Marble Sculpture Cartoon, Bro

I decided to make a cartoon out of the pictures I took in the Greek and Roman Antiquities section of the Louvre.

Arbitrary Paris

More picturesque Paris, with sassy commentary.

We didn't go up it, we just gazed up from down below-- mostly because we were disappointed to learn they closed the zipline ride that ran from the second level a few weeks ago.  Still, it's hard to take a lousy picture of the Eiffel Tower.

I tried to crop all the cops with machine guns out of this picture of the Arc de Triomphe.

You can kinda see why they need the guns though.  I mean, look how badass we look.

Not gonna lie: I nursed this tall cappuccino for ninety minutes, because I'm cheap and this cafe had free wifi.

Also took this artsy selfie there, same cafe.  Owner thought I was a dingbat photographing myself, I could tell.  This shot is me frantically photographing myself while trying not be be seen by him, but because I made it black and white I look supercool and calm.  Also, modest.

See how I have made it look like it never rains in Paris with these pics?  That is a lie of omission.  It has rained a lot. I'm trying to shield you from the bad stuff, guys.  You're welcome.

Soph pointed out these Mona Lisa dinner napkins and the other million different Mona Lisa products sold in the gift shop of the Louvre. "I love how they really downplay the fact that they have the Mona Lisa here," she said.  I realize now that I'm posting this that I took no pictures of the actual Mona Lisa painting itself, but I have at least six pictures of all the ML merch you can buy.  What does that say, exactly?

"Again Mom?  Really?" Soph said for about the hundredth time when I stopped to take this.  "Shut up, I'm artsy," I replied.

This is in fact how we spend most of our time, on the Metro. At least one of us is practicing our 'blue steel' look like a pro.

Sophie in the middle of traffic in the middle of the Champs-Elysees.  I wanted to get a better shot since this one has her eyes closed but I also wanted us both to live, so this is it.

The Quaintness of the French

Paris is .... quaint.  Isn't that what people love about it?  Everyone has a tiny, swirly wrought iron balcony you can't stand on.  People bring their tiny dogs into tiny shops. The cappuccino you order in a streetside cafe at a quaint little table is served in a tiny cup with a tiny spoon. When you buy lettuce at the grocery, you can't get a big head of lettuce but you can get a package of three tiny heads of lettuce, packaged together.  What gives, Paris? Every French person I used to have as a restaurant boss and that I've played soccer with over the years has a massive French ego, so something is amiss.

The other day at the Musee D'Orsay we saw the lovely Van Gogh painting of his room in Arles.  Our room is almost exactly like this.  We literally have these same chairs and table thingy. (The router and washing machine in our room are marginally newer though.  And if Vincent had to deal with the hundred tiny steps it takes to get up here and the spotty wifi we get with that router, I guarantee you he would have cut off the other ear too, plus other stuff.  And he probably would have painted the router yellow, with swirls for the flashing lights.)

The problem with all this quaintness is that Sophie is nearly six feet tall and we have to live here.  The poor girl has to duck in doorways and stairwells and kneel in the shower here, which was not mentioned in the airbnb rental listing, which should read 'petite, seulement, sil-vous-plait.'  The stove is bloody adorable and the fridge is the quaintest, tiniest thing ever, so it's a good thing models don't get to eat much food (although our hosts left all their condiments and a dozen beer in the fridge using up more than half its space which I might quaintly drink and not replace before we go.  Adorable, right?)

Plus I feel I have to mention the size of the elevators in the city, which are-- you guessed it-- quaint.  I mean, don't get me wrong, I love it that they exist but they're all so very old and coffin-like.  Many are less than six feet in height and narrow across too-- today the two of us went in one and we had to slide sideways and quaintly suck in our guts just to get in there and get the door shut (ok, yes, I had to do that.  Sophie... no).  Our purses were almost a deal breaker. So quaint!  How, when you're in an elevator that size, do you not immediately wonder what would happen if there was a problem and you were stuck in there for hours?  I realize now of course that it wouldn't matter anyway since we would run out of air in less than a minute.

