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England and Scotland . Russia . Scandinavia . The Czech Republic . The Netherlands . Germany . Switzerland . Italy . Spain
September 10
Christi is easily bored. The water is the most beautiful shade of blue you'll see anywhere outside of Hawaii. The weather is warm and well, Mediterranean, just like home. The ocean is about the same temperature for the end of summer too, so it was cold at first but then seemed ok. The water rushing through the rocks as the waves break makes a lovely sound of cloacking, bubbling swooshiness and it makes me wish i hade a tape recorder, especially it it were one that would not be damaged by salt water. The slope of the rocks is pretty steep tho, so it's hard getting in and out and the ledge you can stand on falls away quickly and the waves hit harder than you think, so staying afloat takes some energy but is much fun. I finally got Christi into the water at Monaco. Their beach is pebbles so is nicer to sit on and walk on and the water there is very clear. So I was looking down and said "look at the size of that fish!" and christi sprinted for shore. :( I'm sorry christi. There was no fish, but she would not get back into the water. Anyway, aside from swimming and sitting in the sub and burning the top of my feet, we've been eating (Vietnamese food here is very good) and sometimes sitting on a deck chair and drinking 51 Pastise, which is odd french liquorish liqour mixed with water. In Monaco, swim suit tops are very optional, so I figured they were mostly inconvient and went without. Strange, it was.
We've been getting email about the ATM thing. Thank you all for your concern. I can vaguely remeber the dark and unenlightened time before ATMS were invented. People had to go into banks. David Hasselhoff was on TV. But somehow we got through it all. So too will Christi and I survive.
September 21 Yesterday, we went to see Notre Dame also. Christi will be commenting on that, I'm just going to say we lit a candle in front of Joan of Arc. I was saying a prayer, but I have no idea what to say in such prayers, when Joan of Arc is involved, so I ended up promising to write an opera about her. I hope she's ok with Esperanto. I bet she'd prefer French, but maybe Esperanto would be better than English.
Read the news and found out airlines are removong pocketknives from checked baggage. This is a problem as we were in Switzerland and nobody can resist such well designed knives for long. But I'm confused by this, maybe because I'm so isolated from the current national mood. Do people think that the pocket knives might somehow be able to claw their way to freedom from the baggage compartment? I also saw a woman quoted, fretting about the prescence of forks on her flight? Can you hijack a plane with a fork? I hope the terrorists were wearing loafers, I don't want to havt o mail my shoelaces home. Christi just came back from the bathroom and says I have to stop with this thread right now. So here she is. Leggo! I havn't signed my name yet! We never did find the modern art wing in the Louvre.
me me me!! pay attention to me!!
September 23 In the course of three months, you have to do laundry a whole bunch of times, especially if you have a minimal clothes pool. Most hostels have washing machines, but these can be down for any reason, for instance our current hostel can't get the door unlocked, so it's closed until further notice. Which is fine, except that if you are wandering down the streets of Paris wearing a sweatshirt and swim trunks, carrying a large sack, people do think you're insane. Especially if it's cold out and the same people who can't get a door unlocked aren't very good at directions either. But it did give me a change to practice my French, learned fro, an in depth, Learn French in Your Car audio course. "Oooh ay la laundry *point at bag*?" No, laundry is not a french word. Well, maybe it is. Today, we went to the Catacombs. They're not very old as catacombs go, but they do have six million people in there. What do you do with the bones of six million people? Stack them up along the hall way, then have Resistance meetings next to them, then charge tourists to walk around by them. These stacks are 5 and 6 feet tall, some go 30 feet back and it's all just solid bones, ribs, fe,urs, skulls. There's a bit of ossuary decoration, but not that much. All the paths they line have street signs and other signs say cheery things like, "Think every morning you may be dead by night and every night you may be dead by morning." But it says all these things in French, so we couldn't read any of them, but that's ok, it was creepy enough. The Cappucin Monks seem to have had a hand in it some how, I saw them mentioned on a sign. What is with them and bones? Why would you name a coffee drink after bone stacking monks? The weirdest part of the whole thing is the way out. They search your bags to make sure you haven't tucked a femur in your camera case. the weird part is that people actually try this. They had a small pile of confiscated bones, from just the last hour, they had some long skinny ones and a couple skulls, like somebody wanted to launch a DIY skull and crossbones project. I can't imagine why people thought they could gat away with it, or how they might try to talk their way out of it, "oh, it's a condition of