Woke up at the hostel, took a few moments to plot my route, and set off.
First up, breakfast! I’d found a phenomenally reviewed bakery. I ordered a croissant and a big chunk of brioche bread with chocolate. It was hilarious after my 0-carb stint with Martin. The croissant was delicious, crispy and soft like the crepe, and was almost too buttery. (I didn’t think that was possible). The brioche was if anything even better. It tasted like pound cake set with chunks of chocolate, but with a chewier, moister texture.
I finished my brioche and arrived at the Musee Arts et Metiers. I walked in and showed my European residence card (which is now expired but nobody seems to care) and got in for free!
The first exhibit had a really cool old astrolabe. I realized I didn’t actually know what an astrolabe was used for or how it worked, so I looked it up. It was this crazy catch-all device with latitude-dependent star charts that could be used for about 8 billion calculations. As far as I could tell, you could only observe the altitude of celestial objects, but then you could use all the cleverly organized data on the astrolabe to make all sorts of inferences.
The next exhibit had all sorts of crazy chemistry equipment, including safety masks and goggles, from Lavoisier’s original laboratory. Super badass!
The exhibits went on and on. Some dedicated to clocks and clockmaking, some devoted to the elaborate experimental setups involved in the calculation of the speed of light–I read an explanation but still don’t really understand how they worked–some devoted to industrial setups for the making of paper and ceramics… the place was endless! And my time was finite. I had to meet Eleonore on her lunch break.
I hauled through into a chapel with a Foucault’s Pendulum and some exhibits on cars and early planes, into a library, into a beautiful room with a bicycle-powered flying machine that looked like a bat. I got some postcards on the way out and walked out just as Eleonore was arriving. She gave me a great hug–candidate for best hugger among all my hugging friends–and we were off to a favorite crepe place. On the way we talked about Eleonore’s internship–she was doing some quasi-consulting, design thinking, user survey stuff and having lots of fun–and my time in Switzerland. We started with a jug of cider at the creperie and decided to split a very classic crepe and Eleonore’s favorite (goat cheese, apple and bacon) between us. Man, it was good! The cider was quite weak, like slightly alcoholic apple juice, but it had a really nice flavor. And Eleonore’s favorite crepe was a hands down winner :D :D
Eleonore had to leave to get back to work but ordered me a dessert crepe before she went. That was also delicious. She recommended I visit this interesting historical chapel next. I also got into the chapel free :D (if you’re EU between 18 and 26, I think you get into nearly everything free). It would have been better with Eleonore there–the audioguide was hard to follow. But it was a very cool place. One of the early Louis’s had bought the original Crown of Thorns and housed it there, in his private place of worship. Everything was covered with the Fleur-de-Lis. The windows were covered with very elaborate scenes, which were very hard to read. There was a lot of interesting history surrounding what happened to the building in the Revolution and when it was restored, which I would have gotten from Eleonore, but as it was it was hard to make out.
I took a lap around the Notre Dame and along the river. Then I hit a post office to mail my postcards–I’d decided to send some to Professor Olmstead and advisor Margot after they found and nominated me for a scholarship in my absence :)
I walked to a very picturesque garden whose name I should probably know–it had a big government building, and semicircular arcades with lots of statues. It looked familiar. Then I went to the Musee d’ Orsay. Unfortunately I’d spent too long at the park and they stop letting people in an hour before closing. Well, I’ll save my lovely memories of that place a little longer. I walked along the Champs Elysees to the Arche de Triomphe (?), which furnished a little interesting people watching. But I was eager to get back to the hostel. I took a quick metro, plugged in my phone, took a shower. When I got out Eleonore had a plan–I was to meet her at her apartment and we’d get paninis and take them back to the apartment. I hustled out and met her; unfortunately the panini place was closed, so we got some sushi instead. It was really good. I got to meet her mathematician flatmate Yassine and another girl, Florence.
Alas, Eleonore was super busy and needed to get to sleep so I had to bail around 10pm. Forgot my hat and came back for it–not leaving that behind after so long!
Back to the hostel! It was pretty late. I got my free mini-beer and sat down with my laptop and played some tactics puzzles. I was going up to my room when I saw some people congregating near the foosball table, so I went over and issued a challenge. I gladly paid the 1 EUR to get 8 cork balls–it was another one of those weird tables. A German girl was playing with me, but after we lost a couple of points she switched out for a French guy. We were actually playing dedicated opposition! With some clever rattling, my French pal got two more balls out of the table, so we were playing with 10 total. There were some house rules which worked in our favor, so it came down to the last point to see if we could make a 5-5 draw. The attacker I was defending was relentless and accurate–he knew how to hold the ball underfoot and move it quickly. The last point must have lasted 5 minutes. I held and held and held and finally smashed one in from the uncle roller. High fives all around. My attacker looked pretty disappointed ;)
Satisfied, I went straight up, set my alarms, and hit the hay.`