20/4/09 Paris

After eating lots of bread for breakfast, I took the train down to Pere Lashaise. The cemetery is terribly done, they only have one map at the entrance to the park, so you are basically forced to buy a map from someone selling them outside. I guess with free admission, a 2 Euro map isn’t so bad.

The cemetery is huge. I spent around two hours going around it. There were a lot of famous people there, Chopin, Proust, Sarah Bernhart, among many others. The two most notables are Jim Morrison and Oscar Wilde.

My entire life I’d heard about how crazy fans vandalized the whole cemetery with stuff about Morrison. I hardly saw any example of it. In fact, the grave itself was pretty much a letdown. Very simple, no graffiti, nothing extraordinary. On top of that they had it fenced off so no one could get all that close to it. Oh well.

Oscar Wilde, however, was really interesting. First, it’s a huge angle type of tomb. The angel had such obscene genitalia that the ward of the cemetery chopped it off and used it as a paper weight. The other really cool part of it is that it’s tradition for women to kiss it with lipstick, so there are all sorts of lipstick marks on it. Pretty cool.

They had a wall where revolutionaries were shot and buried in the cemetery, as well as monuments to Auschwitz, Dachau, WWII, etc. But most of the place was just tombs. It was sort of strange walking around them, it was like walking through a literally tiny town, with all the mausoleums lining the streets, some with their doors open. I liked my time there, and after the catacombs the day before, I wasn’t phased at all. It also helped that it was a very sunny afternoon, temperature up in the 70s.

On my way out, I gave my map to some Brits. I thought about trying to sell it for a Euro, but I thought I’d just give it away to someone. Maybe they’ll like Americans now.

I took the train over to Marais and took the guided tour from my book. The coolest parts were Victor Hugo’s mansion, which was right on the Vosges park. There were lots of people out just sitting on the grass, lying down, it was such a nice day that I joined them. I sat over by the fountain and took my shoes off. I’m learning they’re not very good at letting the air circulate, so just taking them off made a huge difference.

I sat for about an hour, I really liked it, I felt like a real Parisian.

Because of the combo of the nice day out and that I’ve seen a ton of art lately, I decided to skip the Picasso Museum. The rest of the tour didn’t seem that interesting, so I skipped that too.

I tried to walk in the Latin Quarter, but I got lost and ended up at the Bastille monument. I was sorta glad to see it actually, so that worked out. I took Charles IV down to St. Germain, where I was going to try to go to Le Procope, which is the oldest coffee shop in Paris.

The walk was great. Ma and I did a little bit of it when we went to Lex Deux Magots. It’s in the old artistic part of town, very Greenwich Villagey. The walk took longer than I expected, but it was worth it.

I got to Le Procope, and it looked intimidating. The waiters were all fancy and they had white table clothes. I nearly decided not to go in, but since they had the menu in three languages, they were probably use to stupid under-dressed tourists.

I went up and asked for a table and the guy responded to me in English. It was totally cool if I just had coffee, in fact there was a whole section of people just getting drinks. They, of course, were all tourists. I sorta felt bad for the waiters.

The place opened in 1686, almost 100 years before my country started. Amazing. Just as amazing is the people that have been there, namely Voltaire and Benjamin Franklin. Yes, that Benjamin Franklin.

I ordered a Café Gradeur, which is a coffee and some deserts. I’m starting to figure out the cafés here, when you order a coffee (‘café’) it’s a shot of expresso, so that was sort of disappointing. But the deserts were awesome. There was a sort of breaded thing, a pastry with cream, and the best part, a scoop of vanilla ice cream. The ice cream was incredible, they said it was home made since 1686, and it sure seemed like it. My bill was all of 5.50 Euros. Definitely a deal. I would have paid 5 Euros just to walk around the place.

After that I went and ran into a good-looking pastry store, and got a crossiant and an apple pastry. Both were good, and cheap. I took them and just started wandering, ending up at Jardin de Luxembourg again. Since I didn’t spend all that much time there the night before, I decided to wander around it again.

It’s a huge park, lots of statues, chairs filled with people, kids running around, the whole park was busy. I came to a little corner in the park and there were middle aged to elderly people playing this French game where you throw big metallic balls at a smaller one and try to get closets.

There were amazing. There was one Asian-French guy that was incredible. He would consistently throw it and hit away another player’s ball. I loved watching them (and the little French girl next to me was doing a bunch of silly things). They were competitive, but also having fun. It made me miss playing sports. I have hardly seen live sports since I got here. I spent a whole hour there (I was the only non-elderly person watching, and probably the only one that also had no idea what was going on).

I went to go around the rest of the park and I saw a basketball court and people my age playing. They weren’t great, a lot of pretty bad shots. I don’t know if I would have dominated, but there were definitely some players bigger than me there, so I don’t know. I can’t think of any great French basketball players, and I could see why. They looked athletic enough, just didn’t have the skills. They played 4-on-4 and I was sort of hoping they’d need me to jump in, but there was a whole other team waiting to go in. I’m excited to play this summer.

Next I went over to the tennis courts and watched them for about a minute. No one seemed that good, and well, I just don’t care that much about tennis.

I took the train back to my hostel and got my computer and went down to the Eiffel Tower. My plan was to try to see if they really did have free wifi in the parks and sit and watch the sun set and the tower light up.

There were a lot of people in Champs de Mars, sitting out on the grass and picnicking. I was pretty hungry so I went over and bought a Nutella banana crepe. Probably the worst one I’ve had here so far (I watched her make it, she put it in the microwave. Weak.)

I came over to the grass and tied to find a good spot (I couldn’t get wifi). On one side there was loud techno music being played. The other, loud Americans. Not so ideal. I went and leaned against a fence on a little tree and sat on the grass, writing this up and watching the tour light up. Pretty incredible, I can’t believe I’m looking directly at the Eiffel Tower right now. It’s a clear night and the lighting was great. And it’s right in front of me. Wild.

I started getting cold so after the light show at 10 I decided to get up and get coffee somewhere. I wanted it to be a cool place, so I decided to head up to Montparnasse to Le Dome, a famous Hemmingway and artist hangout. It’s really gentrified since then, but they have a really cool café section. The interior is all art deco, and this area of town is pretty cool, I can see why they all flocked here back in the day.

I ordered a double café and finished up this and did a little work on some other stuff I’ve been wanting to get around to.

Tomorrow I’m not really sure what I’ll do. I’ve been considering the Monmartre free walking tour for days now, and tomorrow might be the day. I’ve thought about walking up the Eiffle Tower to the first or second level during the day for fun. I still might go hang out with Napoleon, I’m really not sure what’ll happen. I think I’ll go to Le Flore, the other major artist hangout (next to Lex Deuce Magots) and maybe I’ll head to Le Select, which I can actually see out the window now. I had a really nice day today, I’m not really looking forward to going back.