The Giverny Expedition

Friday led Adam and I to Giverny, the quaint village of Claude Monet’s country home and meticulously manicured gardens. After nearly diving into the train as it was departing from Gare St. Lazare to not be left behind, we found ourselves wedged between two fellow North Americans, a Canadian law student en route to Tanzania and a kindly Alabaman whose background was never disclosed. Obviously, this combination recalls nothing less than Fantastic Four ideals, but, sadly, Adam and I were terribly unimpressed by our chance company. The Canadian woman seemed to have an uncanny ability to judge nearly every city in Western Europe by the amount of hours needed for one to fully appreciate each regions’ unique history and culture. For example, Nice and Cannes could each be “done” in half a day. In her eyes, Eastern Europe was a completely irrelevant land of one toothed eighty year old Slavic women, grimy streets filled with puddles of Chernobyl residues, and, if I’m not mistaken, the entire geographic area is surrounded by a barbed wire fence to keep the goats in. She was a bit more concise, matter-of-factly stating, “There’s no reason to go to Eastern Europe”. Alabaman was missing his accent and was one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. His downfall/super power, depending on if the glass is half empty or not, was his masterful ability to bore you to death in a matter of minutes.

Anyways, the train arrived in Vernon, a small city about 6km away from Giverny. That’s probably the best thing about this city, but more on that later. To actually reach Giverny one must take a coach (English for bus) from the train station, walk, or rent bicycles at a very furry gentleman’s restaurant across the street. We opted for the bikes and were off to Giverny, following the Seine through its gorgeous Norman meadows and surrounding foothills. In no time we reached our destination and found ourselves amidst a sea of tourists largely consisting of old people and German and French school groups. Not to shy away from crowds, Adam and I hopped in the queue and anxiously fidgeted about as if Mickey Mouse himself was on the other side of the wall signing autographs and time was running out before his cigarette break began and we would miss our chance to get our notebooks signed. Before entering Monet’s estate, one is forced to meander through the gift shop. I didn’t mind this so much, as I always enjoy seeing how an institute identifies itself through typically useless and overpriced nic-nacs. I would say Giverny shot about par this round, give or take a small handicap. Not a problem because, after all, the gardens are what we came for and not calendars and scarves.

Monet’s Giverny Gardens

Monet like dis one

hon hon hon! oui oui!

the great one himself

house and gardens

The gardens were quite nice despite the crowds and cell phone boomboxes that seemed to resonate throughout the estate. Orchids, roses, and other flowers of beauty whose names escape me filled row after row of colorful blooms and leaves. It really is a stunning sight at first glance, and while the beauty remains upon further inspection, the crowds and commercialization of a place intended for quiet isolation and reflection detracts from the magic of the place. We walked through his home, several rooms filled with average furnishings and more crowds, finding a small ray of sunshine amidst the gloom in a sublime photo of an unassuming Monet standing surrounded by massive canvases of the famed water-lilies in his living room. We then rejoined the lines shuffling through the gardens (“the ants went marching one by one, hoorah, hoorah!”) and made our way to the water-lily ponds, eerily similar to the paintings but for the man in a boat fishing out dead lily pads with a net. Overall, a charming village and a well managed estate befitting a man of Monet’s stature, but personally it was more plastic than organic and not the place it must once have been.

The bike ride back to Vernon was splendid and a needed escape from the claustrophobic Jardin du Monet. The Seine is gorgeous in this part of France, about a two hour train ride north of paris, and the fields of red poppies reminded me of driving through the English countryside only a week or so earlier. Our arrival in Vernon found us with stomachs growling and, with a more efficient mode of transportation underneath us, a need to explore this potentially charming town of Vernon. Though exploration was a priority, our “hunger pains were sticking like duct tape” and so a quest for comida took precedence. Little did we know we would be forced to pedal our way through every nook and cranny of the city center to actually find sustenance for ourselves as every restaurant in town was closed with no sign of reopening for at least another 3 hours. Our solution was hit up the local Monoprix, which I translate to mean Win-Dixie, and grab the usual horn of plenty: baguette; cheese; orange juice; water; and hommus. This was by far the least palatable rendition of this meal yet. We seated ourselves under a small tree on the corner of a nearby street and began to laugh uncontrollably at just how strange this town and its people presented themselves. Not a single restaurant open at 4:30 in the afternoon, nearly every man in the city had a shaved or greasy or sometimes both head with a sharp Romanian facial structure, women walked by with tattoos of small tropical islands on their shoulders, little children did not exist, and one out of every three elderly people had a small dog which they obviously did not want as noted by the dogs being dragged across the sidewalks leaving a trail of claw marks in the concrete with each pull of the leash. We took amusement in this city, but ultimately found ourselves weirded out to the point it was absolutely necessary we escape as soon as possible. The city responded to this request with a heaving “no.” Returning the bikes was simple, but we waited for at least thirty minutes for the furry man to return Adam his license. This was not too big of a deal for me because the restaurant had a tv and was playing Grease. It was the part at the end where Olivia Newton-John throws away her prudent garb for black leather pants in a final effort to get John Travolta to again desire her and everyone breaks out into song and dance and eats cotton candy. Our train arrived an hour later, as did our old friends from the ride to Vernon. In an effort to sit in silence, Adam and I split up so as to become less of a target for Canadian or Alabaman accompaniment. We returned to Paris and worked our way back to the Three Ducks to rendezvous with Rees for another dinner and a midnight viewing of the Eiffel Tower.

(Adam)For several hours each night, beginning around 9 and continuing until roughly 1 in the morning, the Eiffel Tower lights up with thousands of bulbs, and on the hour a 5 or 6 minute light show of flashing patterns renders the tower a shimmering beacon in the night sky. We went out to the Champ de Mars to discover it packed with thousands of French students, who had just finished their last exams and were celebrating in style. We sat on the steps of the peace memorial at the far end of the field and contented ourselves with splitting a bottle and watching the reveling French youth till the hour struck, this was not to be however. We were approached by two girls with the typical question, “do you have a light?” After responding no they began speaking with us, which was useful for me as I am constantly trying to practice my spoken French, but slightly strange for Tripp and Rees because there were frequent pauses to translate or ask clarifying questions. We learned their names were Pauline and Isaure, the latter being by far the more bizarre, trying endlessly to teach me various words of l’Argot (slang) and intermittently grabbing our bottle of wine, taking a huge swig and handing it back without breaking stride in her lecture on the ways we didn’t comprehend what she was trying to explain. After a while they wandered off, presumably to spread the good word elsewhere, and after being silently impressed by the lightshow we strolled back to the hostel for some sleep and puzzlement over the ramblings of the bold, bizarre, and ultimately friendly youth of France.

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