Wait, what? I take a closer look, and what do I see? The creepiest bug, ever. Perhaps you think I am exaggerating. “I’ve seen cockroaches.” you say. “I’ve seen tarantulas. What could possibly haunt your bourgeois little apartment that would be that bad?” Well, how about this. Think of the worst, ickiest, spine-crawlingest bug you’ve ever seen. Got it? Good. Now follow this link:

http://igmund.wordpress.com/aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa/ *

If your bug was scarier, one of three things is true:

A: You and I have different definitions about what makes a bug scary. Did you see those legs? THOSE HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE LEGS?

B: You are a gibbering madman (madwoman? madperson?), consigned to a life of pure terror after having glimpsed the awful Ur-Bug, Devourer of Minds, and you somehow perused this page during your computer time at the dilapidated asylum you call home (rather than alternately gnawing on the keyboard and drooling, as is your wont).

C: You are a liar.

After some work, I dispatched the creature using the underside of my footwear.

Postscript: For the curious, here are some terrifying details: this insect is known as the “House Centipede,” or as I like to call it, “AAA! KILL IT! KILL IT WITH FIRE!” I have actually encountered it once before, when I was in high school.**

This was during one of my busiest semesters, when I was preparing for five different AP exams. While the whole period was rife was lack of sleep, this week was particularly bad. I recall waking up one morning and being unable for several minutes to remember my name, much less what the awful buzzing noise was (it was my alarm).

One night I was up late reading American history on the couch. I wanted to get through the rest of the chapter before I went to bed, so that I wouldn’t fall behind. However, this task was becoming increasingly difficult due to the way the words on the page moved and formed pictures, such as a kitty cat, or an aeroplane (whoosh!). I wrestled with this for a while, but after reading the same paragraph for the seventh time I  decided to pack it in and go to bed.

As I put my foot onto the carpet, I instantly drew it back in fright as some indistinctly seen, many-legged monstrosity skittered across the carpet and under the very couch I was sitting on. In my fatigue addled state, I huddled there for a while trying to figure out what it could have been.  Eventually, I convinced myself that it must have been a bizarre hallucination and went upstairs (moving away from the couch perhaps a bit swifter than was strictly necessary, given that conclusion).

This would have been the end of it, except that a few days later I heard my mother exclaim “What on earth is that on the wall?” Dun dun dun!

* This image was shamefacedly stolen from elsewhere on the interwebs. The images I could legally use simply didn’t express the full weight of terror the beast inspires in me.

** My memory is actually a bit fuzzy concerning this time due to extreme sleep deprivation, and, also, because I am an old man with a cane. I therefore reserve the right to make up any part of this story I can’t remember.

Kitty pettins!

He likes to do kitty things, like walking on your computer when you’re trying to use it:

Silly Fo Cat, computers are for people!

Or hiding in cupboards:

Silly Fo Cat, cupboards are for dishes!

Silly Fo Cat!

Today was mostly driving back to Paris. However, we did stop at a winery on the way:

Not pictured: a collection of giant objects from the novel "Gargantua" by Rabelais.

We got a couple decent wines; I think we would have gotten more, but it is apparently really difficult to get French wines to the states these days. Therefore, we needed to only buy what we were going to drink before returning home.

While there are many interesting things in the French countryside, such as wineries and picturesque villages, I don’t want to give you the wrong impression. Most of it basically looks like the American midwest:

Mm mm, flat and boring: just the way we likes it.

Consequently, I got a lot of reading done on this segment of the trip (we also got kinda lost, but we’re not talking about that). However, we did eventually arrive at our main destination for the day, the magnificent castle of Chenonceau:

Oo, a castle! It's like I'm in a fairytale. I'm a pretty, preeeeetty princess!

Interestingly, this castle was a gift from Henry II to his lover, Diane de Poitiers:

Isn't it a little weird to depict your mistress as Diana, Goddess of Chastity?

Some gift! Diane made it even more impressive by adding a garden:

and by renovating the castle to give it its currently most distinctive feature:

Yeah, that's right. The castle is built ACROSS the river. With 1500's technology, no less.

