I wish I was a bear with furry, furry hair.
It's cold! It's C-C-Cold!
- Barney, in the song "It's C-C-Cold Brrrrrr"
Yes, I just quoted Barney. As you can imagine, it was rainy and cold pretty much the whole day.
In fact, it was the definition of nasty, which was why I was happy that I had the foresight to cancel my trip to Versailles today. It was too expensive, plus I needed the day to rest and recover after the three day whirlwind I had just been through.
I woke up late, missing breakfast unfortunately so I didn't eat until later on. I went to the train station and reserved my ticket tomorrow, for the 7:15 train which will take me to Barcelona overnight. The ticket-getting process took a long time, with me repeatedly getting into the wrong lines and being told "to go upstairs" (I was told this twice, which made me wish the first person had clarified by saying "go to the very top floor"). I finally figured it out, but when I went to pay the ten dollar fee my card didn't work!
Of course, I called my mom, forgetting that the time-shift meant that it was 6 am. back at home, even though it was noon in Paris. Sorry again!
Turned out that my card hadn't been cancelled, it was just that some European card readers can't handle the American cards. So I got lucky.
I headed back to the hostel and just hung out there for a while. It was nice to slow down and take a breath and I was able to catch up with some friends over facebook. My new roommate in the hostel, Patrick, told me that there was an interesting church nearby. Of course, I had only seen Notre Dame since I had arrived, so I was eager to check it out, plus it was literally within five minutes walking distance of my hostel.
When I arrived, I was surprised by how beautiful the Sacre Cour Basilica was and how I hadn't heard about it from anyone. It was at one of the higher points in Paris, so I was able to see a lot of the surrounding city.
I took a step inside and saw the looming arches, the glorious paintings on the roof and just the overall beauty of it. I liked it more than the Westminster Cathedral and the Notre Dame Cathedral, which did not have as vaulted ceilings or as impressive features. Unfortunately, you weren't allowed to take pictures in the Basilica, so I had to settle with my outside pictures.
Also, I noticed that confession started in five minutes, so I got in the short line (there were only two people ahead of me) and waited for the "father" (called "Père" in French) to start taking confessions. When I got in, I said, "Bonjour, confession s'il vous plait. I do not speak French. Is that OK?" He smiled at me and, in somewhat faulty English, said, "It is not a sin."
I continued my impromptu tour of Paris' backstreets, exploring the Montmartre quarter of town, which I had previously not seen. It was an accident that I was there though - I had just wandered around after the Church and found the quarter by exploring. It was really cool, with artists showing their wares in the middle of a market square, where many tourists stood gawking. I don't really like the touristy parts, but I did find a couple of gems amidst the architecture there:
I was still wandering around when I crossed the bridge over the Seine and found myself in a part of town that I, once again, had never seen. From the side of the bride I saw a cemetery, so I decided to take a walk through it. It was especially interesting because the style of graves was so dramatically different from what I've typically seen in the U.S. - ornate, large, sometimes like mini-houses, others made of marble, and others still that just had really cool setups. Bury me here please ;)
This tombstone was from 1879! (I know its not that old, but I was excited)
And the cemetery inspired me to write the following poem:
We do not think that we might die
We do not think at all, really
We breathe, we move...
from want of excess
to want of scarcity
Never balanced, always tipping
over the edge
Until someone walks by our tombstone
and says,
"She must have been loved."
Finally, I took another walk to the Eiffel Tower. I've been there three times now, but I never seem to get tired of it. I still have yet to take a ticket to the top - today was nasty, and I'm not sure if I even want to since the lines are so long and I've already been up high, since I was up on the Arc de Triomphe. I just don't know what it would add to a place that is already so amazing.
On my way home, I fulfilled a fantasy of mine by drinking hot chocolate in a streetside cafe in downtown Paris, a little cafe called, "The Eiffel Cafe". I swear, its the best cup of hot chocolate I've had, plus it was reasonably priced compared to all the other places in town that I've passed over.
I went home, watched a movie and called it a night - my last night in Paris.
Tomorrow, I leave for Barcelona by the 7:15 train. It should be about ten hours or something like that, so I'll arrive on the 21st, early morning.
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