Article for 2012 Apr 01
Part of the “Paris” series.
2012
2012 Apr
Apr 01 Sun 
Montmartre received a lot of sunshine this morning, and the hill was photographed a lot this morning, not just by me (okay, that is rather obvious given the touristicness of the area).
Inside the basilica, I was reminded of Liverpool Anglican Cathedral, which I performed in in a biblical play on the 10th, 11th, and 12th of October 2008. (The relevant article is not on Duncan’s Childhood Blog; very few articles that mention my acting credits are online here.) For some reason the interiors of all big churches look similar to me. Dark and mystical, and unphotographable. On the other hand, the pigeons outside were very photographable.
We were allowed an hour to wander around Montmartre, doing whatever civilised tourists do. Some people ate crepes; some people bought the crepes before eating them; some people acquired souvenirs; some people posed for photos; one person photographed pigeons. It was an enjoyable experience. No-one (to my knowledge) was repulsed enough by Montmartre to exclaim “Sacre-Bleu!” by the Sacre-Cœur.
Montmartre’s quite nice in the sunshine. A little cramped, a bit busy, a lot interesting.
From a well-attended basilica to a well-attended, erm, cabaret-theatre. We didn’t go into the Mule-in-Rouge, as I call it, as it stubbornly won’t go away, is decorated with a lot of red make-up, and its genetic make-up is as strange as a mule’s. As are my jokes.
We didn’t go into any of the several other buildings offering adult experiences on that street. I mean, the buildings are on one street, not the adult experiences.
We quickly left the seventeenth arrondissement for the seventh. Presently we traversed the Cours La Reine (The Queen’s Court-yard), we passed the Pont Alexandre III, and we arrived at the Eiffel Tower.
Queues don’t get longer than this, except perhaps outside Apple stores at product-launches. On the subject of apples, I enjoyed mine as we waited for a while under the most-visited-per-year tourist attraction in the world. I also enjoyed watching the nearby starlings and sparrows. And the pigeons. Can’t forget the pigeons.
Finally we were in the Eiffel Tower’s lift, where we were warned of pickpockets in three languages, though the word “pickpockets” is common to all three of them.
“Attention aux pickpockets - Beware of pickpockets - Vorsicht pickpockets”
The irony is that I was wearing track-suit bottoms that lack pockets.
As the photo on the left is intended to illustrate, the Eiffel Tower has three storeys. The lift took us to the second floor. I then (predictably) took a few photos. Paris is rather beautiful from the air, in the sunshine, under the azure sky.
Sorry. Couldn’t resist.
One day my pigeon-passion will land me in trouble. Just saying. (Though that really is a just saying.)
From the second floor, we walked up the stairs to the top floor. We were instructed to meet back on the ground at 19:30. I took some more photos of Paris, which is rather beautiful from the air, under the cerulean sky...
I saw some pigeons. I photographed some pigeons. The pigeons flew off. I looked for other flighty vertebrates, as the rest of my class had flown off.
Alone, I took the crowded lift back down to the second floor. Then I took the uncrowded stairs back down to the first floor. Then I looked for the stairs back down to the ground. After a few minutes of searching, I noticed the irony in my situation: I had got lost on the most easily found building in France. Then I noticed the similarity between my situation and what I was situated on: both could be described informally as “irony” (or “iron-y”). Then, several minutes later, I noticed the downward staircase. The time was 19:20, so I had ten minutes. I took the lift.
Well, I would have taken the lift, if it had been available.
On the ground under the Tower, I rejoined my class, at 19:32. The teachers were more concerned about the whereabouts of my cousin, Ben Lui, who (as you may remember from the article of 2009 Apr 14) often gets lost. Sometimes people even don’t realise he exists. The 2009 Apr 14 article is not online, and didn’t mention Ben Lui anyway outside of a footnote where I wrote about how I had thought that the source of the river Tay in Scotland was Loch Tay, when it’s the mountain Ben Lui. So that’s the joke in this paragraph: Ben Lui does not exist as a classmate of mine, but as a mountain, and I used to not know that the mountain exists.
But before I get too carried away about Ben Lui, here’s a nice photo I took, while we were waiting:
