He works in the PR side for Hollywood studios in Argentina, a very interesting job. He’s basically the guy that starts out on the other end of a phoner, so we had lots to talk about. I was very impressed with his English, which he said he learned a lot from watching movies. Sounds like he has a pretty great job.
The Pompidu Center was cool, maybe the best part was being inside with the architecture. The escalators are in tubs on the outside and up at the top there is a great view over the city.
We went though the Carver exhibit, which was ok, and then worked our way down. Surprisingly, my favorite part was the art film part. I watched these two guys’ film almost the entire way though. Most of it was one guy doing different interactions with everyday objects. At the end the best part was when they did a three-legged bit where they had to dodge tennis balls from a machine. They got hit a couple times, very interesting to watch, I’m going to look up more about them.
They had some good Pollocks, Picassos, and Miros, but after seeing those for just about the entire last week, they didn’t mean as much to me.
We left and I got a Nutella banana crepe and we walked for about a half-hour to the catacombs. There as a long line and Martin said he wanted to do some other things, so I stayed in line and he went off. I waited for nearly an hour and was in the last group to make it in (they’re open for only two hours in the afternoon).
I have to say I was a little nervous about this. I don’t think I do so well with squeamish things, but this seemed interesting to me.
You have to go down tons of circular stairs and then walk for about 15 minutes though dark tunnels to even get to the bones. And when I finally did, I wasn’t that creeped out, perhaps because they were all arranged in such a geometric fashion. The skulls were creepy, but because there was just so much of it, it almost lost some of the impact. There were literally millions of people’s remains there, removed from the overcrowded cemeteries in the 1700s.
The walk too about an hour, fascinating to think that’s below Paris. I walked back to the center but took a detour at the Luxembourg Garden. The rain was all gone and it was sunny and nice out, so I sat there and watched the kids play with boats in the fountain and just people watched. I decided it would be a great idea to go get my computer and try to get the supposed wi-fi in all the parks in Paris, so I took the train back to get my computer.
I got off at the wrong stop but it was an easy, if not a little lengthy, walk back. I got my computer and as I was walking to the station I saw a little park filled with kids running around and people sitting on benches. It was sort of tucked away between big Paris buildings, so I decided to try to see if I could get wifi. The park itself didn’t have any, but I stole some from someone named Thompson.
I finished up my column, sent it in, worked on the blog, read baseball stuff, and just had a relaxed time and people watched. The kids here all look very Parisian, you’d never think they were American. A ton of them were kicking soccer balls around, it was fun to watch. Plus I was probably the only non-French person there, so it was cool.
The sun started to set and my computer was going to die, so I decided I would go to the top of the Arc de Triumph to see the sun set. But it was setting too fast so I changed my plans and went to the Sacre Cour to try to watch it. The sky turned all sorts of cool colors and it was great to watch from up there.
I wandered aimlessly in the direction of the Louvre, seeing a different part of Paris again. It was cool to see that part of town too. I finally made it over by the Louvre around 10 or so and walked from there to the Arc. It took about an hour and by that time it was closed, so I took the train back.
I wanted to try to eat at the Café de la Place on the corner of my street, but they stopped serving food, so I tried to go over by the Sacre Cour to see if anything was open. Not much was, so I went back to the place ma and I went to the first night and sat down inside to get a table. I had an apple turnover and a coffee, both were good, just a little overpriced. I couldn’t steal wifi there but maybe that was good. I wrote a couple days of the blog out and then left when the place closed at 1.
I came back to the hostel and finished up the rest of the blogs, which was great to get done. It’ll just be a pain to try to get the pictures up, that’ll be a lot of work but should be fun to do.
Tomorrow I’m going to the Jim Morrison cemetery and taking a walk around a part of town by the Picasso Museum. I will either get some coffee at another artist place or at the oldest coffee place in Paris where Voltaire and Benjamin Franklin had coffee. I hope to do both actually. I also want to get some more pastries and try to get a good meal somewhere, or at least lots of good snacks. I think I’m going to go to the park by the Eiffel Tower to watch the sun set. We’ll see, it’s supposed to be 70 with lots of sun, so it should be a good outside day.
I’m getting really used to Paris, I know the city and I even feel relatively comfortable with French. I’ve been here for such a long time that it feels a little like a home away from home. I feel like I could live here even. I’ve liked my time here a lot more than I expected, I think a lot of it has to do with me being here for the second time, just giving me some orientation and idea of what the city is about. I’m sort of dreading coming back home a little, I can’t imagine how I’ll ever do cooler things in my life than I am now.
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