Midterm trip - day three

So I left off at the pictures on the Saine right? Oh actually I beleive I left off at the cemetary. Basically because we are cheap students (excuse me - inexpensive) we decided we didnt want to pay 2 euro for a map. So instead we would take the picture of the map at the opening and write down the location of all the famous ppl's graves we wanted to see and then go from there. This was a crazy cemetary to wander around in. It looked like those buried had staged a coup and at one point or another had tried to escape. Such phrases as "mmm brains" were frequently to referred to. It was a seriously creepy and haunting cemetary, nice gloomy day too. In other words we had a great time wandering around trying to scare each other and exploring the graves. We were pretty much on a scavenger hunt for famousdead people. Our first stop I beleive was Georges Saurat. I got a picture with the pointalist painter. Or at least his grave. After that we got a little lost trying to find the next grave. I meanwe knew we were but were having a heck of a time finding the grave. After that we took a wrong turn on our way to Jim Morrison and Katie's camera batteries were dying so I took over with my camera.

Jeez Jim Morrison was a bitch to find. He was burried in the middle of a bunch of other graves and beleive me this place was already crowded, but it looked like they squeezed him in between a bunch of other people. They had had to rope it off too because I guess people deface it all the time (with intentions of love). Strange people out there eh? I cant remember every single person we visited but among them was Chopin, Maurat, some other painters and philosephers and so on. Our second last visit was Oscar Wilde. Now his grave was already very advanced for its time, very futuristic, but what else was on the grave was incredible. Hundreds of lipstick kiss marks all over the grave. And not for decoration. Hundreds of people have kissed his grave or left markings. Sooo weird. I got a picture pretending to kiss it but thats as far as I would go. Next we looked for Edith Piaf and Isadorra Duncan who were in the same area. We were looking in the wrong spots or something because it took forever to find Edith and after that we couldnt even find Duncan. She might have been one of hte graves without a name. At this point Libby was very cold and ready to get warm. I had done a magic trick earlier in front of the pyramid at the Louvre. I love being a girl - you see the magic trick was to take off my tights on the spot, they were falling down to no end, but at least I had on leg warmers to keep me warm.

Anywho when we left the cemetary we wandered a little and found a restaurant. There was a menu outside that had a bunch of stuff on it so we went in. Eventually the waiter came over to the table and asked us to order. We asked (actually Kari asked as she was translating for us) to have 5 minutes to decide as well as to wait for orur friend in the washroom. He said thats ok and that he could come back for our friend but we had to order now. Katie and Cameron feeling pressured ordered some kind of french sandwhich and Kari and I said we werent having anything. He didnt seem to understand this and once Kari explained that we didnt want anything he stood there looking at us blankly, then rolled his eyes and shrugged his shoulders and walked away. We all considered leaving as this was really rude but we didnt want to be rude in return and also we were scared of the backlash should he catch us. When Heather came back and he came back to order she tried ordering at least three things she had seen on the menu outside and non apparently were available. He got annoyed and told her to look at the menu on the wall. Gah, he was a dick basically. She finally got a sandwhich but we all decided no tip. As we were eating we realised why he was especially grouchy. He sat down to his own lunch. GAH, why do people need to eat all the time and get so grouchy when they dont get food? Especially men, I have discovered this over here. Anywho at least the sandwhiches were good apparently. Also there was a poster on the wall saying the Doors wrote and sang Stairway to Heaven which didnt sound right to me. I mean I am not a music person but I have the basics. The rest all laughed because sure enough it was Zepplin's song. Silly French.

We eventually left and made our way for the city centre again. On the way as we were leaving the restaurant we passed over a Marilyn Monroe grate, if you know what I mean. Should you recall I was wearing a dress and no longer wearing tights. Now this wasnt a normal tiny kinda blown up and then in slight embarassment pull the dress down. This was a full sweep lets bloww these girl's skirts as high as they can go. I was not so luckily in the front of the pack of us, but luckily no one was paying attention until I screamed and pranced as far from the grate as I could. I looked behind me at Kariand Cameron, Cameron "I was looking at Kari" and Kari just looking at me with some confusion. Katie and Heather were sqelling with laughter and I joined in because really who else would this happen to? And who else would make such a grande production of it? We visited a perfume museum and smelled all these intersting smells and saw how perfume worked. Right accross from it was the Opera House. We went up it to take a look. There was a red carpet which of course made us all feel extra special. We next made our way to the Louvre area where we were to split up. I made my way to what I thought was the nearest metro (subway) station and found I could not find this station to save my life. I passed over another grate only it wasnt so funny this time because I was by meyself at almost night. I decided to be safe and look for the next station over and luckily found it and got back to the hostel in time.

In time for what do you say? Well to catch the coach bus with the rest of the students who had signed up to go up the Eiffel Tower at night. The reason I went back is because I was kinda nervous to go bymyself since it would be night and I was unfirmiliar with the language and the location and apparently there were always these niceraguan men (sorry about the spelling but sound it out) trying to sell things and they follow you and are very pushy and i decided it would be better if I went with a group. I sat beside Addy and we chatted the whole ride in. Turns out her dad is a photographer so I chatted with her about photography for a bit. We took photos basically the whole time the way up and such. We took the elevator because the stairs were closed at night. The second level was beautiful but we decided to pay a little extra and go to the very top. Its really interesting because all around the observation thing is little flags with main city names underneath showing what is in what direction. Addy and I of course got a picture under Toronto! We met up with Charlotte and Amy and Amanda and the five of us decided to make our way either back or to get food.

We crossed the bridge over the Saine but stopped for pictures with the Eiffel Tower again. Charlotte and I decided to do some dancer poses, one of which ended up being with one leg up on the railing thing. At some point this one french tourist and his friend came by and he decided to stand between us and get a picture with us. His friend seemed to be shyer and was just taking pictures so we said whatever and ok. We got some pictures with them too. At one point he leaned in for a kiss but I dodged it (outside the comfort zone at this point) but Charlotte couldnt avoid it and got a big smooch on the cheek. We departed from them after a bunch of pictures of course giggling intensly at the frenchiness of it all. We then looked for an inexpensive cafe on the Saine, hee, we should have know better. Instead we made our way back to the hostel and Charlotte and I continued on our quest for riches of food while the others made there way back. Literally everything was either closed or closing so our last resort was a pizza place where we found Tom and Chantel (two of our SLCs). The man who we ordered from restored our faith in the goodness of the French. He was very nice and teased us a little but helped us through our dismal French. The pizza was actually amazing! It was extraodrinary pizza for some reason. Charlotte and I took it back to the hostel and chatted while eating it to great content. I went to sleep very satisfied with my day.

Day four and five still to come as well as my past weekend. I cant beleive how much has happened that I need to write down!