Day 6: Paris

Friday, June 14

Bonjour! Je ne parle pas francais. Parle vous anglais?

That's the extent of my French anymore, unless someone needs to know about the freshness of fish or the condiments on a omelet. Oh and i can probably still sing most of the Biftek song.

But the two simple phrases above, I don't speak French, do you speak English? Are all i had chance to use today, and boy did i use them.

Today is the first day i have ever spent in a country where English is not the primary language, unless you count Quebec (you shouldn't, those uppity bastards)(Amanda has been to Mexico). All in all i think it went really well, but it helped that we stayed mostly in the touristy areas.

First impression of Paris: those taggers sure are prolific. Outside of the more high-traffic areas, very nearly everything is canvassed with graffiti. If there is a surface, spraypaint has touched it. This even applies to areas you'd think unreachable: second-story walls, THIRD-story walls, roofs, and most impressively, the walls inside of literally every subway tunnel. And i mean from end to end. Covered.

Our inaugural destination this fine morning was the Père-Lachaise Cemetery. It's fairly near our hostel so we walked, energized by a breakfast of a baguette with marmalade and hot chocolate. We stopped at a nice little park along the way, which was noteworthy only for its natural placidness among the urban sprawl we were passing through.

Two ladies stood at the cemetery gates, one holding a folder indicating she was a tour guide. It had been suggested by our guidebook that maps of the grounds would be available for the taking, so i inquired. The other lady, much older, gave a curt “I don't know,” and the tour guide remained silent. I glanced back and forth between them for a moment, but when no further acknowledgement of my presence came, i thanked them and walked away, reasonably certain that neither spoke English. At a small building just inside the gates, i asked another woman, this one in a uniform. She gave directions as to where to obtain such a map, but i couldn't follow them. So we analyzed the large map situated just beyond, memorized where we wanted to go, and set off to it.

We were sidetracked many times. The graveyard is so densely packed with tombs that you cannot walk between many of them. And there are no simple headstones overseeing grassy plots in Père-Lachaise; every memorial is at least an above-ground stone casket, and at most a monument reaching 10 meters to the sky. I should fact-check that when i get a minute; there may be taller ones. Some date back to the 1700s.

There was one outhouse-sized tomb with a door that a cat jumped out of as we passed. Looking inside, we saw a rudimentary cat enclosure that appeared man-made and placed there intentionally. It was not the only one we saw during our time there, either.

Eventually we came to the grave we had been looking for: one James Douglas Morrison. Often called the most vandalized landmark in Paris, it has been fenced off from the others, but that has not stopped everybody.

The site is still covered in fresh memorials: flowers and photos and candles, clearly placed there recently by fans undeterred by the barriers of men. Nearby tombs have been marked with Doors lyrics or simply an “I love you Jim!” or some such.

I was really into The Doors as a teenager and thought Jim Morrison was pretty great. Though now i'm less into them and i've realized that Ray Manzarek was really the brains behind the outfit, it felt good to stop by The Lizard King's place of eternal residence and pay him my respects. I suppose Ray's dead too, now, having outlived Jim by a mere 42 years. Should probably find out where he's at and make it a point to journey in that particular direction.

From Jim Morrison we traveled over to Frederic Chopin's grave, then Oscar Wilde. Edith Piaf was a little harder to find, but we got there with a little help from some other lost tourists. The map (which we did eventually find) proved to be...somewhat less than accurate.

--

Unfortunately it wasn't until the next day (today; i've put a big break in the page here since i'm switching from present to past tense, that was as far as i got in writing that entry yesterday) that i was looking more closely at the map of that cemetery and discovered that we'd missed Georges Méliès. He would have been a much bigger attraction to me than Edith Piaf or Oscar Wilde, or even Chopin. Méliès was a filmmaker in the early days of the medium, and the grandfather of compositing. He was the first to take two separate moving images and graft them together as one. Essentially all of Hollywood's post-production special effects can trace their roots back to this guy in the early 1900s, doing what we'd now call “green screening” before the cameras could even see color.