The king’s actual wife, Catherine, apparently also thought the castle was pretty nice since upon Henry’s death she ousted Diane from the castle and moved in herself. She added a bunch of references to herself to parts of the architecture, including having a big-ass portrait of herself built into the stone above one of the fireplaces:

Compare this dress to the one Diane is wearing above. Yeah, I know which one I'D pick.

She also added her own garden to the estate:

This castle is a bit divided in design. On the one hand, it’s a protective fortification, with defensible bridges and choke points:

Yeah, try getting across that when people are shooting arrows at you from the guard tower.

On the other hand, it is a palatial chateau, with graceful galleries, pleasure gardens, and beautiful tree-lined walks:

Personally, I think the palace won out over the castle. I don’t think an invading army is going to have much trouble with the moat:

On the other hand, I've never tried to cross it wearing a suit of armor, so maybe it's harder than it looks.

Speaking of, what’s up with the water in the moat? I don’t know how well you can see, but the water there is actually black. Not, like, dark, but actually the color black:

Look out for the Pirates! (For those of you who are confused, um, I'm not going to embarrass myself further by explaining my dated reference)

Actually, we also saw some strangely colored water at Versailles:

Iron? Microscopic water-based organisms? A wrathful god?

Haven’t really seen water that color before or since.

After we finished at the castle, we drove back to Paris to return the car. Driving in Paris was…interesting. Suffice it to say, don’t drive in Paris without…actually, don’t drive in Paris at all. Probably a better plan.

BONUS: Sundial Fail!

At the moment, I am a week behind in posts. Never fear, I will catch up, but apparently not while on vacation. At this point I’m just not really worrying about it; I’ll probably write a bunch on the plane, and also catch up while at home before converting the site into Igmund in Japan! (or maybe just Jason in Japan? I seem to be making free with my actual name, so the pseudonym seems a bit superfluous.) In any case, we are flying back “tomorrow,” arriving on Tuesday around 1. I put tomorrow in quotes because I think it is only barely Monday in California. In any case, I hope to see those of you who are in that fine state in the short span before I again leave for a foreign nation. In the meantime, I will simply have to suffer through sitting in a cafe in London drinking my English Breakfast tea and waiting for my French Toast to arrive.

Today we left Paris for a couple days in the French countryside, but not without one last Parisian croissant. It was again eaten too fast to take a picture of, but our artist in residence has kindly agreed to portray what it might have looked like:

"I'll miss you, Jason!"

*sniffle* I’ll miss you too, croissants! Don’t forget me…

With the tearful goodbyes said, we headed on our way. We drove out of Paris towards Tours. As it turns out, much of the French countryside looks a lot like the American midwest does, albeit with different houses, and more windmills:

The name "windmill" has become a bit divorced from its historical origins. Wind? Yes. Mill? No.

We stopped for a while in the (relatively) small town of Blois:

A patronizing American might describe it as "quaint." Since I am not, I would instead describe it as "kick-ass."

There was some kind of small fair going on. We got some lunch and hung out. It was a really nice day, and there was some really nice views:

Yes, this is a real photograph. No, I can't believe it either.)

I also bought some new sunglasses to replace those lost in the ruins of old Paris:

Not 100% sold on them, but I was getting a headache from the sun.

There was also some people at the fair selling leather jackets. This was mainly funny because it was about 100 degrees (no exagerration), so they weren’t having a lot of luck. One of them told my mom that he was “pére Noel” and that the jackets were free today. She was understandably skeptical. After that, we piled back into the car and headed over to Chinon. Apparently Joan of Arc was here at some point, so there’s a totally sweet statue of her riding a horse that someone threw a scarf on for some reason:

Notice how she's totally riding that horse RIGHT over that english dude.

We found a hotel, and then wandered around for a while. We ended up eating here:

Seventh Restaurant

I finally got to check Créme Brulee off my list of things to eat in France, and let me tell you, it was tasty. It was much more subtle than what you generally get in the states, and not too sweet. Two thumbs up, says I!

Tomorrow: A winery, and a castle!

BONUS: Jason makes fun of French signs for no good reason:

OK, so the meaning of this is pretty clear, but I decided to make it clearer

The Disco Fever has already claimed over 1000 lives. Don't let yours be next.

This is pretty clearly a speed bump sign. However...

...to me, it looks a bit more like a mustachioed triangle.

This one, I really have no idea about. If anyone knows what this sign is, let me know in the comments. For now, though, I'm gonna say...

Hammers available for all your convenient barrel-smashing needs!

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”…)

We’re in London now, but as you can tell I’m still a bit behind. I’ve got some posts written, but I’m trying to do the days in chronological order, so I still need to do Saturday’s post before I do the ones after that. Fortunately we did significantly less on Saturday through Tuesday than Monday through Thursday, so the posts will be a lot shorter.

Also, we were supposed to have internet in the apartment London, but it sounds like they are having some kind of dispute with their provider. Therefore, I will only have internet intermittently. There is a cafe with internet near the apartment that I am posting this from, but it’s only open until 4pm, so no more late night posts. I’ll get stuff up when I can, but posting times will be intermittent (although I should have at least one up a day until I catch up; just at unknown times during the day). Hope everyone is doing great!

The light! It buuurrrns us! (I definitely need to get sunglasses)

My uncle Kevin and I had been joking about having a footrace up the Eiffel Tower. Needless to say, cooler heads prevailed, by which I mean we chickened out. However, Kevin decided that racing up the steps of Sacré-Coeur would be a good substitute:

Notice the head start he gave himself before telling me we were racing.

Despite Kevin’s underhanded tactics, I still managed to come out the winner:

Too slow, grampa!

Pictures were not allowed inside the church, so I don’t actually have any of the inside. However, I will tell you that it is a very nice church. We did go up to the cupola, however, and I do have pictures from there:

I seem to like climbing a lot of tall things and then taking pictures of other tall things.

We then descended from the cupola into the crypt. All of these older churches and monuments in Paris seem to have the same kind of thin, windy stairs, and this was no exception. There’s never any indication how much further you have to go, so if you are claustrophobic, beware. Afterwards, we wandered around and found a little Deli and got sandwiches. They also had a bunch of colored liquid in bottles that it claimed were “specialty lemonades” or something of that ilk. However, with flavors like “raspberry,” “mint,” and “bubblegum,” I’m not sure how they qualify as lemonade. Maybe they all also have lemon in them? If so, the bubblegum sounds gross. Scratch that, a bubblegum flavored drink sounds gross in general.

We then wandered around for a bit, and I decided I’d like to walk over to see the Moulin Rouge. So you know how the Moulin Rouge used to be in a pretty risque part of town? Well, it hasn’t changed much. That was, um, awkward, since we were there with my 11 year old cousin. One of the stores we saw confused me a bit:

Over here you got your melons, here are some bananas, here you have some buns...

I’m pretty sure I know what they mean, but I don’t think I’d call that a “supermarket.” Maybe it means something slightly different in France. Anyway, we did eventually sure find the Moulin Rouge:

Now to find that Green Fairy...

We then pretty much just went back to the apartment, bought some food, cooked it, played some cards, and went to sleep!

Woo, this post is only about a quarter the length of the previous posts. Good times, good times.

BONUS: Finally, finally, pictures of the apartment. It is located on L’ile Saint Louis, which is one of the islands in Paris in the Seine. To get in, you enter a set of doors from the street:

This leads into a little open-air courtyard which seems to be the norm for living in Paris.

There’s an upper floor with sort of low couches, the bathroom, and a bedroom:

There’s a set of stairs (sans railing) leading to the basement:

The basement is a converted wine cellar, and has a kitchen:

It also has a bed and a sort-of-couch, so we used it as another bedroom.

Overall, small, but nice. A good fit for what we wanted, and an excellent location.

The Fourth Restaurant

This restaurant on a side street near the Plaza de Bastille was recommended to us by a friend of Kevin’s. The standout here was Fondant aux Chocolat (might be au rather than aux? Not sure.) It was a really soft chocolate cake, whose filling I would guess was ganache based on texture and consistency. Some might say that it was too rich, but I would say that eating chocolate that is “too rich” is a problem I would like to have. However, despite being a “local” place, the meal ended up being a bit too expensive for our tastes. 130€ is a lot for 4 people, especially when you’re multiplying it by 1.4. On to Thursday!

Croissant and an apple pastry for breakfast again. Ah, how will I ever readjust to breakfast in the United States? In fairness, I doubt that eating pastries for breakfast every day is particularly healthy. How do Parisians stay so thin? A mystery for the ages (not really, from the look of things they actually exercise, unlike most Americans).

