Bros and broads abroad: Letchworth sings "Louis Louis" at Versailles

"I don't know what to wear," lamented Monica this morning, digging through the spill-over of her suitcase. I watched as she pulled piles and piles of shirts from the depths and wondered how many wardrobe changes we were going to be experiencing today. Meanwhile, my non-chafing pair of jeans can now stand independently without me and I sadly discovered that I was a shirt short of returning home. Alas, I would have to purchase a souvenir shirt for Thursday. "I could loan you a shirt," Monica offered selfishly. "Why don't you just go buy something," I snapped, throwing her Paris potholder at her.

First on the agenda today was the Musée d'Orsay. It's crammed full of nifty art. Sydney and I try really hard to properly appreciate art but she's spending most of her time looking for a snack kiosk and I'm critiquing the paintings. "I would definitely crop the unnecessary landscape off the top of this one," I explained to Sydney after we finished arguing about the central focus of two antlered deer in battle. The bottom deer's tongue was protruding with its eyes dilated. "I would name this The Death Blow," I said to Sydney as we tried to stand intelligently in front of it. "Its tongue wouldn't stick out unless it was dead," Sydney responded, rather pompously. "Well, why do you think the deer's tongue is out then?" I retorted, "I don't believe they go around teasing neener neener neener to one another as they prance about the forest." We decided to agree to disagree and moved onto another painting. "Look," I cried, excited to recognize one,
"It's Whistler's Mother! Do you think it's real?" Realizing suddenly that I'd asked a stupid question, we hurried on. Next, we stood before a Van Gogh. "I'm no Van Gogh," I modestly admitted as we stood before a small painting that we'dentitled La Portrait de Ugly Enfants, "but, except for their hideous faces, I could have totally drawn that." Feeling culturally superior to everyone else, we decided to leave so as to give them a chance to feel smart too.

Lunch turned out to be a painful reminder of my plateful of prosciutto as I left Sydney to bumble her way through the ordering of my beautiful cheese and tomato bruschetta so I could snag a table in the busy restaurant. I was devastated when she presented me with a cheese, tomato and prosciutto bruschetta. I fared better than fellow room-mate, Melody who was excitedly eating her dessert when her beloved niece Cierra upturned her water glass. I watched as Melody sidled up to me on the sidewalk like a cowboy. "Cierra flooded my flambé," she cried. We returned to our designated meeting spot near the sculpture of an elephant that we named Horton. Sydney and I sat on the ground against a wall next to Dana as our group took pictures as he held up sign reading "One Euro." I smiled as his wife walked by and scowled at him, realizing that Brad would have the utmost empathy for Lauren but would also appreciate the balance that humor brings to the experience.

In the afternoon, we headed off to the Château de Versailles, the magnificent palace of the Sun King, Louis XIV. Lauren had made a casual reference to herding cows but I didn't understand her meaning until I was crammed into the crowds of people touring the rooms. A closet claustrophobic, I found myself shuffling my feet forward, centimeters at a time, suffocated by the stench of humanity. Even at that excruciating pace, Monica happily snapped shots of everything. "Oooo, that's pretty," snap snap. "Oooo...look at that," snap snap. "Look, Amy," she shouted, showing me the camera she's had for the past three years, "I just realized the viewing screen flips around to make it easier to take pictures." Snap, snap. As I continued shuffling my way desperately to an exit, I suddenly felt a subtle presence in my pocket. Thrilled and frightened to finally encounter the elusive pickpocket that I'd been warned about, I eased around to find that I was being pick-pocketed by a baby. After that traumatizing experience (you're just never the same when you've been mugged), I sought other ways of distracting myself lest I start screaming uncontrollably. Checking out one of the bedrooms (snap snap), I yelled over the crowd, "Ya'll think this is good? You should see Barbara Mandrell's house." A man who was squished up next to me on my right side turned to talk to me. "Really? You're going with Barbara Mandrell? I could see Dolly Parton..." "Who's Barbara Mandrell," Sydney asked, fanning herself with the map that wasn't useful for anything else. "My new friend and I sang a round of "Sleeping Single in a Double Bed" which I thought was wonderfully ironic when we finally spotted the exit sign. We ran out only to find, to our horror, that it re-routed us back through the palace. "I despise Versailles," I shouted, secretly delighted with the rhyming nature of the situation.

