look on my face like a kid in a candy store the entire time. There were old carnival rides, tons of carvings, antique (PLAYABLE!!) games, a carousel that you had to pedal because it was made of bikes, animatronic singers and instruments, statues of fish-women, the leader of Turkey as a ride-able centaur… it had everything! We may not have understood our oddball guide, but I think we made up for it in enthusiasm.

Oh yeah, the Eiffel Tower! I’d forgotten - that’s where Crystal and I went on our first day. It was smaller than the movies led us to believe, but still huge and impressive. It was the tiny details that we liked the best. I got to creepily use my Chinese skills to ask tourists if they wanted help taking a picture o_o AWKward

The day after the Lourve trip, Crystal decided to take an amazing cooking class and learn how to be French and make desserts and stuff. I decided to stroll down to the Champs d’Elysees and see what was to be seen. I checked out the Arc d’Triumph and walked allll the way down through a marvelous magical Christmas street market to the park at the other end and rode a Ferris wheel while drinking mulled wine and eating an amazing chocolate/cappuccino mousse puff. Not a bad time!

Also: Batman

Okay, going back to Paris before we get to Italy: The Lourve.

The Lourve is awesome and everyone should go there. The collection is just amazing, particularly the French sculptures and Renaissance paintings. That being said, if a painting is in the Lourve it’s probably because it’s super famous and important, less.. hmm. Not sure how to put it - I want to say “curated” but it’s a museum, of course it’s curated. Well anyway, it’s simply got everything.

Crystal and I wandered around starstruck for quite a while - so many of the paintings were ones we’d studied or written papers on, it was surreal. “OMG ODALISQUE I AM A HUGE FAN CAN I HAVE YOUR AUTOGRAPHHHSDOFNOSDLFN no take your time I can wait.”

I would be remiss if I did not mention that the spelling of “candelabra” required Googling from me.

Crystal and I visited one of the more famous churches in Paris a few days ago. We were struck by its amazing stained glass, sculptures and wonderful paintings, but we were disappointed that we arrived too late to go up to the towers. Hence, we shall return! There were too many photos for me to choose from, so you must make do with these.