Europe Part 2 Blog

Paris:

From here everything is a blur. I feel like a brief synopsis would be better than strong details.. so here we go! I met up with my man-boy-lover? I'm not sure how I should describe my love interest, but he does deserve some anonymity so I won't give many details - but he and I met up in Paris. We took a train from the airport to our private residence for the trip, and immediately took showers and tried to relax.. however there is very little relaxing when you get to a new country. You want to see and experience everything! We got dressed, and ran off to see Notre Dame. This church is just so overwhelmingly beautiful, and we caught it for sunset, so  the sky was lighting up the art on the walls in such a vibrant way that it would be hard not to be moved by what you are seeing. Although my favorite parts are the gargoyles, I can see why the religious artwork could inspire faith. The imagery is just stunning! It baffles me that people would spend not only their lifetime, but generations worth of lifetimes to create something so magnificent. It is truly larger than life.

We had only been in Paris for a few hours, but it felt like we could not avoid seeing stereotypes on every corner. It appears that the French actually see baguettes as their own unique food group, as we literally saw people eating bread everywhere! Police officers were walking down the road, gun on hip and baguette in hand!

We walked the Seine river, and then met up with my friend Cam Attree - a photographer from Australia (and a model whom he'd been photographing that day), who just happened to be in Paris at the same time as us. We met near a strip of restaurants, and as we walked along the street, we decided on the fondue-afterall, it is traditional French cuisine. Like something out of a stereotypical movie, the waiter was out front smoking a cigarette, and when we said we would like to be seated, he casually put his cigarette out on a passing table and walked us in. One of the harder things for me to understand about the French culture is that EVERYONE smokes. It was unfortunate because I really enjoyed the outdoor cafes, but often felt that I was choking because of so much smoke. Getting back to our dinner, the boys ate frog legs, but I opted to stick with the cheese and bread diet. It was a wonderful meal, and so nice to catch up with an old friend. After filling up on every type of cheese one can melt in a pot, my man-boy-lover and I took a scenic walk through the streets. The experience almost felt as though we were on a movie set. Everything is so old,  yet so pristine.  This is certainly not what we're used to in America, and the experience makes one keenly aware of how new our culture is.

In Paris we visited the Eiffel tower (and took the stairs as high as we could go!), shopped, went to the Louvre, ate our hearts out, watched Interview With the Vampire at night (I wanted to compare their France to the one we were experiencing). We went to the sex district and Moulin Rouge, visited Jim Morrison, Chopin and Oscar Wilde at Pere La Chaise, visited the Natural History museum and the gardens, went to Arch De Triumph ... and of course McDonalds (someone who has watched too much Tarantino really needed a Royale with cheese... whatever that means)... but my favorite part was visiting the Catacombs. The Catacombs are a series of ossuaries that were created in the 1800s. At the time, Paris was facing two major problems; land cave ins, and overflowing cemeteries. Fortunately, they were able to fix the situation by stuffing the spaces that were caving in, with bodies from the overflowing cemeteries (2 birds, 1 stone, heh). There are more than 6 million skeletons in the Paris Catacombs, and walking through them is just overwhelming. You can learn so much about an individual solely from their bones. The disfigurements on some told you they had the plague, while others visibly died from syphilis (as the bones became misshapen with holes). During WWII there was a battle fought in the Catacombs, and there are many post mortem gunshots to skulls throughout the space. I do tend to be interested in the macabre, so this is right up my alley, but to say I was awestruck would probably be an understatement. If you ever plan a trip to Paris, make this your first stop (or your last...heh). 

With one last evening in Paris, we ate a French-Japanese fusion dinner, took in as much as the scenery as we could, and like that it was time to find our way to San Sebastian, Spain.

  (to be continued...)