The European Extravaganza!

Paris: Day 2

We promised to be kinder to our feet today, and promptly broke this promise by walking over and through the Cemetary of Père Lachaise. True it was close to our hotel, but if we ever thought cobblestone was quaint, we now feel otherwise. It is absolute death on your feet and legs, and makes walking an extreme sport rather than a scenic jaunt. Stupid cobblestone. We got ourselves a map and began to make our way through the cemetary, finding the more famous graves. We soon learned that although the map was handy for getting you to the general area where the grave was, the sure bet to actually finding the precise location was to look for the other tourists AND look for the well-kept grave sites. We saw the graves of Chopin, Oscar Wilde, Sarah Bernhardt, Molière, Balzac, and quite a few others, but the obvious highlight was Jim Morrison's grave. The grave itself is not all that impressive but the freaks who go to worship and mourn there are! There were 2 girls there who could not have been any older than 15, who were sobbing with grief while listening to The Doors on their ipods. The hell? Jim Morrison has always been dead for as long as they have been alive! And yes, we did take pictures!

Realizing that our breakneck pace might actually break our necks what with all the cobblestone, we took advantage of the European Sale month and did some shopping. Hey! Shopping in Paris is like, a cultural escapade on par with visiting a museum! It was like an interactive museum where you can also do some souvenir shopping at the same time! Yes... that's it! Anyway, because the fashion craze seems to be ugly shoes and weird peasant-wear (why do Europeans want to look like Laura Ingalls Wilder?), we didn't really spend any money... well, I bought one top that was on sale for 7 euro... from Zara's. I know! But the chic little boutiques near Lenny Kravitz's fallafel place were way too expensive! Even with 50% off, the items were rarely less than 40 euro. Too rich for our blood, so Zara's it was.

Speaking of Lenny Kravitz's favourite fallafel joint, they do indeed have good fallafel there. We got the "special fallafel" to go, and enjoyed it in a nearby park. Then we headed off to the Centre Pompidou, where we decided after perusing the gift shop (Laura was sorely tempted by some magnetic salt and pepper shakers shaped like little pod men), we decided that we didn't feel like doling out 10 euro or something to actually go into the museum. Besides, the outside is supposed to be the best part. As we left the museum, I was hassled by a street artist, who initially thought I was Mexican. When I told him I was from Canada and that I spoke French, he then assumed I was Québecoise. The nerve! Any hopes he had of drawing me were dashed with that insult, and so I told him I wasn't from Québec, and more importantly, I was not interested.

We popped into a supermarket and picked up some prickle water, and strolled down to Pont Neuf and took many photos of the Eiffel Tower in various stages of illumination. We got ourselves tickets for the Vedettes of Pont Neuf boat cruise (ha! to all the suckers who did not get the 2 euro discount coupon off the web in advance... take that, all you people who mocked our research!)and got ourselves prime seats for our little tour along the Seine. We were a bit disturbed when the two people in front of us began kissing in earnest as we thought they were siblings, but the boat ride itself was really fantastic. We got some great shots of the Eiffel Tower all lit up, and I was finally avenged for those many years ago when Jacques told me that I would never be able to say the word 'gargoyle' in French like an actual French person would. I was avenged because if I can't say it properly in French, our guide could not say it (or many other words) properly in English. Still, Sylvain was awesome, and yes, we have pictures of him too!

Treating ourselves, we bought 10 metro tickets, and used 2 of them to get home. We planned to use 6 the next day to get us around the city, and then 2 on the our last morning in Paris to get us to Gare du Nord to catch our train. All in all, a great day, for both us and our feet!

posted by Steph @ 11:02 am