Perhaps this is why Vincent Van Gogh saw everything in swirls. He got stuck in a French elevator and was oxygen deprived from all the quaintness. I like to imagine that in the storage room of the Musee D'Orsay there's an odd old Van Gogh painting of a tiny elevator propped up against a wall and the curator just looks at it and shakes his head thinking "Why did you paint this, Vincent?  I can never display it, no one will understand it.  Why did you go crazy and do all these weird ones?!" But we know the real story.

Imposter Syndrome

Models have to go to casting calls the way an actress would: they show up and be friendly and hand over a big business card with their picture on it and get looked at and photographed and then they leave.  Doing it in Paris is a whole different thing though.  Today, Sophie went to one located just off the Champs-Elysees and we felt like serious imposter dorks.

The building is fancy so there's codes to get inside. We have the codes; we try the codes, we screw up the codes, we try the codes again.  We don't freak out quite yet, because we're early. Besides this gives us time to remember to get Sophie to take out her invisalign retainer thingies and change out of her three dollar Old Navy flip flops into the high heels the agency bought for her.  (Even I know those flips flops are SO last year.)  While she does all this I see if I can get on some kind of free wifi nearby and Dior comes up as an option.  Uh, what?  I feel like Dior would know it was me trying and laugh like the wicked witch in the Wizard of Oz so I don't try.  We are still trying to figure out what to do so Soph attempts to look model cool while I take a picture of her.

We realize the reason the code hasn't worked is because we forgot to enter the A or B after the number part, even though that was a super obvious thing.  I feel like this isn't the best time to make an argument that models are actually smart..... which they are!  Anyway, we do that, and it works.  We are in. It's the fanciest building I've ever seen. I force Sophie to pose by the staircase because it's so fancy and she freaks out because she's worried people will know we're losers who've clearly never been inside a nice building.  I make her do it anyway.  I'm the mom, and that's how it works.

I want to point out that just outside the frame of this picture is a fancy fire extinguisher.  How are even fire extinguishers fancy?  I don't know how to describe it.  Bedazzled, maybe?  Anyway, at this point we see that there's a tiny little elevator that would hold maximum two regular people but maybe, like, eight models, so we take that upstairs-- because usually we would have to walk up six flights and then we arrive sweaty and panting which puts a bit of a damper on the good impression.

In the elevator we frantically remember that it is a casting for a jewelry company and Sophie is wearing earrings I got her at H&M for the princely sum of $1.50, so we take those out, just in case.

We knock on the door and everyone is lovely and kind and they ask Soph to wear earrings and look off into the distance while sitting in a chair. They take pictures of this while I thank god her ears aren't green from those H&M things this time.  "Is this your first season?" they ask, and for a second we both say nothing, since we're thinking "season of what?!"  (It turns out they weren't talking about the different seasons of Gilmore Girls, but Paris Fashion seasons.  We played dumb and I think it worked.)   The whole thing is over in five minutes or less so we get out as fast as we can before we make any mistakes.  She kicks the shoes off, throws her flip flops back on, and walk to Arc de Triomphe to eat macarons.

I tried to get her to eat this macaron and stare off into the distance while I photographed her just like the earring company but she gave me the finger and just bit into that sucker anyway.

Beauty and the Beast

What a great day we had.  Here's the view from our room at breakfast:

Next was caffeine and a walk, during which a young Parisian guy hit on both of us. Sophie didn't think much of it but.... some of us have to take attention where we can get it.

Then, so much beauty at the lovely Musee D'Orsay:

(This last one is for those of you with OCD, just to get you going. Sorry I couldn't get it any straighter, hehe....)

 But then we spied this.  And decided to go for a ride.

And just as we walked back home, Sophie turned to me and said "We are definitely the luckiest people on earth," and how could I disagree with that?  We walked 25,000 steps in the Paris sunshine today and it was magnificent.

 Oh, and also, this.

Poem for Paris

Awake at four to make a flight

to Paris in the dead of night

only to find our discount plane

made cancellations.  What a pain!

Steve and Han are still ok

to head to Edinburgh today

but Soph and I must make a plan

and get to Paris if we can.

She’s got a meeting there at three

(To be accompanied by me).

The taxi's coming very soon

(at ninety euros it costs the moon)

so the only thing to do is try

to find another flight to fly.

Steve books us one for 9AM

(Expedia is such a gem!)

so off we go, goodbye Milan;

be back in winter if we can.

We drop them first, goodbyes are said

to terminal 2 our taxi heads

but wait!  Guess what? Our flight is wrong

(The tiny violin now plays its song)

because the flight he booked’s at night

BUT 9 PM IS NOT ALL RIGHT!

“We’re screwed,” I say to Soph, aghast;

(I knew this good luck couldn’t last)

so off to ticketing I head

To put our budget in the red.

And for the record, let’s just say

don’t buy a ticket the same day.

There’s better ways to spend your dough

(trying not to think about them though).

So off we go, we’re on Air France

We finally do the happy dance.

We land, we get our bags, we go

But traffic makes our taxi slow

and phones don’t work so we can’t relate

we’re running just a tad bit late.

Now finally there and it’s SO posh

and again I hand out lots more dosh.

Soph goes in, her game face on

while I‘m frumpy, grumpy, pale and wan

in the lobby with the bags

looking at the fashion mags

and before we know it there she is!

(That’s how it works in fashion biz.)

And now we trudge through Paris streets

in search of SIM card, housing, eats.

Travel’s glamour has its cost

cause somehow, always, we get lost

and if you think it still sounds nice

Soph locked herself in bathrooms – TWICE.

My mastercard, it got denied;

my head it aches, my nerves are fried,

and our place is great—it’s tiny, cute

but it’s a workout for the glutes.

(I must admit I almost wept

when climbing up the hundred steps.)

But you know what? We will be fine

there’s croissants, chocolate, and wine

and not to end make it end all rude

But we’re in frickin' PARIS, dude.

Champagne Problems

So, people from Milan do not sweat.  At all.  It's 35 degrees out and high noon and every Milanese lady is coiffed and perfect in a linen dress and heels, and every Milanese gentleman is walking the street in a suit, or at least dress pants and long sleeved shirts, looking cool and sounding cool speaking Italian into a mobile phone. (Obviously wooing someone, all of them. Even if they are on the phone trying to book a colonoscopy, they make it sound sultry.)

"Have you ever noticed that everyone from Milan is either really hot or really old?" Hannah asks.  Not cold, but old.  And truthfully, I kinda had noticed that.

"No one has any back sweat either," I said, jealously.

"Well one guy had a couple of small spots," she countered, and I foolishly disagreed, which caused a rather furious debate about mens back sweat which I will not go into here, for your sake.  Heat like this makes people dumb.  When I said "Let's cool ourselves off by thinking about cold stuff!" Hannah went first and said "Okay, the airplane from Vancouver was cold," and I countered with the gem  "Yeah," and then that was as far as we could go-- neither of us could come up with anything good like gelato, or cold beer, or stepping outside in the first snowfall of the year.  We just trudged forward, like wartime soldiers in single file, on the shady side of the street, towards home.

At one point we went into a store just because it was air conditioned, and picked up things to try on which we had no intention of buying.  Hannah turned and looked at me and loudly said "Jeez Mum, you look like you've been in a swimming pool."

Aren't teenagers are fun?  "But in a totally sexy way right, Han?"

"Oh my god Mum, just... no."

At least that made her walk away for a second so I could sweat in private.

Fifteen glorious minutes of air conditioning in that store and I still hadn't stopped...er... glowing. But we had to leave since anyway it wasn't getting any cooler outside.  How did we get home?  When we finally did we had to suffer the indignity of sitting on the stairs outside our door while I hunted through my enormous purse for the key, and as I did this Hannah, furious at having to wait even one more minute, looked at me with the disdain one might reserve for someone who has admitted to drowning kittens.  Once inside we knocked each other aside, elbows flying, whipping off shirts and skirts and dresses before the door was even shut, each throwing ourselves in front of a fan dramatically in our skivvies.  Who cares that all the windows and blinds were open?  Screw those perfect Milanese people in the apartments across the way.  They would probably turn away in disgust from our uncouth splayed legs anyway.

The final humiliation was that the cold bottle of prosecco waiting in the fridge had a weird string on the top of it and nothing else.  How do you open that?!  No wire cage or cork sticking out like usual. We felt like cavemen opening the first ever bottle of prosecco, banging it on stuff and scratching our heads and crying before finally just googling it and learning you're meant to open it with a corkscrew.  Crazy Italians.

But then finally, gloriously, this: