Duck, Duck, Tower!

Thursday May the 29^th saw us travel south of the river to take up residence in the 3 Ducks Hostel, which was quite different from the Woodstock. The 3 Ducks, while clean and cozy, is also sterile and to be blunt, packed with Americans who delight in transporting their own culture across the Atlantic, rather than absorbing that of the country they’re visiting. We (Tripp, Rees, and I) left our bags at the hostel and set out for a day of rest and recuperation, owing to the marathon sprint through several arrondisements the night before and our resulting sore feet. We strolled out to the Champ de Mars in front of La Tour Eiffel, stopping on the way to pick up supplies for our cornucopian midday feast. A ten minute walk saw us splayed out on the grass, staring up at the impressive, industrial tower and enjoying a wonderful dejeuner of bread, cheese, olives, and wine.

Malheuresement, the gods then decided that a nice day like that was prime time for a rain shower, prompting us to head for a sheltered bench to wait out the storm. Tripp and Rees read from their books as I struggled to write legible postcards on my lap. The spattering raindrops actually quite matched the mood of the day, recharging our batteries and gradually conquering our fatigue from numerous late nights and early mornings. Tripp decided that he would brave the rain in search of a bathroom and ventured out into the unknown. Luckily he returned and after the storm let up slightly we walked under the tower and stared up at its intricate ironwork, marveling at the accomplishment that the tower is and was, quite a feat of engineering. There were crowds of tourists wandering the square concrete field under the Eiffel Tower, which made for good people watching opportunities, but also encouraged some rather aggressive beggars to approach anyone they could find and ask the fateful question “speak English?” If the answer is yes they hand you a hand written note on an index card explaining the plight of their family and how desperately they needed your money. This was marked by a somewhat surprising indifference on the part of the young gypsy girls as to whether or not you actually were interested in them, rather they gave off the air of frugal shoppers comparing prices at a supermarket, dropping one can as soon as a better one (more likely to give money) came into view. However you spin it, their presence is a sad testament to the inequality that lives in every modern city today, including the so called “first world”.

We followed Tripp’s nose away from the Eiffel Tower, after being asked politely by an American tourist, “do you fellas know where the Loove is? I think its some kind of museum around here,” and hastily responding in Russian, German, and French as to our general surprise at his expertise on Parisian monuments. Our flaneur-ing led us towards an unmarked door leading down a stairway underground, which ended in a large parking deck. This then took us out somewhere behind what we eventually learned was the Musée Quai Branly, a museum that focuses on multi-cultural and ethnic artifacts and artwork. We were extremely impressed by the building itself, it masterfully created a large inner courtyard and yet managed to arrange the space somehow so that one was led along a path through gardens that semi-circled the building, presenting a different view of the building at every turn. The architect, Tripp learned, was a Frenchman named Jean Nouvell who had created a roof for the inner courtyard of intersecting red and orange triangles and then covered the outside of the museum building with structures to encourage hanging plant growth and protruding boxes of different colors over a background of translucent forest images on the walls. It was a very intriguing structure to walk around, and our wandering brought us to the far end of the space from where we had entered and a wall of overlapping transparent blue glass that was layered with greetings in various languages, most of which shifted in and out of focus depending on your individual perspective. As the museum was already closed, we contented ourselves with the outside of the building and walked back to our hostel. Hoping for a more traditional French meal than the night before we walked around our hostel’s quarter and stumbled upon a wonderful restaurant called “la cuillere en bois” (the wooden spoon), which specialized in galettes, similar to the thin pancakes called “crêpes”, filled with all sorts of savory goodies, such as goats cheese, fried eggs, mushrooms, and onions. The meal began with quiches and for dessert, an assortment of chocolate and fruit filled crêpes, Tripp mistakenly ordered a cup of applesauce. It was a wonderful foray into the delicious universe of French cuisine and feeling completely satiated, we decided to call it an early night and returned to the 3 Ducks to chew the fat and eventually get some well deserved sleep.