We could have spent all day in that cemetery. Truth be told, as a work of art, it's at least as impressive as any of the cathedrals we've been to, and it allowed photography. But our time in Paris was limited, and there's so much else to do.

We stopped at a little sandwich shop after that, which became my first opportunity to use my two memorized French phrases. Unfortunately, the operator of the cafe spoke very little English, but we were able to agree on “chicken,” and Amanda and i came out of it with different chicken sandwiches.

Walking down the road a bit farther we came to the Colonne de Juillet, situated in the middle of the Roundabout of Death, across from the Opera Bastille in Place de la Bastille. The monument was erected to commemorate the Trois Glorieuses, when King Charles X fell during the French Revolution. Consult Wikipedia for details. We sat on a bench between the two and ate lunch while observing the batshit crazy traffic patterns within the Traffic Circle of Bloody Dismemberment. A man came by and handed us free Cokes.

The aforementioned interchange is a circle about eight lanes wide, but there are no actual marked lanes. It seems that to traverse the intersection, you enter the roundabout and blow your horn while careening haphazardly toward whichever of the eight exits from this thing you need. It was mesmerizing.

Never drive in Paris.

Our next order of business was to locate the office where we could pick up our Paris Passes. We'd read about them in the guidebook and in the manual from the London Pass. They were considerably cheaper, clocking in at 30 Euros per day as opposed to London's 45 pounds (roughly $40 compared to roughly $75). Trouble was, we weren't entirely sure where to get them.

We walked over to Notre Dame Cathedral, expecting that perhaps someone could at least point us in the right direction from there, and discovered the lines to enter wrapping around the building or sticking out over a city block. So instead, we stopped into a local gift shop, and inquired about the Office of Tourism. The proprietor pointed us down the street. Seemed simple enough.

Well, that office purported to be unaffiliated with the actual Office of Tourism, so from there we had to walk out to the Louvre and slightly beyond. Stopping into this first tourism company was worthwhile only because of their cold water cooler, from which we downed at least six cups while waiting and another two on our way out the door.

On the way to the Louvre (and beyond), we came to a bridge across the Seine whose guard fences were absolutely covered in padlocks. This is a thing we had been seeing: in Liverpool, we walked along the waterfront between Beatles Stories and saw several padlocks clasped around the fences and chains between us and the water. In London, we'd seen a few in several places, but this was the mothership of them all. As we crossed this highly trafficked bridge, accosted by street vendors on all sides, we came to a pair of men sitting on a bench selling locks for five Euros. We were going to pass them by, but my curiosity got the better of my GenCon-honed senses, and i asked what the deal was with all the locks.

Well, this being Paris, city of love and all that, where we've seen copious amounts of couples making out in public, of course it's a sappy romance thing. I don't think he gave me the origin, but the meme is that you get the lock, with three keys, and you write your names and some kind of declaration of devotion on it, lock it to the bridge in a spot you will remember, then toss one key into the Seine. Each of you then takes a remaining key to keep with you always as a reminder of the lock, and the conviction it represents.

So, if we ever get back to Paris, with our backs to the Louvre, it's the first section on our left, third chain link from the far right and one up from the bottom. There rests a lock inscribed:

Amanda + Trevor 9.13.03 – Forever and Ever

Had to do one cheesy romantic thing while in Paris, right?

Between the obtaining of the lock and the actual placement, we were approached by two men with string demanding that Amanda stick her finger in the loop in their strings. I made the mistake of replying to one of them, and before we really knew what was happening, Amanda's finger was in that string. Then my finger was in the other guy's loop of string. They told some kind of story while making an intricate weave of the four threads on either of us, of which all we could really make out was “sex machine, boom boom!!” said over and over. In the end, we each had a colorful bracelet with a pretty neat pattern on it, but then these guys were looking for some money for their craft. Ok, i'm willing to drop them a few Euros. I handed over all the change in my pocket, amounting to three, possibly four Euros, but the one guy was insistent that they needed ten. I told him that this was all i had, they'd stopped us while looking for an ATM to get more (a lie; sorry, whoever is keeping track of these things. I assume the DM). Then he was probing to see if i had any American money, and i told him i'd left it all back at the hotel (also a lie). They had already tied the string off on our wrists so it wasn't coming back and were getting agitated, but i made it clear they weren't getting anything else out of me, so finally they said Good Day and huffed off, irritated. Well, that's what you get for not making your prices known upfront. And also for trying to charge ten Euros for string and two minutes' work.

