Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Always American in Paris

I was excited about Notre Dame.

The original, for once, not the brother school. It was one of my few must-dos while I was in France. I studied the architecture for one entire chapter in one of my Western Civ history courses, and was eager to apply my immense scholarly work.

But see, here’s the problem that I, and I’m sure many other Americans, have with Europe: It really needs to get its weather under control. I did not fly across an entire ocean to be rained upon. Seriously, Paris. I think a sincere and immediate apology is in order.

So here’s Notre Dame, and it’s dark, and I enter, and… really, you guys need to clean your cathedral. You’ve had eight hundred years to do it. The paint was all fadey and stuff. What’s with all the dark smudgy marks on the walls? Why is everything so high? I shouldn’t have to look up to see stuff. Plus I had to walk to get to the back of the church, and I think we can all agree that I shouldn’t have to work while touring abroad.

Here’s what needs to happen: The main aisle needs a moving walkway, okay, with fire twirlers positioned alongside for my amusement. And there needs to be way more natural light, so a few Ikea shelf-lined picture windows need to be installed. All the lame depressing statues of dead people can go. A Starbuck’s in the Joan of Arc chapel would also be a vast improvement, because, like—looking at stuff is hard, and makes me very tired. Better yet, just set up a virtual tour booth at the entrance so I don’t have to actually go in the place. I swear, when they built this, nobody was thinking about me.

I mean, seriously at: mb@blondechampagne.com

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

And where's the hunchback? I was led to believe there would be a bell-ringing hunchback.

Snooty ripoff artists.

Anonymous said...

A great big LOL to both MB and Mike! :)

Josh The Pilot said...

Wish I could have been there with you!

Anonymous said...

The tour guides SHOULD wear a phony hunchback, where they would keep brochures, croissants, a thermo with cafe-au-lait, and speakers connected to an Ipod with a gregorian-chants playlist.

Oh, and they should scream "SANCTUARYYYYYY!!!!" from time to time, with no apparent reason ;-)

Paraphrasing "Good Will Hunting", could you share with us what does Notre Dame SMELL like?

Carrie said...

LOL! Agreed - lucky you didn't stay for mass . . . Latin is so 1000 years ago.

Anonymous said...

carrie, you'll be surprised to know that MB actually does favor the mass in latin.

Anonymous said...

What a Tourist!

ShannJ said...

You crack me up! Well it may have been raining, but at least you got to see Notre Dame without scaffolding and construction all over the front of it. Maybe they should've just added some orange barrels to top off the look.

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