Long Walk Paris Style

Day 168
Today was Tuesday and the day that museums are closed here. Eliane made me a real American breakfast of pancakes and we chatted some more before I headed it. I really didn´t know I had that many things to say. I hope that I wasn´t too boring!



When I got to Paris I headed straight into Notre Dame. The plan had been to go inside and find Quasimodo (I had missed him last time) but the line reached Rome and I declined. Instead I went searching for a nearby church. I never did find the church, but I did find the crepe place that I had eaten at with my Uncle Steven on one of my first days in Paris on St. Louie. I decided to go here again, it was as good as I remembered it.

After lunch I kept looking for the church but instead found a store that sold American food. I bought a root beer and a pack of nerds. The root beer wasn´t too expensive, but my excitment about the nerds made me not realize that they cost almost $3 until I had started to eat them. They are only $0.75 in the States! Forget eating nerds, I am a nerd.

I then happened to find the Musee Carnavalet, this was on my list, just not expected at this monument. It was however open and free (two of my favorite words) so I decided to check it out. The museum has random objects from Paris in chronological order. It seemed to me that the collection was made up of nice pieces that didn´t quite fit into any other museum. Some of the gargoyle's posed for me and I found several of the paintings to be rather good. Many of the rooms were right out of long forgotten palaces. There were also several models of what the Bastille (really big prison) had looked like. The Carnavalet Museum was quite large, but as much as I wanted to be there, I don´t think I was really in a museum mood. I went through it all quite fast and didn´t even bother with most of the section on the revolution.

Strangely, after I left the museum I found a Kiels. I had thought this was a New York only institution and was pretty surprised.

I then headed to the 12th arrondissement for a little walking tour. My uncle had lived here for20several years and had sent me an email with places to check out. I started by walking along the viaduct of the arts. This is an elevated pathway. I wish that it had been a slightly shadier pathway. It was really cool though to be walking among the rooftops of Paris.

After the path I came to a bridge. Loads of people were hanging out underneath it, some had brought their dogs. One family brought their rabbit. I´m not kidding. I then found a rather large fountain with lions spitting water out of their mouths. I tried to get a picture of me in front of it and grabbed the first person walking by to help. He spoke some English and asked if I wanted the fountain in the background, I said yes. The first picture was of me and a car, for the second one he zoomed in to get a better look at my cleavage. How would he think that I wouldn´t notice that? When I got my camera back he told me that he didn´t want to be forward but that I was very cute and he would like to have dinner with me. He was wearing socks and sandels (a total deal breaker) so I had to decline. Plus, I had dinner plans already. I gave up on a good picture and continued on my way.

I then tried to find a monastery that Lafayette had been buried in. I was very much unsuccessful. Well, my feet hurt and I didn´t feel like walking around any longer. I had lied before though, my dinner plans were not confirmed so I set off to Gare de Lyon to find an internet cafe to see if I did in fact have plans. After more walking I found that I did. I called Eliane to tell her that I would not make it to dinner and headed off to my next stop.

Back in Siracusa I had met a really nice Parisian named Dorthee. We had kept in touch over the past few months and she was kind enough to invite me over to dinner. I couldn´t find her street on the map, but luckily each metro stop has very detailed maps and her tiny street showed up there.

Dorthee had made us a really fabulous soup and we had a great time catching up while her cat played with the cork from the wine bottle. At the end of the evening Dorthee walked me to the metro stop and pointed out the sparkling Eiffel Tower, it really was beautiful.

I was a bit worried that I would miss the last train but actually ended up on one an hour before that. I was tired when I got back, but it had been a very good day.