Back from Brugge on Thursday, spent Friday sleeping in a bit and then Cindy and I rode the Metro across town to the Marche Daumesnil to do some grocery shopping -- of the Marches I've been to this one ranks in the top two or three for quality and variety. Picked up some vegetables for dinner and another bottle of rhubarb juice -- never tasted it before a couple of weeks ago, but after two bottles, I'm a convert!
Then it was over to the Left Bank to wander around and do some souvenir shopping. We got away from the crowds and ended-up seeing the Pantheon (now a mauseleum) and the University of Paris -- a five-six story 1800's building occupying an entire block -- beautiful facade and clock tower. Stopped at a brasserie on the Seine for another chocolate crepe and to people watch -- good crepe, but not nearly as good as Brugge! Then back to the apartment to try and do a laundry.
I have to admit, laundry and washing machines have defeated me in Paris -- been here almost six weeks and still don't have a clue how they work! Aside from having instructions in French, they are completely different than those I'm used to in the States. In the States, I can do a laundry with ease -- here, I push buttons until something happens -- frequently washing the same clothes two or three times before it does what I want it to or I give-up and take out the soaking wet clothes and drape them over a variety of things to try and air dry them -- you should see my balcony and shower -- or maybe not! The apartment is on the ninth floor and it can get breezy up here -- I have serious visions of my clothes getting caught-up in a gust of wind and wafting over the rooftops of the neighborhood!
Part of the problem is that the apartments here that have washing machines/dryers (which is somewhat of a rarity) have combined units requiring that you wash the clothes and dry them in one combined process. You begin by pushing buttons and turning dials to pick what type of wash you want (delicates, cotton, colors, mixed, etc... (typically 8-10 choices, all in French) and at the same time you pick whether you want the unit to "spin" the clothes and for how long and at what speed (another 8-10 options) -- then you decide if you want to "heat" the clothes (actually "drying" the clothes is not an option -- they always come out wet anyway!) and for how long and at what temperature (Centigrade not Fahrenheit, which adds another whole dimension) -- then you push a button and hope for the best -- which for me has not been very good! Make a mistake and the machine control screen just flashes and won't let you change settings -- big help!
And then, to make things even more challenging, you have to decide -- when things don't go as planned (which so far has been 100% of the time) -- whether you screwed-up or whether the machine is broken. Turns out at the new apartment, the machine was broken and they had "forgotten" that they needed to replace it before I arrived -- talk about frustrating!
Anyway, back on track -- Saturday we went to Saint Chapelle and looked at the stained glass windows, then had a quick lunch and back to the apartment to rest-up for the evening -- the midnight show at the Moulin Rouge (they call it the 11:00pm show but it didn't get started until after 12:00am). Originally a dance hall dive back in the 1800's with "loose women" and tight corsets, it was immortalized in drawings by Toiulouse-Lautrec for it's "anything goes" atmoshere. The current building is a replica of the original building which burned in the 1920's and looks more like a showroom in a casino in Vegas than a "dance hall'.
Surrounded by an ocean of sex shops, bars and restaurants, it does it's best to recreate a bygone era -- we walked the neighboring streets and didn't see even one "obvious" hooker -- did see a lot of drunk college students though so maybe that's worth half a point!
One thing about the venue that impressed me was that even though the Moulin Rouge is a "tourist trap", and some people were dressed somewhat casually, a huge number (especially the women) were "dressed to kill" with "hot" outfits and six inch heels like they were walking the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival -- I don't think you'd ever see that in Vegas, LA or New York.
The show is a relatively tame burlesque revue and after the first twenty minutes, you don't even notice that the women are topless (have to admit, that first twenty minutes was nice though!) It's a series of dance routines, singers and specialty acts -- the song and dance portion was nice, the specialty acts were hokey but fantastic! They had a couple on roller skates doing unbelievable acrobatic moves on a small platform, a three man tumbling act that was marvelous and a ventriloquist who hauled people up on stage and used them as props in an absolutely hilarious routine!
When they were wearing them the female dancers' costumes were "out-of-this-world" -- bright, colorful, imginative and at times, very high-tech -- worth the price of admission! The beginning routines were variations on modern dance steps but at the end, they paid homage to the original sprit of the Moulin Rouge with a "Can-Can" routine and a few sketches that could've been right out of the 1800's. Unfortunatly, they had a strict no photography policy or I would've posted a bunch of photos. (Think they want you to buy the video.)
Got out of the show after 2:00am but very happy that we went. Amazingly, the streets were just as active at 2:00am as they had been at 10:00pm.
