Salut! You probably wouldn’t have known of my disappointment with walking the Catacombs of Paris. I was told that it was going to be filled with dead people, but when I got down there, what did I see? Living people! Fair to say, I felt ripped off. If I wanted to see some living people, I’d walk the 1.7km above the ground thanks. But I digress – we had a feeling that today was going to be a big day when I first arranged the itinerary at home. Little did I know that Zach booked us into a hotel so close to the Montemarte area and the various sex clubs littering its filthy streets.
We decided that today we would make the trek up Montemarte hill to see the Sacred Heart Basillica (Sacre Coeur) that is clearly visible on the Parisian skyline. What wasn’t clearly visible from the top of the hill, was the Eiffel tower or the Arc De Triumph. Instead, the stupid Parisians decided “hey let’s build a huge hotel in front of the view of these iconic buildings on the Parisian skyline!” But we did get a good view of Paris’ only skyscraper. Next we went into the Sacre Coeur and to my dismay, we were unable to take pictures. I found it quite hypocritical however, to see a charming gift shop to the right of the sortie (exit) featuring enough Jesus memorabilia to satisfy any hardcore Christian. Finding this ironic, I took a sketchy picture of the inside of the Basilica with my iPhone. However the first one I took caused my phone to reset, erasing the picture, and I thought “was this a sign?” I quickly pushed this thought to the back of my mind and took another one. This time I was caught out by a French Indian security guard who told me to put my phone away. Man wasn’t even praying. Man probably worships Buddha or something.
We left and walked down the hill towards the Montemarte cemetery where the famous painter Degas and the writer of The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas – were buried. On our way we stopped to check out some traditional French souvenir shops run by some traditional French people...with turbans. I guess French people wear turbans too! Kind of like the traditional Scottish people I saw running souvenir shops in Edinburgh! This particular guy shouted at Zach in complete French when Zach was admiring some ear muffs. I’ve never seen a souvenir shopkeeper act negatively towards a customer’s potential purchasing of their crap-o-ware. But then again...this was France. We found the well documented stereotype of Paris’ pathways covered in dog excrement (possibly human...don’t rule out anything when talking about French people) to be absolutely true. It was everywhere. Zach and I had walked past a tree that was littered with six different types of dog faeces (again: possibly human). I can tell you now, that these mid forty year old ladies walk around the streets with this yappy little poodle like dogs. They probably call them Fifi or some crap. But the point is, they take them everywhere. For example, we saw one dog striding along faithfully with its master (her name probably being Genevieve) in the department store Gallerie Lafayette! She even had the nerve to bring it in to the McDonalds there, where it sat and waited for Genevieve to finish her Le Sandwich. She was probably a nice lady, but I wouldn’t have minded if her dog turned on her sometime in the near future and ate her skin.
Anyway, enough ranting about our hatred of the French – we eventually arrived at the cemetery after walking a full 360 degrees around the barrier. We pondered the existence of the barrier. I mean...what were they trying to keep in? It’s not like anybody is going to escape the graveyard or anything. So we got a map and found the tomb of both Degas and Alexandre Dumas, as well as the tombs of lesser known people with last names ranging from Hamburger to La Roux. As we were looking, we designed our own future crypts. Such popular suggestions were six television screens with each Star Wars episode looped (Zach) and the possible inclusion of a ‘Crypt Cam’ where you can look at live footage of my own decaying body inside the coffin (with pre-recorded footage of me sitting up in my coffin, giving a thumbs up and winking at the camera before sitting back quietly in my coffin.
We decided to have some traditional French cuisine for lunch – including ‘Ass Beef’ and ‘Ass Kebab’ before sitting down over some ‘Hot Urine’ (no joke...actually appears on a cafe menu. I have pictures to prove it). Actually, we had some steak and chips at what appeared to be a Lebanese / French take away joint. Following this, we stopped over to the most famous ice-cream parlour in Paris - Berthillon. We dropped in to get two scoops of their delicious ice-cream, consisting of a total of 70 different flavours. It was such a blistering hot day, we thought we’d take some time out to enjoy an ice-cream and look at the dirty Seine River. It was a sweltering 4 degrees after all! What was ironic about the Berthillon though, was the fact that the owners usually go on holidays during the mid-summer months. Yeah, you heard correctly. The mid-summer months. When do you think people are mostly to have ice-cream? If you guessed winter, you would be absolutely correct in this case. I think most French people were looking at us strangely as we ate our ice-creams while they ate their breadsticks and croissants while they shivered in their jumpers, scarfs and berets. They were French after all. So they were probably just being asses.
We walked back to Notre Dame to consider climbing the steps to the top to get a good view of...another building 50 metres directly in front of the skyline of the Notre Dame. To avoid paying the 8 euro required to climb the steps, we formulated a plan where we would act as UK citizens – talking in a cockney British accent – to get in for free as members of the Euro under 26 got in for free. But we decided against it as “lies make baby Jesus cry” and we both found it a little unsettling to be lying to a church. So we decided to head to the Shakespeare and Co bookstore where James Joyce’s Ulysses was first published. I thought I might pick myself up a copy, for the sake of being able to say I bought Ulysses at the place that was bold enough to be the first to publish the book. We saw revised first editions of the book for 500 euro, which I thought was a pretty acceptable bargain. Instead, I decided against it, and left with my 11 euro copy of the book, published in 1993. Perhaps if I become famous, I can give the book to someone as a gift and they can sell it for 800 euro (note: this was actually done by someone famous and was on sale for this price at the aforementioned store).
On our way back to the hotel, we stopped by Hotel De Ville to see if any ice-skaters would stack it again. Unfortunately no one did, but we saw the same guy we saw yesterday skating around in the same pink underwear he wore the following day. We concluded that he probably never left the rink. On the way, we were heckled by beggars and people trying to scam us (one asked us to look at what looked to be some coloured cables in a loop) asking us whether we spoke English. I quickly shook my head and replied ‘Nein’ in the strongest German accent I could muster, and quickly walked on.
Overall, we were very satisfied with the amount of time spent in Paris. We managed to see everything we wanted to and more. I was not expecting to fit the catacombs in originally, but because we lived so close to certain places, we were able to with no problem. In conclusion – Paris was one of our favourite cities. It was beautiful and had some brilliant history and great architecture. However, I’d be DAMNED if I was to live there with those French bastards. But it could be worse...I could be in Belfast again, and nobody...NOBODY wants that to happen again. I’d probably come back to Paris to see a Moulin Rouge show if I had a spare $200 AUD floating around, but I certainly won’t be returning to Belfast anytime soon. And if I’m lucky, probably never. Tomorrow we head by train to Milan with the intention of finding a place with working WIFI instead of having to go down the road to use ‘Quick Burger’ (a popular fast food chain in France...one would inquire as to why it has never taken off in Australia – they don’t live up to their name. It literally took us half an hour one evening to get a meal from there) internet that drops out about as often as a College stoner drops out of classes.
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