Paris Continued

OK, I have heard a million things about Paris. That it's great, disgusting, pretty, trashy, hard to get around, expensive, touristy, classy, sophisticated and smelly. Well, it is all of those things, but regardless of the negatives I listed, I had an incredible time.

The first day on my own I visited the famous cemetery. I did in fact see Jim Morrison's grave, as well as Chopin's grave. The cemetery was huge and was divided up into 97 different sections which had no real orgazational system to them at all. Someone luckily gave me a map but it took me an hour of looking for Marcel Proust's grave before I gave up. I didn't even care that much but then it kind of became an annoying quest I had to complete. I wanted to see Wilde's grave, too. Women supposedly kiss all over his grave and such. All of the graves were so extravagant there. It was all surrounded by beautiful trees, and it was very peaceful and quiet. I have some marvelous pictures of the cemetery, but like most computers I have used, the tower is locked up so I cannot access the USB ports.

I got back to my hostel around dark (it was a long walk and I prefer not to use the Subway...it costs too much and you can take in more of the city when you are actually above ground). When I returned I met two people from New York named Jesse and Andrew. We went out to eat in the rain and it was pretty unpleasant (except for the meal). It cost me way too much and I have decided that eating out from now on will be a rarity. The real problem was that the waiter, seeing that we were American and knew how to tip, gave us our change back (about 10.50) with a 10 Euro Bill. This was before I figured out France includes tips with their meal, so needless to say we left a very happy waitress.

When I returned to my dorm I found it full of new faces. It went something like this:

Me: So where are you guys from?
Group: North Carolina, we all go to UNC.
Me: Oh, heh, I'm an incoming freshmen at UMD.
(Silence)
Group: Looking forward to basketball season?
Me: Yep.
(Silence)

And then we all went to bed.

The next day I went to the Catacombs with Jesse and some people he had met. The Catacombs of Paris are a large underground cave with stacks and stacks of bones and skulls. It was really interesting yet at the same time sort of bleak that all of these bones have been forgotten about and that they were in fact once people. Just to show you how quickly you can accumulate friends, our Catacomb group included Jesse, Andrew (a new Andrew from Canada - the first one left that morning to go back home), two girls from New Zealand, Omar and Renoir (two brothers from Puerto Rico), and four girls we met in line from Utah State.

After the catacombs I decided to relax back in my room (which had a delightful view of the street) and play guitar. It was really surreal to sit there with my feet propped on the edge of the railing looking out into the heart of Montemarte (in my opinion the coolest part of Paris). But then walked in my two new roommates - Clara from Brussels and Eli (short for Elizabeth) from Germany. They were here for a three day tour of Paris and we quickly became good friends. The first night we walked all around Montemarte and ended up getting pizza and eating it at the top of Butte Montemarte - a giant hill overlooking all of Paris. At the top is the Sacre Couer - a famous church built in 1919. When we went looking for a corkscrew we met Phillip and Phillip from Germany who actually were staying at our hostel. They were both great guys and we all spent the rest of the night chatting looking out over Paris.

The next day I went out with Clara and Eli around Paris and we ran into a interesting tourist trap that went something like this:

A lady comes out of no where and picks up a gold ring off the ground and says "Oooh a gold ring! Look at this! It is solid gold! Oh, but I can't wear it because of my religion, I'm Evangelist. You have it!" and she handed it to Clara. Clara refused but being the resourceful traveler I pretend to be, grab it and say "OK cool, I'll take it". So I say thanks and start to walk away when all of a sudden she runs up behind me and says "How about we get a cup of coffee to celebrate". Ah-ha. I pretty soon realized what was going on here but I told her I had no time to get coffee and that I had to go to the Eiffel Tower. She insisted and I insisted back until she finally held out here hand with a grin and expected me to give her the ring back. A part of me wanted to insist that the ring is now in my possession, another part of me wanted to give it back to her and get away and another part of me wanted to throw it into the River Seine. I wasn't sure how deep this went as it could have been as simple as bumming lunch off of me or leading me to her favorite café: you know the one where upon walking in you are at the receiving end of a baseball bat given to you by her brother Ramon and you wake up without any of your possessions? I gave it back to her and said "I know this trick. I don't think so".

Later another lady approaches me and asks me if I speak English. Eager to help, I say yes and she proceeds to shove a cardboard sign in my face about how poor she is and how she needs money. Ugh. This continues to happen throughout the day until I discover a line that pisses them off so much they leave you alone pretty quickly. It went like this:

Lady: Do you speak English?
Me: No I don't, sorry.
Lady: (Frowns) But I just heard you speak it to your friend.
Me: Then why did you ask?
(Exit Lady)

So later on I split from Eli and Clara to go to the Louvre. I unfortunately went into the wrong museum thinking it was the Louvre and ended up in a modern art exhibit. I realized this after I had paid money to get in, so I decided to check it out. It was pretty cool, but I would have liked to have seen the Louvre.

So instead I saw Mariah Carey. A huge crowd was around a hotel so I walked up and asked who it was everyone was waiting for. Someone answered in a thick French accent "Marah Caree". I didn't know who that was, so I decided to stick around and see what all the fuss was about. So I sat there for about 10 minutes taking pictures of every rich black man that got out of a nice car before Mariah Carey stepped out of the vehicle and walked right over in my direction. Too bad I don't like her music, otherwise it would have been really cool.

That night I invited some more roommates I met (Katie and Casey from Ohio and Adam from Indiana) as well as someone else I met (Joseph from Oregon) to the top of Butte Montemarte to join Clara, Eli, Phillip and Phillip and I for another night of soaking in the city. Needless to say we had quite a good time.

Today I went off to that odd museum I mentioned (which actually had some very informative exhibits on brothels in Paris and so forth) and then checked out Shakespeare and Co., that real famous bookshop where Hemingway and other famous authors lived for a while. It really was an amazing place. You could practically feel the history there.

By the way, here's a cool picture of the Eiffel Tower and of a protest I had to get through in Paris.

So today I said goodbye to all my friends and boarded a train to Bordeaux. Bordeaux so far is gross. The hostel is too big to meet anyone and it's right near all the sex shops and stuff. In Paris, you would walk down the Red Light District and say to yourself "Wow, what a crazy place". In Bordeaux, you just say to yourself "Eww". I'm going to do an English speaking wine tour tomorrow, which I think is the only reason people come here. Supposedly the outskirts are beautiful. These tours are supposed to be really informative - not just a blind tasting. They have their own tourist office dedicated to wine so it's kind of a big deal here.

After this it's Barcelona! People say it's the best place in Europe so we'll see.