Catabasis

Today Aria and Kevin were going to go spend time with a friend who lives in Paris, and seeing as we hadn’t seen Notre Dame yet we decided to get up early to do so. Notre Dame is right near our apartment, and we hadn’t gotten to it yet because it seemed like it was easy to do whenever, being so close. However, unfortunately when we got there the plaza was blocked off, and it seemed like there was some kind of ceremony going on:

Maybe they're just a really funnily dressed tour group.

Unfortunately, this means we won’t have time to go in on this trip. Ah, well, something for next time, I suppose.

Since we weren’t going to go into Notre Dame after all, we had a bit of time to burn before Aria and Kevin had to get onto the train, so we went over to the Luxembourg gardens:

Square trees! What will they think of next?

Like many public spaces in Paris, this used to belong to the King, and therefore of course has a palace in it:

Look at all these commoners walking around the grounds! The King must be rolling around in his grave.

The French appear to have a different idea about what a garden ought to look like. Note the square trees in the first picture. In addition, you aren’t supposed to walk on most of the grass, but instead on gravel paths, like in the second picture.

Afterwards, my mom and I decided we’d go over and check out the Catacombs:

Claustrophobics need not apply.

Here is the history of the catacombs, as illustrated by moi (age 8):

I sure do like digging up rocks to sell for money!

Oh no, it collapsed. I guess I can't get any more rocks.

We are all getting sick. I bet it's those dead people.

Let's put the dead people in those holes where the rocks used to be so we don't get sick anymore.

If I arrange the bones neatly, people will pay to see them and I can make more money!

(For the record, yes,I did draw these as poorly as I could.)

The passages to get to the catacombs are indeed old quarry mining tunnels. As such, they are small and often times the ceiling is very low. It is a good thing that my uncle, who is 6’5″ didn’t go with us since I think he’d have to duck pretty much the whole time. There are also a large among of gated passages leading who knows where that you cannot go down:

I wonder if there's any Amontillado down there...

After you walk for a while, you get to the catacombs proper:

Necrophobics need not apply, either.

I must admit that I found the catacombs a bit creepy, but not for the reason you would think. Yes, there are lots of skulls and bones, but that doesn’t really bother me. However, thinking about someone taking all of these people’s remains and turning it into a tourist attraction makes my skin crawl a bit. Stacking them neatly is mostly fine, but when they arranged the skulls into patterns I found it in poor taste. Here’s what is, in my opinion, the worst offender:

Happy Goth Valentine's Day!

Maybe it’s just because the heart symbol has been trivialized to the extend of being automatically trite, but this seems to me the height of disrespect. That said, I mostly enjoyed the catacombs, other than the skull designs. It is a bizarre experience to walk through dimly lit underground passages filled to the brim with bones, bones, and more bones.

After that, my mom and I walked down the Boulevard de Saint-Germain. Well, at least we did for awhile before we ran into what we think was a gay pride parade:

I assure you, it was even more crowded than it looks

At this point the street became extremely crowded. We walked up a little further because it was kind of fun (lots of people dressed, shall we say “interestingly.” You rock that red and black striped thong, random dude!) but it became increasingly clear that if we were to get back to the apartment in the vicinity of Kevin and Aria we would need to seek an alternate route. That done, we all went out to dinner. Unfortunately, I neglected to get a shot of this evening’s restaurant. I did, however, get a picture of my entree:

I pretty much love anything in a puff pastry, so this was a safe bet.

It was a sort of seafood stew in a creamy sauce encased in a puff pastry, and it was goooood.

Here’s a couple things I couldn’t fit in elsewhere:

Maybe they're cookbooks?

This was a picture I took at a children’s library. Apparently the librarians think of the children there as vile book-devouring monsters. Also, so pictures of Aria:

Doot de doo, lookin' at stuff.

Oh crap, they see me! Gotta hide, but where...

They'll never find me here!

BONUS:

No dogs allowed, even on a leash.

(If you’re confused, this is explained in an earlier post, I think “I Lorve The Louvre”…)

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