Two exhibits have been on The List since late last year; Fêtes et divertissements à la Cour, at the château de Versailles, and Amazones de la révolution at musée Lambinet in municipal Versailles. For various reasons relating to the weather, health, the vagaries of reality, or the universe simply hating us, we have yet to manage to accomplish this visit to Versailles, and as the clock on the exhibits ticked down, we reached a point at which, last weekend, we said that come hell or high water, we would go to Versailles.
- It was with this in mind that we ate a filling-but-stomach-friendly dinner on Friday;
- It was with this in mind that we each woke up earlier than is typical on a Saturday;
- It was with this in mind that we looked outside, said “holy shit” at the temperature (which had plunged back down to 4°), grabbed extra layers, and said “we are going to Versailles today;”
- It was with this in mind that we grabbed Marco, packed the camera and an extra bag (we invariably end up toting posters, soap, or who-knows-what around), and walked out the door;
- It was with this in mind that we walked down the stairs to the RER C, looked at the screen with puzzled expressions, and then walked back to the nearby map of the system to see if our inference as to what was going on was correct;
- It was with this in mind that, exasperated, we verified via the RATP app that the entire southern leg of the RER C was shut down for the weekend, threw our hands up, and walked away.
It is true that we could have taken the métro and then a bus, but two hours of travel time per direction was unreasonable. We could have taken an Uber out to Versailles, but we have had awful luck with regards to getting either Ubers or taxis to come back from Versailles, thus we reasoned that we were only setting ourselves up for later misery.
As we walked away, defeated, the Purrito jokingly suggested that we could return to that very worst of Museums, musée du quai branly. Unhappy, but not to the point of self-hatred, I declined. Originally planning to hike to a nearby métro and console ourselves with Chipotle at Beaugrenelle, we wound up saying “why the hell not” to an Italian traiteur that the Purrito had heard about, and then sulked back to the neighborhood, our purpose, having been thwarted, no longer shielding us from the cold.
The universe won this round.
Fezzik In Paris 