Uncle Joe's will that I carry his head around with me." But that wouldn't work because they search your bag on the way in (so much for trying to dispose of that body down there...) or maybe, "oh yeah, ny reliquary is empty and uhh..." or, "God told me this was the head of St. John the Baptist!" Well, the last one worked for some monks in Avingon... Did you know there's a monument to Princess Diana right next to where she died?? Neither did the officials who track such things. Ther's a small torch statue, right there, in a line of sight to the Eifel Tower, directly above the tunnel where her car smashed up. It's a model of the torch on the statue of Liberty, which, of course, France built for us. But people rushed to the scene of her death with flowers and it seemed convient so it's been appropriated. There were photos of her taped to it, and a whole garden of flowers. Tons of Brits coming and going, a little crowd came to bow their heads and say a prayer. I've read that many of the notes left are asking Di to pray for them, so she's clearly on the way to some sort of sainthood. Christi would like to point out that we only saw it because it was on the way to the sewer museum (eww), but I was kind of hoping to see it, it's in our Weird Europe book. There are those of you who are probably wondering about the sewer thing. Today was our subterranean day. It used to be you could go on tours of the sewer. Now they just have a section cordoned of with bi- and quadralingual signs up explaining what's going on. Christi will tell you that it was just storm drain water and doesn't smell like anything, but recall that Christi has no sence of smell. Absolutely none. I was reading their little informative signs (as fast as I could so as to escape) and they treat all water at the end, flushed and storm drains, so I remain unconvinced it was just storm drain water, besides, if it was, then what was all the stuff floating at the top? (yes, just say eww. You can skip down to the next item) Anyway, most of what I have to say is about the smell, but I'll try to talk about other parts. Uhhh... the sewers are very old, some of the first ones, as far as I can tell. The Resistance used to meet down there. They put giant wooden balls down narrow pipes do clear out sand and "hybrid materials." What that might be is never explained, and frankly, I'm relieved. Anyway, sewers are not self-maintaining. They require neverending maintance by a dedicated staff of sewer workers, who are selfless people who hopefully, like Christi, have no sence of smell. Anyway, the Paris sewers are wonderful, becuase before I was mostly ignorant of where my waste water went, whereas now I will wake up in the morning and say a thanksgiving that I am not working in the sewer that day. There, but for the grace of God, go I. We also saw the Arc D'Triomphe. That's the big arch that all the invading armies march through. Invading armies like irony. Apparently, there was originally a plan to build a giant elephant with a tower in the middle and a bunch of murals inside and a fountain coming out his trunk. The current arch is very nice, but I wish they had built the elephant. You can climb up to the top of the arch and look around, which I guess is something you couldn't do if you had an elephant. Ans the tomb of the unkown soldier lies at the bottom with a torch and fresh flowers. We walked right next to the Eifel Tower. Christi wanted to go to the top, but I couldn't see the point. I mean, the largest cellular phone tower in Europe is cool and everything, but . . . Christi says to see the point, you have to step back some, it's too hard to see fro, directly below it, the perspecyive is all wrong. Ummm, no. Anyway, we didn't go to the top. Standing next to, underneath, and on things that might look like "symbolic targets" makes me nervous. Being very rediculous.
We have a list of good vegitarian restaurants in Paris. I love this list. The food is sooooo good. Last night, we shared a table with some Paresians, so had a nice French/English/German/Spanish/hand signals conversation with them. You know, there's a big stereotype of French people being mean to Americans, but I have not encountered it, as long as you say "please" and "thank you" people are entirely pleasent and friendly. Otoh, maybe the meaness is not a problem encountered by females aged 16-26. Christi says her parents didn't run into it either, so nevermind. I thought maybe I was getting by on my looks alone, but no, I guess not, unless they were getting by on their looks too. I think I'll go with that theory. Anyway, as travel changes you, I've notice one thing all Europeans I've talked to have in common: they dislike and fear George Bush. Austrailians don't tho. Something to think about. Current events have not made them like Bush more. Anyway, tomorrow is our last full day here. Why, it seems like just a few weeks ago I was thinking I had weeks left! Uhhhh... Yeah, where has the time gone. Christi's parents are trying to convince us to stay longer. Is it so they can live vicariously through us, or do they not want us around? Hrm. The San Francisco Chrnoicle is advising people not to go to Europe becuase they might not be able to get home in the event of real warfare. But why would you want to go home in the event of real warfare? All we are saying, is give peace a chance.
