Finally back on track... the rest of my visit to Paris

NOTICE - I've finally finished my posts on Paris, complete with pictures. Significant changes have been made to the last three posts, so read all 3, starting with the oldest, to get my full Paris experience.

Song of the Day: Counting Crows – Mrs. Potter’s Lullaby
“If you’ve never stared off into the distance, then your life is a shame”

With a new bank card and cash secured, my hostel-mate Amy and I hit the city for another day. The first stop? Paris’ infamous catacombs, which house millions of human bones, all buried deep under the city. Back in the late 1700s, disease was spreading rampantly throughout Paris, and the city smelled unbearable, due to the severe overcrowding of Paris’ cemeteries. As a remedy to the problem, every corpse in the city was exhumed and taken down into the depths of the catacombs, where their bones and skulls were artistically stacked in the underground quarries. Today, the catacombs still remain as they did more than 200 years ago, with stack upon stack of human remains. We paid for our student tickets, and descended the steep spiral staircase into the depths of the Paris underground. After walking through eerie and silent stone hallways for about 10-15 minutes, we came to a sign in French that warned of what lay through the doorway below. Translated, it means “STOP! This is the empire of the dead.”

Through the doorway was truly a sight to behold. The damp, dimly lit stone hallway had bones piled five feet high on either side, stretching all the way down the corridor. Walking along, some bones were placed into artistic formations, such as skulls in the shape of a heart, or a vertical column of bones in the middle of a room. I got some unreal pictures in here. The skulls were particularly morbid, with their hollow black eyes often facing outward as we walked along. Complementing the bones every so often were quotes about death, carved into large stones. This only added to the mood. After walking along through numerous rooms and hallways lined every which way with bones, we eventually made our way out, and back up another spiral staircase leading to street level. At the end, they check your bags to make sure you didn’t take anything, and I was surprised to see that they had a number of skulls and bones that they had confiscated from today alone. That seems like it’s asking for trouble… the last thing I want is an angry Parisian ghost haunting me for stealing his head.

After that, we picked up a cheap lunch at Mcdonald’s, which once again was far different from its American counterparts. I had a “Chicken Mystic,” a big chicken sandwich served with wedge-style fries. It was really good – I wish they had the same items back in the States.

After finishing our lunch, we decided it would be a good time to head over to the Eiffel tower, as neither of us had actually gone up it yet. This time, there were some guys rappelling down to the ground from the tower base, which looked pretty cool. After snapping a few artistic shots at the base, we headed over to the throngs of tourists waiting to go up. As we stood in the massive ticket line, we both listened to music to pass the time (don’t I look bored in the pictures?) and finally got up after about an hour. Herded like cattle, we inched our way into the tiny elevator and secured some prime real estate next to one of the windows. This ride only went to the second platform (out of three), so another huge line awaited us there. At least we got some sweet views as we stood there doing nothing. However, we did eventually make it to the top, and stepped out of the elevator to get our first glimpses of Paris from the sky.

The views from the top are awesome. There’s nothing you can’t see, as the tower dwarfs everything else in the city. Personally, my favorite thing to do was to stick my head through the metal guard and look down, which gives you a really weird feeling as you can’t see the tower below holding you up. All you can see is the ground and the base of the tower, and it feels as if you’re just floating there over the city. I may have gotten some weird looks, but hey I thought it was pretty sweet. When we were done marveling at the landscape, we headed back down, which had a line hundreds of people long as well. Thus, we only took the elevator down one platform and then took the stairs (there are no stairs between the middle and top platforms). That saved some time and kept us moving.

With our feet back on the ground, we hopped back on the Metro and headed to a cemetery, called Pere Lachaise. I had heard about it, and Amy really wanted to see it as it held the grave of Oscar Wilde, one of her favorites. It also held the graves of Jim Morrison and Frederic Chopin, so I definitely wanted to see it too.

The cemetery itself is huge – hundreds of acres if I remember correctly. It’s also eerily beautiful, holding only large and impressive crypts (actually, I think they're called something else but niether of us could remember the word). Some of the crypts were for entire families, and some were so big that they could comfortably fit 50 or so people inside. I think it’s safe to say that this cemetery was only for Paris’ elite. Oscar Wilde’s crypt, the first we went to, is covered with mementos from adoring fans. Some are quotes or signatures, but the most common display was that of lipstick, from adoring women who had kissed the stone to show their appreciation of his work. Most of the lower half of the crypt was dyed red from layers of lipstick.

Next, we went to see Jim Morrison’s grave (of the doors). I took the navigational reigns on this one, and I somehow got us lost, even though we had a map to go from. Only the paved paths were indicated on the map, and the paths we had to take were small and did not have names on the map. By the time we got there, the cemetery was closing and the security guard was shooing us out. Luckily, I had time to snap a few pictures before we had to leave. His grave was very modest and hard to find compared to the others. Hurrying out afterwards, we unfortunately didn’t get to visit Chopin’s grave, which was very close to Morrison’s. Oh well, one more thing for next time I suppose.

At this point, Amy went back to the hostel, and I got on a train headed toward the Opera station. Two years ago, my girlfriend studied abroad in Australia and met a lot of really cool people, a few of which I have already met. One I hadn’t met, however, was a guy named Guillaume, who was originally from Marseilles but moved to Paris for work. We had e-mailed back and forth before my trip and planned on having dinner or drinks one night. Luckily, we found each other rather easily at the metro station. I had seen a lot of pictures of him from when he and Melissa studied together in Australia, but it was great to finally meet him in person. He speaks English very well, having taken it since middle school. After talking for a few minutes, he recommended an Italian restaurant right around the corner.

Dinner was delicious. It was nice to have a good meal for a change. I had a calzone and some French beer that I couldn’t pronounce, but was still pretty good. One thing we talked about during dinner, which I found interesting, was the topic of Parisians not liking Americans. He told me that the way they come off is often different from the way many people feel. He said that many French people in fact envy Americans, and their pursuit of the so-called “American Dream.” It was nice to be able to finally communicate with someone that actually lived in Paris. After dinner, we both had an espresso (think of a 12-ounce American coffee concentrated into about two sips), which are drank by most French people after meals. It was downright bitter, so I had to add all the sugar they gave me before it was palatable. It wasn’t too bad after that, and the caffeine pretty much goes straight to your head.

After dinner I retired back to the hostel, where I immediately plopped down onto the bed from exhaustion. It had been a rough few days, and I hadn’t been getting as much sleep at night as I needed. Amy and I had originally planned on going to Champs de Mars again to meet people and watch the Eiffel Tower, but we were both so tired that we just decided to stay in. We had new roommates, a French girl and a girl from Pennsylvania, so the French girl, Amy, and myself watched Shaun of the Dead on a laptop in the room. It was really funny, and I went to sleep a bit afterwards.

Friday, June 6 --- I’m currently sitting in the Gare du Nord train station, waiting for my 9:55pm train to Brussels. We took it easy today, going to Notre Dame, Shakespeare and Co., and a few other sights before calling it a day. We saw a really cool street performer playing an instrument I'd never seen before. He was my favorite of all that we'd seen (they're on every block almost). I spent a few minutes pondering how his instrument worked as he sang for change. We both gave him a euro for his work. Before coming home, we got some souvlaki at a little place by our hostel, which was amazing. I’d been super behind on the blog, so I wanted to get some updates done before I left Paris. Despite my credit card mishap and a rough first day in this city, I still, in the end, had a great time that I won’t soon forget. I think I got a pretty good idea of what Paris is all about, and getting along here was much easier after the first day. The favorite thing I did, though, was to sit on the Champs de Mars two nights ago drinking cheap wine and meeting locals and other travelers. I hope I come back to Paris to do that again.

It’s kind of sad sitting in this train station, alone again, after just having met a lot of really cool people, and knowing I'll have to start from scratch all over again in Brussels. I’ve spent pretty much the entire past two days with my roommate Amy, so we made sure to exchange contact information before I left. If I’m ever in Canada again, or her in the States, we’re going to try and meet up, which would be really cool. Hopefully our paths will cross again someday.

In the meantime, it’s back to Belgium for me. So long Paris, and thanks for the good times...

To see all 249 pictures I took in Paris, click here.