When we last left our heroine (aka me), she was sulking in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, wondering what she had done wrong in life to deserve such an unrelenting stream of bad luck.
Luckily, things were only going to (mostly) get better from that point forward. After about an hour spent indulging in self-pitying and childishly wishing to be at home wrapped in a blanket, hugging a teddy bear, and quite possibly reverting to thumb-sucking, I picked myself up and walked back toward the Mosquée de Paris with a defiant air and a look of steely determination. "Forget you, Paris," I said in the FCC-friendly version of my inner monologue. "Forget you and forget your mother. I am Renée forgetting Gauthier, and you have not beaten me yet. Forget, forget, forget."
I arrived at the mosque and found the ticket counter. There seemed to be some sort of hullabaloo; aside from the ticket seller, there were two men standing nearby shouting in Arabic and banging their hands emphatically on the desk. I waited from a safe distance to see how this apparent dispute was going to lay out, but the ticket seller merely smiled at me, took out a ticket, and motioned me forward past the other two men, who were apparently simply having some sort of heated debate rather than engaging in a customer service dispute.
The upside to this was that the ticket guy sold me a student-price ticket, which I was not going to argue with. Despite the fact that I look about eighteen years old, I have not been able to claim student discounts anywhere because of my lack of a valid student ID. It's been killing me, because every place I go ticket sellers will ask, "Are you a student?" and then I have to say no and pay full price. Adulthood: it ain't all it's cracked up to be.
Anyway, the mosque was cool. It didn't blow my mind with its supreme beauty or anything (the fountains were dry and the gardens were sparse, since it was still rather early in the season), but I'd never been to a mosque before and it was cool to look around.
La Mosquée de Paris
After the mosque I headed toward the Seine to meander in the general direction of Sainte Chapelle. I'd never visited it before but my 501 Must-See Destinations book had recommended it and I'd generally heard good things. Along the way I checked out the stalls of used books along the river and cheered up as the sun finally made an appearance after a morning spent hiding behind forbidding-looking clouds.
My first views of Notre Dame reminded me of my last trip to Paris which, it must be noted, had gone rather more smoothly than this one. Nevertheless, the return to somewhat familiar territory brightened my spirits considerably. I thought about taking another look inside Notre Dame, but the line--which stretched all the way across the square and then continued on for a block or so--quickly dissuaded me, and I continued on to Sainte Chapelle.
Sainte Chapelle, built by Louis IX between 1239 and 1248, is a magnificent chapel that was once part of a royal palace within the city. Today Sainte Chapelle and apparently part of the Palais de Justice next door are the only parts that remain of the old building.
The chapel is divided into two floors: the Lower Chapel (which houses a lot of souvenir stalls these days) is relatively low-ceilinged and heavy-looking, with squat arched columns and moderately-sized stained glass windows. The ceiling is painted dark blue with gold stars, although I suspect the paint job was done more recently than the thirteenth century. The Lower Chapel was built for the use of palace staff. It's impressive in its way, but the main draw lies upstairs, in the Upper Chapel.
So up I went, climbing a narrow stone spiral staircase. At my first glimpse of the chapel, my breath caught in my throat. It was, to quote the French lady standing nearby, "magnifique." Sainte Chapelle has gorgeous stained glass windows that stretch nearly from the floor to the heights of the soaring Gothic ceiling. It seems like there is more glass than stone making up the chapel walls, and this gives the chapel an air of extreme delicacy and fragility combined with extraordinary strength. It's really quite remarkable to think about how these glass windows have survived the Reformation, the Revolution, and two world wars, plus eight hundred years of general wear and tear. I mean, I can't even make a pair of boots last beyond a season. (In my defense, Dartmouth winters are really hard on shoes, especially when the pathways get over-salted. My knowledge of medieval chapel maintenance is admittedly limited, but I'm pretty sure road salt doesn't come into it.)
Windows of the Upper Chapel
Sainte Chapelle, now with added scaffolding for your viewing pleasure!
Not even the hordes of tourists could detract (much) from the splendor of this place. The only major distraction was the scaffolding covering three of the windows, which were being restored. (Hey, when you get to be 800, you need a facelift or two. I'm sure Joan Rivers would back me up on this.)
The cloudy weather (the sun had disappeared again) couldn't even ruin the effect, although I can only imagine what Sainte Chapelle looks like with the sun streaming through all the windows. It's easy to see why it's nicknamed "the jewel box."
When I had been waiting in line for Sainte Chapelle, I'd noticed a flyer advertising a Bach concert for around 7 pm. On the way out I decided to be impulsive and I bought a concert ticket for the reasonable price of 16€. Then I walked around in the rain looking for a place to eat dinner. I got soaked through despite my umbrella and the quiche I eventually ate was thoroughly underwhelming, but by this point I had a concert to look forward to so things seemed okay enough. Plus nothing could be worse than the beginning of the day.
I slogged back through the downpour to Sainte Chapelle and took a seat for the concert. I had high hopes that the chapel would warm up a bit once the doors were shut, but no such luck. I was sopping wet and shivery throughout the entire program, but it didn't really dampen (see what I did there?) my mood. Like I said, sometimes it takes the morning (okay, morning and previous evening) from hell to put things in perspective.
The concert was good. Was it the best I'd ever heard? No, but it was still quite lovely, and you really can't beat the venue of an eight-hundred-year-old church. The acoustics were surprisingly underwhelming, but I could hear well enough even though I was near the back.
Much more distracting was the middle-aged Russian lady next to me who seemed to think that stage whispering was the same as actually being silent. Let me just list, in order, the things she did during the concert:
1. Started a conversation with her companions in the middle of a piece
2. Pulled out her cell phone, turned it on, checked for texts
3. Pulled out a SECOND phone, turned it on, started texting
4. Pretended to be a bunny rabbit (?!?!)
5. Giggled uncomtrollably at her own rabbit impression
It was entertaining, I guess, but I would have rather enjoyed without interruption the entertainment I'd actually paid 16€ for.
But after the concert I went back to the hostel, took a long-anticipated hot shower, and had a sound night's sleep free of both annoyed hostel employees and Russian bunny people.
Paris, maybe you ain't so bad after all.
The closest I got to the Eiffel Tower on this whole trip
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