As a side note, one thing I will not have any trouble readjusting to when I return is water at restaurants. Most restaurants here seem to only have bottled water, so it is expensive to drink as much water as I am used to.

Kevin and Aria were really tired, so we let them sleep in while we returned to the Musée D’Orsay to see the post-impressionists. (The previous time we went there we ran out of time.) If you’re curious what the difference is between an impressionist and a post-impressionist (I certainly didn’t know previously), here is my understanding. Both impressionists and post-impressionists create paintings which are “impressions” of a scene, i.e. they don’t attempt to produce photograph-like realism but instead create a more stylized representation. Post-impressionists, however, don’t even try to match the colors, so long as the overall effect is correct. Here is an example of an intermediate piece:

Did you ever wonder if impressionism wasn't started intentionally? Maybe some painter was just really nearsighted.

This is a normal sort of pastoral scene with cypress trees. They are mostly green, which is the correct color. However, if you examine them you will also notice reds and yellows, which would not have appeared in the actual scene:

The colors, the colors!

The colors are intended to produce the correct “impression” without being literally correct. There were two other paintings I saw which I felt were interesting enough to share. The first piece, unfortunately, doesn’t come out quite right in the photograph:

The sleep of reason produces monsters.

The painting depicts several monstrous figures in an obscure locale. The title, which unfortunately I can’t remember exactly, makes some reference to human savagery. The difference between the actual painting and the picture here, is that in the picture most of the figures are readily identifiable. In the original painting, everything is very dark, so that it is difficult to make out the figures. However, the longer you stare at it the more you can make out in the darkness. The effect is somewhat like a cave in which your eyes adjust, slowly making out more and more of your surroundings. However, in this case what you are surrounded by is monsters.

I don’t have too much to say about the last painting, but it should be pretty clear to most people who know me why I took a picture of it:

Kitty!

After we were finished at the Musée, we walked back to the apartment along the Seine to meet Aria and Kevin. One thing I’ve noticed along the Seine are houseboats:

Based on my admittedly small sample size, I estimate that about 90% of Parisian houseboats are named after women

I’m always curious about people whose lifestyles are very different than my own. I wonder what it would be like to live on a houseboat like this? Do they mostly stay in one place, or do they move up and down the Seine, maybe even out of the city depending on the season? What kind of jobs do they have? What are the inside of the boats like? Do you have to replace your boat periodically, or do they basically last as long as you take care of them? I find these questions interesting to think about. We also saw something pretty odd on one of the quays:

Where does he think he's going to plug in that TV?

It looks like somebody basically took some furniture and other items down by the Seine and set up a little apartment. We saw the guy there later sitting around and talking to some people. The best explanation we can come up with is that it was either some kind of performance art or an effort to make people think more about the situation of the homeless.

After we got back, it was finally time to try the gelato place near our apartment!

Also known as taking the sweet train to tastytown.

I had chocolate, vanilla, and lemon, and of the three lemon was clearly the best. Not to knock good old chocolate, surely the king of flavors, but this was some tasty lemon I can tell you. As for comparing it to the ice cream shop, I think the chocolate ice cream was better than the chocolate gelato, but overall the gelato was superior.

Subsequently, we went to see the archaeological crypt under Notre Dame:

Reminds me of my room. But cleaner.

Basically, when they were doing excavations in preparation for building Notre Dame, they found a whole bunch of older ruins underneath the ground. Paris, apparently, was originally settled by a group of Celts named the Parisii, and had since been occupied by a Gallic city and a Roman city before it began its current incarnation during the middle ages. They found ruins of both Roman and middle ages buildings under the current church. Sadly, my sunglasses lens joined the archaeological remnants to be found by future generation, or at least the janitor when they clean out the little pit that separates visitors from the ruins proper. Fortunately they were really cheap sunglasses, so no big loss. After that, we went to see a church named Saint-Chapelle that has the oldest stained glass in Paris:

Interestingly, unlike most of the churches I’ve seen in Europe, this one was painted pretty much floor to ceiling:

Maybe the King built it? He certainly seems to like painting ceilings, AND the color gold.

Also unlike most other churches I’ve seen, it’s got two floors, and the second floor is definitely the more impressive of the two:

You wouldn't believe how many photos I had to take of this room before I got one that wasn't ridiculously blurry.

