When your best friend says "come to Paris with me!" and you actually have the capability to do so, do you say no? NO. So i did. We set off at 1pm on a Eurolines bus with the most disgusting toilet i have ever seen.
We stayed at "Le Village" hostel in Montmartre where everyone was very friendly and clean--one of the best french hostels that i have been in. Kailey and i were sadly booked into separate rooms, it gave me the occasion to meet some very interesting and very strange people. Le Village is right at the foot of the Sacré Coeur Butte, so we climbed that the first night and wandered around the Montmartre area, watching all of Paris.
The second morning i woke up with an eye cyst (which, to be fair, was there before, but far smaller. On May 30 upon waking, it was so big that i could barely open my eye and i felt the need to give it a name (Zolog). If you read my livejournal, you already know the story, but you get to SEE it here.
That day, we visited Sephora (very important), Notre Dame, St. Suplice, the Luxembourg Gardens, and in general wandered Paris. We also sampled a fair amount of pastries.
i won't describe the next day (it's already been written about here: http://antipova_larisa.livejournal.com), but my last day, we wandered a little in Montmartre again and then took the Metro to Père Lachaise cemetery where we saw the final resting places of Frédéric Chopin, Jim Morrison, Sarah Bernhardt, Oscar Wilde, Georges Cuvier, Molière and La Fontaine. Père Lachaise is a beautiful place, very peaceful. Oscar Wilde's (huge) tombstone was completely covered in lipstick kisses, despite a plaque promising persecution. Personally, i'd rather have my tombstone covered in kisses than pristine. i find it a much nicer remembrance. But that's just me, and i wasn't about to kiss a tombstone if i didn't know where it had been.
Chopin's tombstone was beautiful and still covered in fresh (and i do mean fresh) flowers and smelled wonderful. While his earthly remains are in Lachaise, his heart (quite literally) rests in Poland. In an urn, in a cathedral in (i think) Warsaw.
Jim Morrison's grave...well, i'm not a Doors fan (not that i don't like their music--it's very good) and so i don't think it had the impact on me that it must have on some people. Also, it was behind another tombstone, a makeshift fence, a guard, a stoned-looking scruffy guy with a Jim Morrison shirt on (clearly the self-appointed guard) and covered with various wilted things that people had seen the need to throw on. The inscription on the grave was interesting, and apparently means (in greek) "True to his own spirit"
After that, Kailey and i had lunch, went down to the metro and parted ways. Aside from Zolog and the fact that i love my voice and couldn't actually talk the entire time, it was a wonderful time in Paris. |