Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Surprise on our walk!

So this walk is pretty short, and not THAT interesting for me personally. Mostly because we can't "do" anything and the fact that the little cannon didn't go off. I'll explain what that is in a second. But it still became really fun because we sort of saw Angelina Jolie filming a movie. And we got interviewed by a French tv channel! Anyways, we started out with the Palais Royal, which is just next to the Louvre. It is here where we started the walk last Tuesday, and ended up not finishing it because Angelina Jolie was filming in this café right along our walk. I was right across the street from this café and was wondering what's going on when I heard these Japaense tourists next to me say "Angelina Jolie" in a very strong accent. I'm pretty sure I saw her back. She's pretty tall. Here's a pic the papparazi who I saw with huge cameras were able to take. They are very good at their jobs. I tried taking some but they kept blocking my camera with their hands or umbrellas.

Here's my across the street. You only see two guys there blocking the crosswalk which is why I was able to take this picture, but like 30 seconds later there were more guys who stopped me from taking pics.

Anyways, on to the walks. We started with a shopping mall called Le Louvre des antiquaires. It is really an antique mall and it's very expensive, so much so that almost all of the stores didn't list prices. The professor who wrote this walk said that he saw George Lucas shopping for furniture while he was writing this walk. One day I will buy a cool piano like this (but I also want a black/red one like that one in the Cité de la Musique):

Then we head over to the Palais Royal, where Cardinal Richlieu used to live, he just gave it to the King before he died. It's a nice little place, but we weren't allowed to go inside. Here's some columns a French architect added. When the government found out what he was trying to do, they tried to cancel the contract with him, but he won and ended up still building this:

It just doesn't really fit in with the old architecture, but then again, they thought the same about the Eiffel Tower. I think it's fine. Also those green pants I was wearing was filmed by Canal+ Le grand journal. Whether or not we ever got aired, I don't know, but I don't think so from what I saw online. This guy and his cameraman stopped us and asked if we were tourists. Then he asked us some questions about it, and says its funny that Angelina Jolie is filming a movie called "The Tourist" right there! What are our thoughts of Paris, and what do you think the Parisians think of us! One of the things I said was that Parisians dress very well but they need more colors. Then Haley or Chelsea pointed out that they need to wear colored pants like mine and the cameraman focussed on my pants. Haha, it was kinda crazy.
So the following is the little cannon that I read about online, and there's even a plaque there saying that it goes off every day at noon thanks to the sun. But I've been there two times, both cloudy and sunny and it hasn't gone off!! So that made me sad. Also Haley and Chelsea thought it was too small, I told them it was small but they didn't believe me. It was built when France tried to do their own Meridian of time. So that time "starts" there. But we all know it is in Greenwich! But for like 30-40 years in the 19th Century, they kept insisting on this until they finally conformed to the rest of the world.
Then I visited a covered passage/mall called Passage des Panorams, and the Bourse (French Stock Market).


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