Hannah's RYE year in Switzerland: Paris

Tour of Montmartre the location of Moulin Rouge. It was originally an abandoned dance studio. The windmill on the roof was a publicity stunt. There was also an elephant but that was later removed. Then we visited the cafe of the 2 Windmills where the movie Ameliè, was filmed. There's a building with 2 closed shutters on the third floor, believed to be out of respect for Van Gogh. He only ever sold one painting in his lifetime (b holland 1853) and his parents worked in the sale of art. He is quite the guy and a committed artist "artists don't need to eat, art is our food” so he licked his own paintbrushes with later on made him sick. He sliced his ear off out of rage after an argument with his friend, landing him in a psychiatric home, where they discovered he was bipolar. Here he painted the famous starry nights. Vincent dies with his final statement as: "The sadness will never end”. Vincent always painted his emotions and he would often paint the windmill of Montmartre which was dramatically different every time depending on how he was feeling. I may have forgot to mention that this was a walking tour, we walked about 5-6 hours. We were walking around the less touristic streets and came across cool little statues (my favourite one was the lady with the magical brass boobs. If you touch both her boobs and make a wish it will come true - mine hasn’t come true yet, I’m waiting patiently). Before Picasso was famous he often paid for things with a sketched portrait. He once went to a restaurant in France, Au Lapin Agile (when he was famous) and drew a dove in one line on a napkin to pay for his meal. The waitress asked for him to sign it and he aid "I want to pay for a meal not buy the restaurant". A donkey LoLo hung out with famous people, like Picasso who came to the restaurant. Picasso put a paintbrush on his tail to paint and he painted 'The sunset over the Adriatic’. Boronali was Lolo's secret identity name and the painting was put up for sale. Many theories were made to who painted the piece but when they found out it was the donkey it was too late, LoLo had been taken to a farm and then drowned. This experiment was only to prove that people were clueless about art and they would literally pay for something done by an animal. There is an Artists square that is UNESCO protected. There we went to buy lunch, shop and hangout for 2 hours before we went to the Eiffel Tower. The weather was bad when we got to the Eiffel Tower but were lucky because we were still able to go to the top. The view was beautiful even though it was cloudy and raining. The tower was originally built for the World fair in 1889. They wanted to build an entrance taller than 300m (at the time the tallest structure in the world). It was built within 22 months. It was meant to be temporary for the fair. It was supposed to be dismantled but the builder didnt want his work to be destroyed so he had the idea of transmitting radio waves to give it a purpose and it is now the most powerful antenna in the world. The restaurant has at least 3 marriage proposals a day. One woman is legally married to the Eiffel Tower. Since 1889 it has had at least 20 coats of antitrust paint. The original antenna is still there. It is a symbol of France and the heart and soul of Paris. After that we met at the bottle to go to the Seine River for a cruise. We sailed down the Seine to Notre Dame and then returned to the Eiffel Tower. We then went to dinner - an authentic 3 course French meal. We went to bed pretty early seeing as we had a big day ahead of us.