September 26 We went next to IRCAM. They wrote some nifty music software, which I use regularly and am a huge fan of, so I was hoping they might have part of them open for the public, but the receptionist told us they didn't. They are, however, in a really interesting building which also hold something like the national library and has all the service pipes on the outside painted in very bright colors. The outside walls, which are inside the pipes, are all glass. It's really something to look at. And next to this is a fountain called the Stravinsky Fountain. It's a large shallow pool filled up with fiberglass shapes and machinery. Bright red lips spit out a steady stream. A blue hat spins and spins. A red heart rotates around a vertyicle axis as a gyser erupts from it's top. Only thr fiberglass is painted, so the metal treble cleff stands darkly on the side. It's a really neat looking fountain. We sat beside it and had the best crepes ever and wrote and addressed 37 postcards. If you don't get one, it's either because it got lost in the mail, or we don't have your address. All the rest of you will. Then we went to the other church on that little island Notre Dame is on. The downstairs part was the parish church and it was nicely painted with blue ceilings and red and green walls, all with flouer de lisses all over the place. There's a couple of tile works saints left on the walls. The floors are made up of grave markers, for the people buried underneath and on many of them the carvings and inscriptions are still legible. It's quite a charming little church. Then we went upstairs to the King's private chapel. The building around this church was the royal palace (now it's the supreme court or something) and a walkway connected the palace to the chapel. It has, surrounding it, stained glass windows twice as high as the building is wide. They just go up and up. Starting in one corner, they begin depicting the Book of Genesis and progress around to the last window, dealing with the Apocalypse. Twelve apostle statues line the sides, in between the windows. And, at the very front, above the ornate altar, is a reliquary the size of a cadilac. It's empty now, during the revolution the relics were dispersed, some to the national library, and others, like Jesus' Crown of Thorns, went to Notre Dame. Yes, the Crown of Thorns. Suppossedly, I mean, who would have kept it for a souvenier? The very early christians weren't so happy about Jesus being killed. Anyway, I swear I didn't see it when we were in Notre Dame, so I think it must have been in one of the closed-off sections. But I was very impressed anyway.
After that, instead of sprinting over to Notre Dame, we decided to see the Parthenon. This one was not built by the Romans, but was made to be a Bascillica for St. Geneive (the nun who diverted the Huns from invading France though prayer), but I have no idea if her remains are actually beneath it or not, it's had a spotty history, sometimes controlled by the church and sometimes secular. Right now it's secular. Just inside the door, there's a portrait of St. Dennis, France's first bishop and martyr. The picture is of him right after being beheaded, bending over to retrieve his head. We went to the crypt. The people buried down there are a who's-who of French artists and thinker. Rosseau is buried there, as is Marie Curie, Voltaire, Victor Huge and Braille and many other people whose names I should have recognized. We emerged from the crypt and looked at the "secular temple." The walls are covered with murals. Most deal with the life of St. Geneive, but there's a series on Joan of Arc. It starts with her looking utterly astonished as a angel whispers in her ear and hands her a sword. Then she's leading an attack against a castle. Then she is standing behind a coronation. Then, finally, she is tied to a stake and is kissing the cross as an angry-looking guy is holding a torch next to the flamable material surrounding her feet. Finally, we went to the Opera and watched Atilla the Hun by Verdi. I'm not so sure about Verdi, the the Paris Opera company was very good, they sung well, played well and had nifty sets. Our seats were in the 8th row of the orchestra section, right on the very outsidemost isle. These are the best seats I've ever had.
Well, that's all. Travel is suppossed to change you and I think I've learned a few things. Never step in front of a taxi cab, always wash your hands, and check the expiration dates on things before you leave. |