DAY 80 – PARIS 08/03/2009
Our hostel, a pretty painless experience to this point, got quickly more unpleasant this morning. We had to change rooms, not normally a problem, so we headed out at 8:30 (checkout time 9am) to see what the deal was. At that point they had not yet worked out the sleeping arrangements for tonight yet, so we were told to come back in fifteen minutes. When we did, the receptionist (not the sharpest knife in the drawer) had great difficulty working out the situation, tried to book us in under the wrong name, then told us that we could move our bags at 10am after all the people in our room woke up. Apparently this is against policy and the cleaner (perhaps higher in the food chain than the receptionist) was quite unimpressed and let everyone know about it. It all worked out okay in the end, but it was frustrating.
We spent most of the morning (after organising our bags) walking to the catacombs in the south of the city. With some difficulty (not helped by the rain) we found them and journeyed up to 20m underground through the old quarries and mines where, in the late 19th Century, the Parisian government exhumed and moved thousands of bodies from the overflowing city cemeteries under the cover of darkness. They didn't ask anyone's permission or anything, and everyone from the poorest peasant to some very wealthy and famous people were moved and unceremoniously dumped in the disused mines underneath the city. A clever entrepreneur turned it into a tourist attraction, and there we were today. It is mind-blowing, the sheer number of bones there – the walls are literally made of bones and they arranged the skulls into all sorts of interesting patterns in the walls. It was a little morbid, but incredibly interesting and something I can honestly say I've never seen anything like in my life. The tunnels go for about 1.7km, not all with bones but there was a good twenty- to twenty-five minutes where we were literally surrounded by skeletons. There were also a couple of cool areas where the roof was about to cave in and they had reinforced with concrete, so the space (up to 11m) was quite cool. In a rather humourous twist, a woman brought her small children (5-8 yrs old) into the catacombs and was explaining it to them. The girl was adamant that she didn't want to be buried in a coffin, and when asked where her ashes would be sprinkled she replied "I don't know where my favourite place is… maybe Disneyland". It had Keeley and I in tears.
Once we finished there, we headed back to the hostel for lunch, visited a very classy French café for some amazing chocolate milkshakes (more chocolate than milk, we thought) and internet, and then headed for the Arc de Triomphe to see the 'lighting' of the eternal flame, intrigued as to how an eternal flame could be lit. The Arc is suitably imposing, on a scale you can't imagine ever being approved for construction today (but hey, when you're Napoleon Bonaparte, anything's possible). The roundabout around it is also pretty hectic, with no road markings people drive wherever they want and it's not surprising that there's an accident on average once every thirty minutes there. The actual ceremony, held every day at 6:30pm, was disappointing, looked amateur and generally insignificant, although I'm sure the people involved were paying a great tribute to lost soldiers or something. The whole thing felt poorly done, and we left feeling disappointed. At least the Arc itself was impressive. We met a couple of nice people over dinner then settled down for bed, one more day left in the French capital.
DAY 81 – PARIS 09/03/2009
Our final full day in Paris was a pretty quiet affair – we got up late and left the hostel with a couple of objectives; we needed to find Keeley another hat (more of an everyday affair than her souvenir beret), get some cornflakes for breakfast tomorrow, get Marion a gift for letting us stay in Rouen with her for the next couple of days, and print off some photos. We managed almost all of these. Convinced that a brand-name hat would be better than a rip-off souvenir one, Keeley sent us down to the Les Halles area to find some brand name shops. We did encounter a cheap crepe stall, and lots of clothing stores, but alas no hat suitable for the purpose. The area down there is quite nice though, and has a cool pedestrian shopping strip feel to it. Walking back up to the hostel for lunch, a little dejected, we were further disheartened to find the photo place where we were planning on printing our photos was closed on Mondays. Things improved after lunch though, where we changed tack and headed to the shops near Sacre Coeur, found Keeley a hat and bought some very cheap corn flakes. With only one mission viable and left to complete, we tried our luck with a packet mix of cake, figuring that the act of making Marion a cake would win some brownie points. The mix was pre-made, instructing us to simply pour and cook. This seemed to be a dream, until we discovered that the top would burn before the middle cooked. A helpful Irishman named Paddy (seriously) suggested that we should put the mix into a bowl, then float the bowl in water on the stove (think melting chocolate). He was so adamant that this would work, Keeley ran with it. All it did was melt the mix a little, and he was the laughing stock of everyone. On the upside, when we baked this semi-melted mix the centre turned a little running like self-saucing pudding and it was very good. We eventually decided to buy a pre-made cake and write "merci" on it with white chocolate, and with a Toblerone and some Aussie regalia we figure she'll love it.
Other than that, we didn't do much, eating too much for dinner, walking down to the Moulin Rouge to see it by night, and generally preparing for our trip to Normandy tomorrow.
DAY 82 – ROUEN 10/03/2009
We woke to a drizzly day in Paris, checked out of our hostel and metro-ed around to our train to Rouen, where we would stay at Marion's house, one of the students we hosted at my place a few years ago. The train station didn't put up the departure platform until ten minutes before departure, which had Keeley a little on edge, but other than that the wait was pretty uneventful. We played cards in the station and on the train and before we knew it we were in Rouen. Marion's friend met us at the station and power-walked us to her house, where we dumped our bags and spent the afternoon relaxing on the couch. I listened to music and Keeley watch The O.C. on DVD. When Marion arrived home from uni, she was very excited to see us, and also because she found out today that she's going on exchange to Mexico through her business course at uni.
That evening was very enjoyable, with Marion's best friend Marianne (?) and her Australian boyfriend coming over for tea. It was good to have a good meal again, as our food in Paris had been below our usual standards, and share a couple of bottles of wine. We exchanged travel stories and generally just enjoyed the good company. Tomorrow we'll explore Rouen a little and then we try "traditional French food"… whatever that means.
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