Friday 26 December 2008

Paris is full of dead people



Went to Paris for a week, which was awesome, although there seemed to be a morbid undertone to most of my activities. I went to Pere Lachaise cemetery and visited the graves of Moliere, Proust, Edith Piaf, and Colette. It was freezing cold and I walked like a drunken person the entire time because my feet were frozen solid, but the graveyard was amazing and I became obsessed with these creepy porcelain flowers heaps of the graves have on them. They have soft beautiful green moss growing in the crevices between the petals. I also went to the Catacombs, which are a huge network of ancient tunnels underneath the city, where thousands of peoples bones were relocated from the Paris cemeteries in the 17th Century. We walked for about two kilometers in these dark stone tunnels underground until we came to the ossuary, which just went on and on and on for miles, with human skulls and bones stacked head height on either side of you as far as you could see. They search your bag at the end of the tunnels to make sure you haven't stolen any bones. It creeped me out, I tried to hold my breath the entire time so as not to breathe in dead people, so I ended up giving myself a splitting headache.

The other highights were the Palais de Tokyo, which was having a 'Baby Disco' the night we went, and an amazing vegan restauraunt that did Franch style tofu in red wine. Also, I was on a train on the Metro which actually ran over a man on the tracks. We were all terrified and locked in the carriage while everyone outside was screaming and running around, and then, amazingly, this man pulled himself out from under the train, totally unharmed. He was a bit dirty and bruised, and in total shock, but he must have managed to duck underneath the train as it went over him. Other than this all I did in Paris was eat macaroons, drink Kir, and walk around a lot on my stupid club-like frozen feet going to galleries.

No comments: