Dessert and D'Orsay Museum

Despite the early bus incident we decided that the metro was our best bet for getting around the city. We would take the metro and then walk several blocks of a neighborhood to get to know it. One day we walked along the south bank of the Seine past several monumental buildings.

That’s the thing with Paris – there are so many beautiful buildings that if you stopped every time you saw something to look it up in the Paris book you’d never get anywhere.

So, we just walked along and took in the sights. Our destination was the Mus’ee d’Orsay.
Originally, a train station it underwent renovation in the 1970’s to become a museum.

This is a museum known for it’s collection of French Impressionists. Now we’re talking my language! And, it only had four floors – hah! We can get through this without getting lost! We cut our teeth on the Louvre!

And, it was so. The collection of Monet’s, Van Gogh’s and Degas were inspiring. These were paintings I actually recognized. When I went into a room and saw one of my favorite Van Gogh’s my heart soared.

Yes, this was art I could sink my teeth into!

After we saw everything we decided to have lunch. It was amazing. Here is a picture of our dessert!



We found that it was almost impossible to get a bad meal in Paris. The night after staggering out of Olivier’s, we walked around the corner and by chance ended up in a restaurant that served wonderful food native to the area. I totally winged it off the menu – couldn’t read a thing except I knew what steak tar-tar looked like and stayed away from. Both our meals ended up delicious and despite the wait staff not knowing a lick of English we had a wonderful experience.
Towards the end of our meal there was a woman and a little girl who sat down who spoke English who were obviously Americans.

Americans in Paris will always speak to each other because no one else will ;-)

When they realized that my sister and I were speaking English, too, the woman stopped us on the way out to chat. Her and her husband had moved to Paris from California and had lived there a year now. She spoke of it being hard to make friends – that they’d made almost none since moving there. They also lived near Olivier’s place and we recommended that she go to his wine tasting.

Later, after reading “Almost French” which is about an Australian woman who moves to Paris to be with her French boyfriend I could understand why this woman was having such a difficult time making new friends. From what I gather, Parisians tolerate tourists but if you move there you will always be an outsider because you were not born there. This is even true for the French who grow up outside of Paris – they, in fact, are even treated like outsiders.

Wilde once said “When they die, all good Americans go to Paris. Some of us have always tried to get there early and beat the crowds.”

It is true – Paris is a paradise that is closed to outsiders. It is a wonderful place to visit but very difficult to live.

Next up: Nortre Dame, St. Eustache and the Picasso Museum