X by Brad: Day 2 - Paris: Party on a Boat.

Despite having yet another near-sleepless night, I had ambitions to knock out the Lovré and whatever other points of interest nearby I could find. After a quick breakfast, I sailed the subterranean sea of rails over to the museum only to find that the rain had come back which, unfortunately, didn't deter other fellow tourists.

Tired, cold, grumpy, and resistant to the idea of standing in line in the rain for 20 minutes I decided to try to find a reasonably priced cafe nearby. (Spoiler: There aren't any.) Per the recommendation of my friend Alisa I sought out Angelina's which turned out to be one of the less expensive cafes in the area where you can buy a standard croissant for ONLY five Euro!

After turning down that mind blowing bargain (not bitter at all) I decided to channel my rage towards absorbing what I could at one of Paris' many modern art museums. I set sail for for Musée d' Art Moderne which was a bit of a gamble because it required a little over a kilometer of walking plus the frustrating search for the metro station that would get me there. Their signs for the metro seem to differ depending on which arrondissement you're in, but I'm still not even sure if that's entirely true.

Upon arriving at my metro destination on Champs Elesees I noticed a beautiful frosted glass storefront adorned with a massive Mercedes logo, it was the Mercedes Gallery. Deciding to take another detour to avoid the humbling precipitation I indulged my inner petrolhead and design snob.

Inside, I found not just beautiful cars but also many other examples of Mercedes' uncompromising design including clothing, scale models, timepieces, badges, and countless other items that a Mercedes fan would drool over -new and old. Along with the displays were passages from a story about a young princess riding a 12-cylinder "beast" through the Black Forest in the face of trolls and giants where her potential suitors lacked the courage to venture. Marketing? Definitely, but well worth the experience. It's free and you should definitely go if you're in the area. Using unknowing tourists as models for prepping my tripod I quickly hit the timer, pushed them aside and took a couple fun photos. At first they were puzzled but when the flash went off they had a good laugh as did I.

Being an American tourist in Europe I'm finding the fastest way to squash any feelings of resentment is to be polite, humble, and not be afraid to make jokes at your own expense. Contrary to popular belief, the French like Americans, just not loud obnoxious ones which, unfortunately, are the ones who are most easily noticed. Too complicated? Lets dumb it down: Don't act like an asshole.

After finishing my photo shoot at the Mercedes Gallery I continued my trek to my destination only to be distracted momentarily by a supposedly aftermarket-tuned Fiat 500:

Hustling along, I arrived at Museè de Moderne which happened to be next to Palais de Tokyo, another art gallery. I poked my head into Palais de Tokyo to see what they had and found that the majority of the building was under renovation, however, Chanel had turned the upstairs into one of a five part exhibit which is scattered throughout Paris. This particular exhibit featured the five primary components of their fragrance "Chanel no. 5" which could be examined individually on stainless steel platters that had been exposed to their oils. Accompanying the scent components were samples of the source flowers, spices, etc as well as numerous art related books which were available for the public to thumb through.

Upon exhausting what the Chanel exhibit had to offer I went next door to my intended destination, Musée d'Art Moderne. I purchased a ticket to access all of their exhibits, which for more dedicated art buffs might have been worth the extra 4 euro but I found that one collection, Keith Haring, overshadowed the other two exhibits.

If you are unfamiliar with Keith Haring (http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Haring) he was an artist and activist in the 1980's who contributed to campaigns such as technology robbing us of our humanity, the plague of crack cocaine, AIDS awareness, racism, and sexuality equality. The exhibit consisted of extensive examples of his street art, murals, and sculptures; partitioned based on the cause they were most representative of. The most sobering of the sections was the one associated with his personal battle with AIDS, ending with a seemingly half-finished painting to represent his inevitable untimely death; "heart-wrenching" doesn't even begin to describe it. Below are a few shots I took of his work.

And here are some the other exhibits and one of me standing in front of the pools behind the museum:

After a quick snack in the museum cafe I walked in the rain through the gardens towards the Eiffel Tower. Along the way I snapped a candid photo of some vendors walking home from the tower. Upon arriving on the tower I immediately gave up my sight seeing for the day due to the overwhelming rain and tourists. Rain + bitchy tourists = a bad time.

One of the best choices I made regarding this trip was that I planned to not plan. This meant no extended stays were booked at hostels so that if I wished I could stay in different neighborhoods in Paris if I wished or if I had a bad experience at a hostel I could easily get out of that situation the following day. Fortunately the second hostel I found, "Oops Hostel," had been pretty good so far so I decided to book another couple nights but was told that no one room had consistent availability meaning I would have to change rooms and roommates every day. While they saw this as an inconvenience I saw it as an opportunity to meet more fellow travelers and hear their stories.

Unfortunately my new roommates weren't terribly social with me, especially the fashion designer from Dallas, TX. Fortunately the Swiss roommate, Fabio, who she had been chatting up wasn't as cold and allowed me to poach him from her to go to dinner with my friend from the previous night, Romy of Argentina, who also happened to be born in Switzerland. We shared a bottle of wine on the patio of a nearby cafe, shared stories, joked around, and shared a post-meal cigarette. (Relax friends and family, I don't smoke.)

Contrary to my plan for not planning I DID do a small amount of research on dance clubs in Paris and found one in particular that was popular with locals and had a unique venue. Batofar (http://batofar.org) is a restaurant, venue, and night club located on a boat (motherfucker) in the Seine river that flows through Paris. I bought two tickets with the intention that I would invite a guest and fortunately I was able to convince Fabio to accompany me. (Romy would have joined but we were unsure if tickets were available at the door.)

My breach of the "not planning" rule paid off as Batofar ended up being better than I could have imagined. The DJs were incredible, playing a mix of 90's and early 2000's alt-rock. Folks who grew up listening to Portland's 94.7 would have wept sweet tears of awesome at the spectacle. The DJ booth was front and center with TVs relaying an overhead view of their DJ kit. As the night went on the crowd grew in numbers and blood alcohol content the dancing got wilder causing the boat to lean side to side in the water, a feature that traditional dance floors are desperately lacking.

Around 4:30 am Fabio and I decided that we should probably head home and get some rest despite the 6am end time for the club. (Nobody, in my experience, knows how to party like the French.) We hailed a cab since the metro closes down at 1 am and for an insignificant 7 Euro we got home safely.

A long day capped with booze and hours of dancing like a white person, which apparently is the style here (Grinding is replaced with no-holds-barred PDA.), resulted in the best four hours of sleep to date.

Yeah, four hours. Party on.

Some shots of Batofar: