Day 2

Day 2:

Sunday, March 22, 2009: Today, I woke up really early for no particular reason. My body may have still been on EST. I ate breakfast at the hostel – two croissants with jam and butter and juice. They also had cereal, tea, and coffee.

Then I took the metro, line 7 – pink – to Pont Neuf and tried to find the Schneiders, family friends. They were staying nearby but without cell phones and internet, there was really no way to get in contact with them and meet. So I left a note under the door with my French cell phone number (06-82-60-41-82) hoping that maybe they would get it during the day and give me a call – nothing ever happened.

So I decided to walk around the Louvre because it was across the street and on my way to the metro station. (When I say metro I mean subway, FYI). I had tickets for the four of us that I bought online before coming to France. We plan on going to the Louvre on Thursday. The buildings are huge. Being a Sunday morning at 9am, there was hardly anyone around. I saw the glass pyramid and kept walking through Les Jardins des Tuileries all the way to Place de la Concorde at the other end.

Well I didn’t really find the metro station so I kept walking around, which was fine with me. I have Frommer’s Paris 2009 guide for a little help but I have some qualms with the Frommer’s people about this book that will have to be settled at a later date. I found Rue Frouberg-St-Honore in the ritzy district where all the designers have their flagship Paris boutiques. Of course I cannot afford my taste so I held myself back from making an expensive purchase that I would later regret (and they weren’t open this early on a Sunday morning so that made my decision a lot easier).

I stumbled upon all the foreign embassies and the home of Monsieur Sarkozy (the French President) on my way the metro station at Place de Madeleine. I had to ask for directions twice, en Francis of course.

So I finally found the metro station, my only problem was that the automatic ticket machines only take coins. I discovered this at the RER station at Charles de Gaulle but did not get enough change at the coin exchange machine to keep me until now.

In need of change and not wanting to offend a storekeeper by asking for it, I went to a nearby café for a coffee and to do some more people watching – Parisians’ favorite hobby. I made sure to pay with a large bill so I would have change.

Traveling by yourself is nice because you can move at your own pace and have no time schedule. I finally reached the metro station at about noon. The whole reason I wanted this line was because I wanted to go to La Sacre Coure, a huge Catholic basilica atop the largest hill in Paris in the Montmarte neighborhood.

This was my first really touristy attraction and there were people everywhere! I took a few pictures of the view of Paris but it was overcast and foggy. I then entered the basilica with everyone else pushing through the hundred-year-old doors. Just my luck: they were right in the middle of mass. Being a good Catholic, I continued with the tour and pushed around the basilica with everyone else and back out the doors.

Outside, I took another break to watch people. I walked down the hill explore the town. The steps smelled like pee and there was trash in the grass; not very attractive. At the bottom of the steps, I encountered a Kenyan immigrant who put a woven bracelet on my wrist and started speaking English. I told him I was Canadian and that my name was Frederic to make things interesting. He told me a story and blessed (or cursed, he spoke in an African dialect) my hand and then asked me to pay him for his creation; this I had expected.

He said normally it was 10E but for me, 5E. I told him to take it off. He didn’t and we haggled for a few minutes. He then said 3E. I had maybe 1E50 in coins which I gave him and walked away. His bracelet was my first Paris souvenir. I walked around the neighborhood looking for Le Cemetaire Montmarte where Degas is buried, among others. On my way, I stumbled upon La Musee Dali. His work interested me (thanks Stan Alost and VICO 140!) but not for 7E, so I kept walking.

After a few wrong turns, I finally found the cemetery. It was not very exciting. I looked at the map and decided that I did not need to see Degas’s crypt that badly and left. The next street I found was Bd de Clichy where the Moulin Rouge is! The only problem is that a dinner show costs about 90E, so I decided a picture of the exterior would suffice.

Bd de Clichy is home to the sex shops of Paris. After passing up all the offers for peep shows and dirty magazines and DVDs, I found the metro and went back to Place de la Concorde.

I proceeded to explore the other side of the River Seine (Rive Gauche, en Francis). I took pictures of Les Invaledes, where Napoleon is buried, and Musee des Arts Decoratifs before walking back to the Louvre.

I found a café and had dinner – un sandwich avec fromage et jambon et une verre de vin rouge (a ham and cheese sandwich and a glass of red wine, en Anglais). I ate and took line 7 from Pont Neuf to Les Gobelins and walked back to the hostel.

Then I had my daily fill of the internet before watching a French movie with some other hostel patrons. I’m not sure of the title en Francis, but in English, it was The Hate. It was about three teenagers living in Paris’s ghettos. Themes included prejudice, racism, and poverty. It also was about the frequent riots and strikes that occur here.

After the film, I wrote in my journal about my day and was in bed by 10pm.

(Google any proper noun that you are unfamiliar with)