Back to our mission.

Beyond the Louvre we came to the official Office of Tourism. When we inquired about the Paris Pass, we were informed that they did not sell it. In fact, nobody in Paris sells it. It's sold only by a British company exclusively online and must be picked up at a site whose location they were unaware of. But they offered to sell us a Museum Pass, good for several Paris museums including the Louvre, but excluding the Eiffel Tower.

We stepped out of line with a Museum Pass handbook and looked into the prices to do what we wanted to do compared to this Museum Pass, pissed that we had wasted several hours chasing this unobtainable thing down. It ended up not being cheaper than paying for the attractions individually, so we grabbed advance tickets for L'Arc de Triomphe and the Louvre and were on our way. They did not sell tickets for Notre Dame, and said we'd still have to wait in line even if we had advance tickets, since there is only one entrance.

Checking the map, we decided that walking back to Notre Dame was the best way to go. Mostly because it closes at 6:30, while everything else on our list was open until 11. It was already past 4.

Waiting in that line proved less annoying than expected. It moved quickly and before we knew it we were in the cathedral. The French are much more lax about photography than the English. Pictures are allowed inside, but no flash. Score.

The inside of Notre Dame is of course impressive. Its high gothic ceilings and rampant stained glass are comparable to St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey, but in general, compared to those English landmarks, the art is sparse. It's still damn awesome, but after seeing the other two, Notre Dame just didn't have the power to take my breath away. If i'd seen it first, i'd have certainly been blown away, but it was kind of like seeing Empire Strikes Back first and then Return of the Jedi. Jedi is still great, but doesn't live up to the expectations set forth by the predecessor. Or Dark Knight and Dark Knight Rises. Need more nerd analogies? I've got 'em.

Notre Dame also does not contain any dead people. We saw no graves or memorials, even when we went down into what they call the Crypts. The Crypts of Notre Dame are purely archaeological remains: artifacts and ruins of older buildings, with informational installations detailing the construction of the cathedral. And since the crypts were the only part we had to pay to get into, it was a tad disappointing. They cut us a deal on the price, though, since we came in close to close and they had to kick us out.

We did not get to tour the famous towers of Notre Dame, though; ground level only. When we went to get in line for the towers, they had already closed the queue for the day and were actively dispersing the remainder of the crowd. We were just a little too late.

Darn, because i definitely haven't climbed up enough stairs yet on this trip.

From there, we took the subway to L'Arc de Triomphe, a place where we climbed another 200 stairs to get to a great view of the city. We took a double-selfie from the top, with both cameras at once, so you can see both our arms reaching toward the shot (no duckface, though). We're side by side with the Eiffel Tower in the background, it's pretty neat, and to that point probably the only picture of Amanda from the trip. After climbing down, we took in the artistry of the exterior of the monument for a time before rolling out.

The famous Champs-Élysées unfolds from one spoke of the Suicide Roundabout around the Arc. Oh yeah, it's just like the one around the Colonne de Juliette. From the top, i got some video of the stupid, stupid bullshit that happens in that thing.

I took some shots of the Champs-Élysées from the mouth of the street at that time, but we didn't go down it. We had someplace else to be. Someplace called the Eiffel Tower.

Coming under the Eiffel Tower, Amanda remarked that, “It's so weird to actually be here and see it in person, you know?”

I thought about it for a moment. “Kind of like meeting a famous person, huh?” She agreed with me. That's exactly what it was like. I thought of William Shatner for some reason.

You can take the lift up the tower, which is what i'd hoped to do, given the state of our legs by this point, but that is not what it's like to travel with Amanda Haerterich. She immediately directed us toward the queue to purchase Stairs Passes, and i realized that the film i'm going to cull out of all this footage will be titled something along the lines of Stairs: The Musical. We'd seen posters all along London's Tube stations for the stage adaptation of Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps, so perhaps as an homage to that, The 39,000 Steps.

The line was so long that we were worried we wouldn't make it in time for what we wanted, but it turned out ok. Also disappointing was a slide on the video marquee above the ticket office declaring the “Summit Temporarily Closed.” but even without going all the way to the top, we couldn't resist the thought of being on the Eiffel Tower at sundown.

So we took those 528 stairs up to the second observation deck, where i thought we'd park it for the rest of the natural daylight, but Amanda found 18 more stairs to climb to a third level. With 200 steps between the first and second floors, it was a relief to only have to do 18 more. Then she found the queue to go to the summit. I don't know what that marquee down below was talking about, but the top of the tower was most certainly open. It's only accessible by lift, though, so HOORAY FOR THAT!!

And so, as the sun crept down below the horizon, we watched the day end from the tallest point in Paris, and also watched a bunch of fools on the ground taking pictures of us with their flashes on.

Coming down from the Tower was when we noticed how truly weary we were. We'd not eaten in 10 or so hours and had climbed a thousand stairs since then, not to mention walked halfway across Paris. We declined to eat at the cafe on the first floor, thinking it way too expensive, and opted to try and find something not terribly out of our range, but at least a little away from the Tower itself.

I had this notion that it would be really cool to be able to say we'd eaten dinner on the Champs-Élysées, so we plotted a course back to that famous street. It turned out to be much farther than expected. I should have known, i mean, it took some time to get from the Arc to the Tower, but now that we were dragging so badly, that time was probably nearly doubled. Usually, i end up walking a pace or two behind Amanda, partially because she tries to set a quicker pace than i can manage and partially because i'm trying to shoot video of things as we go, and i often like to have her walking in the shot as something to anchor it to our reality, but on that particular trek i found myself a couple paces in the lead. Amanda was nearly done for unless i could get some food into her, and there was no way i'd be able to carry her if things got that bad. She was lamenting bringing only her toe shoes on the trip, she has now learned that prolonged use becomes painful on the feet.

We had to stop and rest several times, the final time being just as we came up to the Champs-Élysées itself. We'd completed that part of our mission; now we just needed to find a place to eat that wouldn't charge in limbs, or at least one that would accept us the way we were dressed/generally presented (a few days out from a shower, sunburned, and coated in the sweat of 14 hours' walk). So, nothing too fancy.

The first place we came up to was a pizza place. Seemed like it would do the trick, until we saw, at a PIZZA PLACE, a Maitre'd wearing a full suit and tie. The next restaurant was another pizza place of similar stature. We were starting to think we were screwed.

Then, across the street, we saw Pomme du Pain, which i incorrectly translated as Potato. But from our vantage we could tell there were fast food-style menu boards at a central counter where people walked up and ordered their food before sitting in booths to eat. We elected to try that place. So we shambled across the street and into Pomme du Pain, next to the movie theater. Off topic: you know what they call The Hangover Part III in France? Very Bad Trip 3. Because of the metric system.

Pomme du Pain actually means Apple Bread. Their sandwiches were very good, or maybe just exactly what we needed at that point, and the cold Cokes were like the nectar of gods. We also got cookies.

Down to the subway and back to the hostel with us from there. It was past midnight when we got in, we smelled rank and looked the very definition of disheveled. But the hostel showers close at 11, so there was to be no cleaning up before bed. I had thought to take my laptop down to the lobby (yeah, DOWN – did i mention that we were up four flights of uneven stairs? No lift.) to work on writing out my log for the day, but all their chairs were off the floor and it looked pretty well closed. There's also the fact that they shut off the internet at midnight which would hold me back from posting, but i just wanted to write it. The problem was that my laptop battery was dead, and the only electrical outlet in our room was too close to the wall for me to fit my power adaptor and computer cable into.

Things being what they were, i just laid down on the floor in our room and started to write it out by hand in a notebook. Amanda passed out almost instantly. I gave up after reaching Edith Piaf's grave, as you can see by my annotation up there. It was past 2am, after all, and if we wanted to see any decent chunk of Louvre the next day, we'd have to be up pretty early.