You’re supposed to be quiet when visiting churches, but so far I’ve yet to go to a (tourist-attracting) church where this was observed. Someone tried to shush the visitors while we were there, which caused them to quiet down for, oh, say, 10 seconds or so. Maybe it would be better if they put some posters in there:

Talking in church is double plus unholy.

The church is also right next to the Parisian Hall of Justice, so I took this opportunity to engage in a little criminal behavior right under the noses of les policiers:

"No, really, I'm being kidnapped! Why won't anyone believe me!"

The gate to the Hall of Justice had a feature I thought was interesting:

There's also a house in a rich neighborhood in California that has a fence with these. I can't decide whether they're more creepy on a Hall of Justice or a rich person's house.

For those of you who do not know, this is a fasches. It is an object dating from the pre-republic period of Rome. It is an axe wrapped in rods, and it is a symbol of how the head of a household has the right of corporal and capital punishment over the members of the household. While in some ways this is appropriate for a courthouse, it has some connotations that I find a little bothersome. For one thing, the Roman head of a household had the right to inflict these punishments for any reason he saw fit, real or imagined. This is not the kind of thing I would want my justice department to be doing. It was not a symbol of law so much as power. The other reason is that it has since been appropriated by the fascist movement, whose name in fact comes from this word. I’m not a big fan of fascist government, and given Europe’s history I would have thought they wouldn’t be either. (Realistically, I am probably putting more thought into this fence design than the designer did, so that’s the real most likely explanation for it. Also, what, me, over-think things?)

We then had a late lunch, and headed, at long last, to the Eiffel Tower!

Find enclosed the requisite picture that every visitor to Paris must take.

If you haven’t been to the Eiffel tower, it’s big. REALLY big. (It probably seems bigger than it actually is just because in general the buildings in Paris are not allowed to be taller than 5 floors.) You need to take two elevators to get to the top, and wait in the vicinity of an hour and a half (at least in our case). It costs ~13€ a person. However, it’s still apparently the most popular tourist attraction in the world. And to be honest? The view is spectacular:

I can see my house from here!

Interestingly, the only time it rained while we were in Paris was when we were up the Eiffel Tower (well, and that evening, but we were inside and asleep so it didn’t make much of a difference). We were actually up there in a lightning storm, so it was kind of exciting. I don’t know how often the Tower gets hit with lightning, but it’s by far the tallest object around and it’s made of metal so I would guess if lightning strikes in its vicinity it strikes the tower. However, none struck the tower while we were up (or at least I’m assuming not since otherwise I imagine we would have been temporarily deafened.) One thing that was cool is you could look over the edge of the tower and watch the water droplets falling:

Behold: The cliffs...of INSANITY!

You could actually tell where the air currents were by watching the water. Also, because I said I’d get the companion shot, here’s the Arc de Triomphe from the Eiffel Tower:

As promised, so delivered

On the way back, we saw something odd; there were a bunch of police officers kind of furtively standing behind a pillar on a bridge. Every once in a while one of them would peek out and look down the bridge. I didn’t manage to get a picture of them peeking out, but here’s an artist’s impression:

"Artist" should be in quotes

We’re not really sure what they were trying to look at, but after awhile they just ran off:

"Look, Doughnuts!" Wait, They're in France. "Look, Beignets!"

For dinner, we ate at another place near the Plaza de Bastille:

Fifth restaurant

They had a lamb special, which I ordered. It was quite good. It was served with green beans wrapped in bacon, which is not a preparation that I’ve seen before. Still, all things being equal I support adding more bacon to cooking.

When we got back to the apartent we had a little scare. To get into the courtyard where the apartment is, you need to enter a door from the street using a combination lock. However, the combination we had didn’t work anymore! not good… We called Pierre, who is renting us the apartment, but only got his answering machine. We were waiting out there trying to decide what to do. Just walk around until morning? Try to find a hotel? Sleep somewhere on the street? Fortunately, Pierre called back and told us that the combination is changed periodically, and he gave us the new passcode so we could get in. Phew!

BONUS: More sign failage!

Rules are made to be broken, especially when you're American!)

Sorry for the poor picture quality; I didn’t want to make the fact that I was photographing them too obvious.