We walk nearly the entire city.  It’s much bigger than I was expecting.  We go through the center and over to the university.  We walk past the red-light district which Nena neglected to mention, but I demanded to be shown it, so we walked through.  The name ‘laufhaus’ was in big red letters.  Fun, but weird – and such a small area too, but it makes sense.  I especially liked the ‘family friendly’ sign just outside the area.

We passed by of all things, a Hooters.  I got VERY excited.  Too bad they were closed, I’d have killed to go inside and have some wings.

We walked to the palace and around the grounds.  It was nice.  Still not the ‘Palace’ I was thinking, more of a huge mansion, but still nice.  The grounds were covered in over a foot of snow, so everything looked really pristine and peaceful.

We met up with another of Nena’s friends at a bar I think.  I had some weird dumpling dish which was nice, but the salad was literally drenched in ranch dressing and I struggled to finish it by the end.

We end up the day at Carlos Bar, which is a very nice cocktail bar, apparently one of the best in Germany.  We meet up with one of Elena’s friends Kati.  She has a very thick ‘fwench’ accent, which makes it funny to listen to, but to be fair, she speaks 3 languages fluently, I speak one.  It’s a fun night and I punish 3 cocktails which didn’t feel strong but boy they came out to play later.  We leave at about 11 or so and go home.

I wake up and meander about online for the better part of the early morning.  I catch up on this blog, send e-mails, update things on facebook, etc.  I’m up earlier than anyone else, mostly because I’m still on my up at 8 asleep by 10 routine that I’ve been doing over the last 10 days.  Nena gets up later and after a shower and shave we walk over to her mom’s place for brunch.

***

The city is quiet, eerily so.  Even for Xmas, I would expect some traffic, people going to and fro, visiting family or something – but it’s like Adelaide was.  Shoot a gun in any direction and hit nothing.  It’s about a 10 min walk to the place.  I notice how tall the residential buildings are for such a small city (pop~300,000).  Even when we get there, I’m surprised at the built form.  An unimpressive concrete block with a cold entrance, but the inside apartment is quite modern and warm.  God bless insulation.  The English and Australians could learn a thing or 3.

Brunch is nice – Nena’s step dad (Peter I think his name was) offered me champaign and maybe more schnapps, I can’t quite remember.  I stare out onto the scenic white landscape out the window.  This is how winter is supposed to be.  Not cold rainy and blech, but white, warm and festive.  I start to miss home again.

***

We leave after a very filling lunch and I get a partial tour of the city.  Very densely packed for again, a city of just over 300k.  Everything is closed, but I’m told some things will open later.

My memory is failing me now, because I’m not sure if we went to her grandparents house at this stage, or if it was before the tour.  I ask Nena about how Germans are educated about the war, how they felt about it etc.  She ends up telling me that her parents were part of the Nazi youth, not that they had much choice in the matter.  So she says anyways.  I hate to say I called it, but I guess I did.  Breaking bread with them makes me feel considerably uncomfortable.

The grandmother brings out a lovely fruitcake, and I eat it and it is nice.  The mixture of emotions as I sit down to eat with someone who 60 years ago would have tried to kill me for what I believed in – just so confronting.  My enjoyment of Germany would continue to be tempered by this.  Such a wonderful place…but such a dark, shameful history.  Do you blame people for the sins of the father?

We hug and then hop in a cab and head to her grandparents place.  It’s a very warm and festive atmosphere.  Her step-dad immediately offers me a schnapps, to which I happily accept.

The family has already eaten dinner by the time we arrive (so much for waiting for family), but Nena and I are sat down and what’s left of a mountainous amount of food is placed in front of us.  Turkey, rice?, veggies, etc.  It’s all pretty good – I heard German food wasn’t much to write home about but apparently it is.  We all go to sit in the living room for some music and conversation.  Most of it’s in German, which is fine.  I expected it, and wanted it.  I’d have been upset if they spoke english on my account – after all, it’s their time for family.

I turn to look at Nena’s grandparents, who are old enough to have been around during the war.  Maybe even old enough to have been soldiers – it’s hard to tell.  It makes be a little uncomfortable – though they do all know that I’m jewish – which I suppose says something about the progress made in the country that a Jew can have Christmas with Germans in Germany!

Perhaps the highlight of the evening comes when they turn on the TV for a bit of background noise/entertainment, and Eraser starring Arnold Schwartzenegger comes on dubbed in German.  I know the story so I don’t need to know the exact words.  Watching – I notice that lines in English are much longer in German.  Particularly, a scene where Arnie his a car.  In the English verson, the little girl says ‘Earth.  Welcome!”.  In German, it’s 14 words jam packed together for the same phrase.  Even funnier, is the line “You’re luggage.’, which becomes “You’re a purse.”  I had to laugh out loud when I heard that translation!

The evening ends and we go to Nena’s friend’s place to crash for the night.  Xmas morning is tomorrow – and I’m quite looking forward to it!

The roll quelches the hunger for the moment, but not totally.  I was planning on having an honset baguette sandwich like the ones I saw all over Paris, so I wait to eat a full meal.  I emerge from the Sacre Couer station after climbing a lot of stairs (couldn’t be bothered waiting for the elevator.  I should have!), and emerging in yet another Xmas market.  The novelty factor of them has most certainly worn off.

Monmartre is a fully different feel to the rest of Paris.  This may have to do with geography and topography (it’s VERY hilly), but it was quieter – eerily so.  Mid morning and little traffic.  Few pedestrians.  Making my way to the Sacre Coeur, I wasn’t sure if I was on the right path, since there was no one else to follow.

I come to a plaza/clearing with some stores and a bit more hustle/bustle.  If this is the neighborhood centre, it’s not much.  Quaint, but a bit underwhelming.  The entry to the church itself isn’t well marked, I accidentally enter the backside and wonder if that that’s all there is to see.  I wander down a hill with a few other similarly confused people, and then yes, there’s the front. 

***

The church is impressive from a design standpoint.  It’s unique in that respect, and internally is much more so than Notre Dame.  Not as opulent as Westminster, but impressive nontheless.  The choir is singing inside, giving a very holy atmosphere.  I walk around a bit, but there’s nothing too different to meaningful compared to the other churches I’ve seen.  There’s a option to pay  €10 to go to the top of the dome, but I’m not so inclined to spend even more money, plus I’m conscious of the time to catch my train.

I leave the Sacre Coeur and head back to the train station, looking for various things to buy for the family, Lesley and maybe myself.  The area is mostly tourist shops with lousy, overpriced merchandise.  I’m thoroughly unimpressed.  I come to a 6 way intersection (only in Paris would one of these NOT have stop lights), very hungry and looking for lunch.  For whatever reason, I can’t find a sandwich shop despite all my looking.  Of all the times and places!  Paris, I curse you!

I walk past a women’s clothing store with very neat stuff and reasonable prices.  The staff speak english (whew) and are very nice and helpful.  I buy a few things for the family and leave, anxious to get to my train.

***

The SCNF kiosks aren’t exactly the easiest things in the world to navagate, but eventually I get my ticket.  I was so hungry that on my way to Gare de l’Est I grabbed a quite mediocre kebab and fries.  It filled me up but left me wholly unsatisfied – again.  High expectations, or is “French” food really just overrated?  My train is delayed due to the weather, so I went looking at the shops in the terminal.  It’s all open air, and quite cold, so keeping moving is a must.  There’s lots of chocolate shops (which I’ll never eat and is quite pricey), other electronic boutiques.  I thought about buying a belt but decided against it.  I went downstairs to the food court, and while I wasn’t hungry at all, I wanted a damn baguette.  Paul was the only store selling one, so I bought a Tuna salad baguette sandwich to eat on the train for later.  Eventually my train arrives, and I can’t for the life of me find my assigned car.  I just jump on a random car, and hope to the right car eventually – I didn’t want the train pulling away as I wandered up and down.  Those things wait about 3 minutes for people to get on and off and then they’re GONE. 

I get directed to my car by a helpful person.  The train is packed with holiday goers, as you would expect.  My seat neighbor is an older woman who tells me she has no friends or family to visit during the holiday.  It’s quite sad, and I halt my conversation with her quite quickly. 

I’m still nervous about missing my stop so I can’t relax much even if I am on the train.  I eventually calm a bit and try to watch a movie, but my laptop battery is dying, so I just pop in a football video for a bit.  After a few more uneventful hours, I arrive in Karlsruhe.

I’m hungry but don’t have breakfast, expecting that I’ll be able to get something half decent on my way – but there’s nothing open.  It’s xmas eve, most places are closed or closing.  Not great start.

I get to the Louvre.  The glass pyramid, so ill maligned, isn’t so bad.  I think it works well actually.  The line is short and I have an hour or so, so I figure I’ll see the main sights and call it a day.

***

Entry is cheaper than expected, and the size of the museum is big, and poorly laid out actually.  There’s a central atrium, but each entrance has it’s own security guard checking tickets.  If you throw yours out accidentally in one of the wings, you’re SOL.

I head first to the Mona Lisa.  I expect to be disappointed – I’ve heard it’s one of life’s great disappointments.  On the way I pass Winged Victory.  It’s awesome.  It’s a huge statue, put atop a staircase landing and it just works in that setting.  Best piece of art I’ve seen this trip.

I continue past oodles of greek statues (how there are so many and yet they claim there’s so few I can’t understand) and italian paintings, and I can’t appreciate them because I don’t understand how to.  Like a wine taster.  Ah well.  Eventually, I get to the room with the Mona Lisa.

I thought she’d had her own room, but no, she shares with huge wall sized paintings – and she had a wall all to herself – even though it’s about the size of a small TV set.  I expected it to be small – that didn’t bother me.  What did though, was the 6″ thick plexiglass reflecting light, the 20′ barrier between us and it, the security guards and the dozens of asian tourists snapping flash photos and smiling in front of it.  A carnival atmosphere, and the Mona Lisa was the side show.  Sad.  Expecting to be disappointed – it managed to go below that and STILL make me disappointed.  Wow.

I also went to see the Venus de Milo (eh) and the “Collasal” statue of Ramses – if you can call 8 ft “collasal”.  Meh.  The Code of Hammurabi was probably the coolest thing I saw as I all but sprinted around the place.

Relatively unimpressed with antiquity, I grab a roll and espresso from the cafe and take the train to the Sacre Coeur.

The gardens leading to the tower I imagine would be amazing, but as it turns out, they’re dead and poorly maintained in winter.  I imagine the place (and all of France for that matter) would be much more attractive in spring/summer, but alas I can’t get there now.  The weather is lousy – swirling snow flakes and a wind that cuts through.  It’s very cloudy as well, which dampens the mood a bit.  There’s a bunch of hustlers selling fake tower models off of rings for a euro, I guess they’re trying to make a buck but they’re just SO annoying.

I wasn’t planning on going to the top, just cause I know I wouldn’t be able to see anything with the weather, but I wanted to touch the structure, which I can’t at ground level because it’s on stone pylons.  So I go over to the steps (not wanting to drop who knows how much for the elevator) and plop down a  few and climb to the first floor.

***

There’s a neat ice skating rink, but they’ve closed the upper levels due to the weather and I can see why.  The  first floor has ice build up and that would be worse up above.  I don’t snap any photos cause of the lack of views, but I have a walk around and look and see what’s what.  I take the elevator back down and walk across the street, looking for a good meal.

There’s another Xmas market, and while I wasn’t really wanting anything from there, I’m feeling like I should do some shopping for the fam, so I do.  Nothing really catches my eye, but the sausages look good, and I’m hungry, so I grab one.  Looked better than it tasted.  Blech.  and 7 Euros too – what a ripoff.  I walk around the area a little bit looking for a place my book recommends, but I can’t find it, so I turn around and head back to the Marais.

***

I come back to the Marais because I wanted to get some Jewish pastries for Nena and her family as a token of my thanks for letting me stay with them.  I look for anything remotely resembling a Jewish store, but I can’t see one.  I duck into a chocolate store, thinking maybe I’ll just get them some French chocolates – but decide against what I see.  I ask one of the employees where the Jewish section is.  He tells me literally around the corner.  I thank him and leave.

He wasn’t kidding.

It’s a blink-and-you-miss-it side street, filled with little bakeries and delis and butchers.  A few other clothing stores are interspersed too.  I’m happy to see familiar sights and smells.  Jewish starts, challahs, and rugelah.  I buy a challah and a few rugelah, and wanted some mandel bread and maybe a few other things, but none of the stores had them, so I leave.  Walking past a clothing store, I like a shirt they have so I buy it.  Reminds me of one I used to have.  Just wish it came cheaper – nothing in Paris is cheap if it’s quality it seems.  :/

***

Desperate for a truly “French” meal – not to mention one that’s actually good, I go online in search a half decent place near my hotel.  A place comes up called Au Jardin (The Garden).  It’s a top 30 place according to trip advisor, which recommended my hotel, and was well worth it.  So I take a flyer and head over.

The restaurant is nice but quiet (surprisingly so for a place that’s said to be good.  I take a table right near the door, looking out onto the street.  I feel lonely.

I order a 3 course meal with a cheese platter between the main and dessert, since that’s apparently what French people do (or so Lesley told me).  I was after the truly “French” meal.  So I order snails for the appetizer (was really good), with a scallop and shrimp dish (meat was good, but whatever was underneath it was a bit over powering), and what I thought was a banana split, which I’ve kinda been after for months but have failed, even this time.  I have two glasses of wine (one coming from a bottle which I was charged for when I specifically asked for a GLASS), and of course, the cheese platter.

The cheese was nice, but I was so overly full eating it, and I took my time, going through this meal in over 2 hours, that I just made myself sick.  Not bathroom sick, but just so stuffed that I couldn’t appreciate it – not that I really did though.  The food was nice enough and maybe deserving of it’s rating, but for me, I dunno, maybe none of it was ever going to taste up to my expectations.  Dejected, I returned to my hotel.

I go down the stairs into the catacombs.  It used to be a rock quarry (underneath the city – that was good planning), and then was converted as a place to hold the remains of the deceased after a massive outbreak of disease hit due to decomposing bodies (or something to that effect).  Thousands, and maybe hundreds of thousands of people were exhumed and replaced here.  You have to walk down a long sent of tunnels that are rather boring, though they try to make it somewhat interesting with a few placards of info, but most people just glance at these, looking for the bones.  Eventually, you get there.

"Stop! You are entering the Empire of Death." A bit over the top eh?

Walking past this door, you’re immediately hit with walls after walls of bones.

Brains........

It’s a pretty cool, if macabre sight.  I snap a few photos (including a cool one which is mildly offensive I think of myself – but I don’t care), but the light is really low to get anything beyond these shots at the front.  There are a few memorials throughout the site, but they’re in French, so I move on quickly.  The sheer scale is insane, how many bones there are.  The novelty factor wears off after the first few minutes, and soon I’m a little bored, looking for the exit.  I would have liked a few more interperative texts, but I guess it’s a tomb?  I don’t know if people actually visit their great great grandparents here, but they could.  Probably not – most people are forgotten by the 3rd generation.  Oh well.  I come back out to the top and head over to the Eiffel Tower.

***

I decide to walk towards the Bastille since I’m in the area anyways, and because there’s so much history behind it.  On the way though, I see a sign that says Shoah Memorial (or something to that effect).  I know what the Shoah is, and I am in the Jewish area of France, so I decide to take a detour and have a look.

It’s a small site, certainly not nearly as big as the Yad V’Shem in Jerusalem (obviously) or the one in DC, but it’s a nice, respectful museum.  There’s a wall with names out the front that is just filled – much like the Vietnam memorial just made in a tan stone.  The n’er tamid I the crypt looks just like the one in Jerusalem.  I take special note of the police files they’ve preserved.  These files contained records and information pertaining to Jewish citizens of Paris.

I continue to the permanent exhibition.  Luckily, most of the exhibition is translated in English so I can understand it.  It’s a fascinating look into the unsavory behavior of the French and more importantly, the Catholic church in what it did to the jewish people during the war.  I know the Pope recently apologized about the church’s behavior during the time.  How anyone can take the Catholic faith seriously now is beyond me.  Between a power grab that led to the extermination of a people and now rampant child molestation – how can the church take itself seriously?  But I digress.

After making my way through the exhibit, we come to the end, which are backlit pictures of all the people killed or deported and whereabouts unknown during the War.  It’s VERY confronting, and hits you right through, more than the other memorials I’ve been to.  Very tastefully done.

***

In a better mood (rather ironically I may add), I walk towards the Bastille, expecting to see something about the French Revolution.  Instead, I get a very big roundabout and a memorial tower.  There’s also a big opera house.  But no history.  What a crock!  The overthrow of the monarchy gets little more than a nice statue?  No historical interpretation anywhere.  Those who forget the past it seems…

Disappointed, again, I go down the metro station to the Catacombs.

I decide to continue my walk towards the Eiffel Tower, which was my ultimate goal that day.  I pass by a host of shops and other things on my walk.  I could have take the subway, but I wanted to see the city, not ust cruise under it.  I make my way to the Hotel L’Invalides, and I’m exhausted.  It looked a lot closer on the map, but the Eiffel Tower still loomed in the distance.  I see the Dome Church to my right, and I look at my watch.  There’s no way I’ll get there during daylight.  I resign myself to seeing the Hotel L’Invalides.

***

I’m glad I did.  The Dome Church is where Napoleon is buried and the man was an egotist, no bones about it.  The church is big, but his coffin (or memorial, not sure) is incredible.  It takes up nearly the entire lower level of the building, and although it’s quite simple in design, ths size is what gets you.

I leave the church and go to the War Museum, also in the facility.

***

I’ve always been interested in WWI and WWII, so when I saw a arrow pointing towards the exhibition, I take the route to it.  There’s a lot of interesting things in the WWI section, but I take particular interest in the actual history of how it started and unfolded.  We in the USA don’t get a lot of info about WWI, mostly because we came in during the last 18 months (which I would learn was the only thing keeping the French from speaking German) so I’m intrigued with how much happened between the fighting, and how embarassingly bad the French were (and have been) at fighting.  The little historical section (written in english thankfully) are a fascinating read, if embarassingly frank.  I would have imagined the French would have been a bit more discreet about their cowardice and failure, but they weren’t.  Even better was the story of how the US basically saved western europe from Germany.  I always heard we came in late and claimed victory despite not doing much, but the fact is that we did – and we did a lot.  So you’re welcome western europe.

Of course, the WWII history is more embarassing – and disturbing.  France basically capitualted within minutes – but worse than that, they were COLLABORATORS.  I found this detestable.  I know France was cheese eating surrender monkeys – but collaborators as well?  Wow.  My emotions were extremely conflicted, and I started to hate France for this.  Germany you knew about – but they were deluded.  France was clear thinking – AND STILL WENT ALONG WITH THE GERMANS.  Horrid.

***

The musuem closed before I could finish the tour and I had to leave.  I felt more fulfilled after seeing this, but was still not 100%.  Tired, I duck into the Metro and had back to the hotel.  Still wanting a good meal, I go to the asian place right next to my hotel which has a lot of positive reviews and a Michelin star in the front window.  The food looked good when I walked in, but was only mediocre when I walked out.  Maybe France is really overrated food wise?  I cruise online a bit before going to bed.