Back in we went (snap snap) until we were finally cast out into the gardens where we lay on the 8 Euro admission grass. Face down, I asked Monica her opinion of the most lady-like position of my feet. "Don't you think it's more dignified to have your feet pointing in the same direction," I asked, my voice muffled by the 8 Euro grass, "rather than look like a slob with my feet splayed out in opposite directions?" I demonstrated both positions for her but she really didn't have a lot to say regarding the sophistication of my prone, face-down position in the 8 Euro grass. Eventually, we would go our separate ways.

Monica, to bike about the gardens while Syd and I huddled against a wall like refugees and slept. You know what they say, "When in Rome..." Actually, though, I almost died in Versailles when the petite touring train entered the plaza I was crossing. Not realizing that it was doing a turn-about, I moved to get out of its way and it followed. I quickened my pace, but the train continued to bear down, chasing me. Frantic, I screamed out in French-accented English, "I don't know what to do!" Happy ending: Sydney grabbed me and pulled me to safetywhile the crowd cheered and the driver laughed and waved. Our group met at King Louis XIV's statue. Out of pure desperation, her eyes unbearably dry, Sydney used the cap of our giant water bottle that we've been lugging around to wash off her contact. Observing this process, her friend Owen, who looks more French than the French, pestered her with concerns about health and wellness. "I don't think this is a good idea," he insisted as Sydney dunked her contact like a local washing her laundry in the Ganges. "Wait," Owen shouted, suddenly inspired as, with great excitement, he dug in his bag, emerging with eyesight-saving saline. "You might have tried to remember that a little sooner," Syd said, thanking him.

We loved the double-decker subway that runs to and from Versailles. On the way there, a roving band of accordion players serenaded us, stumbling on "Oh, When the Saints Come Marching In." Sydney, Melody and I happily joined in. As the song came to an end, we were quite insulted when they requested payment as we had thought it was a spontaneous jam session and that they had played for us for the pure love of our singing. Bubble busted...snap snap. To pass the time, Syd and I reviewed some of the pictures we'd taken so far on our trip, We re-encountered the shot of the bee I had originally named "Frank N. Bee." "Where were we when you took that," Sydney asked. "Norman-bee," I said tiredly, before we dissolved into over-tired titters. Good-bye Versailles.

Exhausted, we were glad to return to the hotel. "You know what I love," Monica asked she inserted the card key, "coming back to a clean room." Resting briefly before our evening tour, we watched as Monica enthusiastically enjoyed a super-stuffed crepe wrap. "This is so-oo good," she said, unable to contain her emotions or her wrap as meat dropped like confetti all over the floor. "So much for rose petals," I remarked as she scrambled to pick them up, "you may have started a new trend."

Our final stop of the evening was the Tour Montparnasse, the tallest skyscraper in Paris. Sydney and I, tired of lugging half of our belongings all over Paris, had left our backpack at the hotel. As we approached our destination, Monica handed me a bottle of water, "I could feel that you were thirsty," she said. Wow, I thought, gulping down half of it, talk about intuitive. My roomies, Sydney and I were beside ourselves with excitement when we summited the building, realizing that we were actually going to get to view the Bloody Moon. This is a rare lunar eclipse where the moon is completely hidden in the Earth's shadow and the only way that the sun's light can get to it is by reflecting off the Earth's atmosphere. Sydney and I scored some chairs rail side on the indoor platform and just enjoyed looking at Paris, lit-up. A family happened by, the kids (invading my personal space bubble) asking where the Eiffel Tower was and their mom answering that it was probably on the other side of the building. They walked away, leaving me impressed with the effectiveness of language immersion. "Sydney," I boasted, "I understood EVERYTHING that they were saying." "I would hope so, Mom, they were speaking in English." 

We jammed our group into the elevator for the ear-popping ride down. "I fell into a burning ring of fire," we sang, "I went down, down, down and the flames went higher." Back to the hotel. Back to bed. Back at it tomorrow. Snap,snap.