Took this guy with me. Siggy the Frog is my Chapter's mascot. I definitely got looked at funny for wandering around taking pictures of a stuffed frog, but it was fun.
Ignore the lameness of the title. Kthx.
So Friday. Left the hostel around 10 to go do fun touristy things. I finally, finally went up Notre Dame. Except I failed a little. The very, very top (as in all the way up one of the towers) is closed between 11:30 and 2:30 for security reasons. My guess is glare from the sun? But yeah. You go up one tower and across, and then you can go to the very top of the other tower. This fact eluded me, so by the time I realized you could go up the other tower it was 11:28 and they weren't letting anyone else up. Whoops. I could have gone back later (and paid another 5 euro to go up again), but the guard there said it was the same view, just that you could see all around because, dur, it's all the way at the top. So I decided against it. There's nothing super distinctive about the Paris skyline except that monstrosity of a skyscraper. I got up the cathedral and saw one of the bells and that's okay with me. Considering that's the one thing I hadn't been able to do the last two times I was here, I think I'm okay with never coming back to Paris again unless someone wants to pay me/pay for me to do so. (Or unless the other musical I like decides to come back again, but that's a longshot.)
Hey, it worked twice so far, right?
After the cathedral itself, I went to the crypt underneath. I had always thought a crypt was a place for dead people, which this wasn't. But I just looked it up on dictionary.com and found "a subterranean chamber or vault, esp. one beneath the main floor of a church, used as a burial place, a location for secret meetings, etc." You learn something new every day. Anyway, the crypt was just like, "oh hey look at this old stuff that used to be in this spot." Because every new generation of Paris was built on the older ones. So there're remains of Roman houses and baths or something, and of a road that used to run from the cathedral until someone decided to widen it, and there are stairs and walls of houses that used to be there. It was pretty cool. I knew France had Roman and other ancient-people things in it back in the day, but I guess somehow I never thought of Paris as being that old? Or something like that. Turns out there was an ancient city called Lutece. Cool beans. You can't really see any of it anymore obviously. Cool just the same.
From there I walked down the river to the Institut du Monde Arabe (Arab World Institute). The only reason I went was that we were supposed to have an Arabic test on Friday (which we wasn't scheduled for that day when I bought my tickets) and when I told my prof I'd be missing it he was like "Okay so go to this place and go talk to people and give us a presentation on it." And then on Wednesday he changed the date again. Awesome. The place was pretty cool but it was basically just the museum, a bookstore, and a reading room/library thing. None of the employees there were of Arab background so there was no one for me to talk to or anything. I don't know if he'd been there before or was just assuming that I could talk to people there. So I have nothing to talk about on Monday. This is going to be fun.
From there I wandered. Got quasi-lost, in that I didn't know where I was but I really didn't care. Stopped and got a kebab for lunch. Oh god, I'd missed those. Listened to people speaking Arabic, but I couldn't make out a whole lot and I have no idea what dialect it was. Partly because I was listening to all the conversations at once and because the radio was up loud. At least I recognized it as Arabic though. Whee. Wandered more. Picked a direction and walked. Because I am that awesome. Found a metro station.
And went to the catacombs. Spooooky. The stupid building wasn't marked though, so I stood on the corner looking around for a minute or two. Had been eyeing this one building thinking that had to be it. Then an old French man came up and asked if I was lost. I said not really, just looking for the catacombs. When he pointed at the building I'd been thinking about, I was like "Of course!" And he laughed and went away. Yay for cute old French men. He was probably just wondering why I was chewing on my sunglasses. So yeah. Catacombs. Woooo.
Tunnel to get to the catacombs. Two guys walking behind me were humming the Indiana Jones theme.
Not gonna lie, I was a little creeped out. And by a little I mean... pretty creeped out initially. They're all made up of skulls and tibias, it looked like. I couldn't see any other bones. I was confused. I don't have too many quality photos though, because you can't use your flash down there and obviously it was pretty dark. It smelled funny too. Gee, I wonder why. I also had the wrong idea about them though. I'd somehow been under the impression that like, someone had one day gone underground and was like "OMGWTFBBQ there are bodies down here!" But no. They just moved all the people out of various cemeteries. Less epic story, but it was still pretty cool. Though if I stood and looked at one section long enough (like more than a few seconds) I would get creeped out and have to move on. There were all kinds of inscriptions down there. Most were in French, but some were in Latin and I was really bummed when I couldn't read them. Sad face. They were all about death and whatever though. (Duh. As opposed to what, sunshine and rainbows and unicorns?) When I left the catacombs I was a ways a way from where I started, so I played the "let's wander til we find something" game. And I wound up finding my way back where I'd started. I win.
Came back to hostel. Got food. Changed and peaced out to go see Roméo et Juliette!! That will get its own post because I am that much of a nerd. For srs.
Peek-churs
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