Our lady and me

I am sitting in my boxers and a tank top, over a busy Parisian street. My window is open and I can hear laughing voices, gunning engines, horns, and the occasional siren. It is a clear night, cool, and you can barely see the stars unless you look closely. I walked the streets for nearly two hours before I realized that it wasn't cloudy. It wasn't as if I wasn't looking upward as I strolled, most places here look more like they were scuplted as opposed to built, a uniform whitewashed stone, intricate designs, that go for blocks. Most places of development that you see you can picture the world without interference from us, people, you can picture the trees, or grass, but not here. It could be an American sensibility that I have, being that here is so much older than my usual surroudings, but I make my way and have this feeling that Paris has always been here. Some Parisians I know, I think, feel the same way.

I arrived this morning, I did not sleep on the plane but rather got drunk and watched 3 movies, I started appropriately enough with a stiff neck and a slight hangover. I came here with no plan at all. I very nearly went and found a line going to Spain, but rather got on the RER train from De Gaulle airport, and rode the hideously ugly route into town. The large inner core of Paris is undeniably stunning, but the tagged sprawl of their suburbs are tacky and ill kept. There is much garbage along the track, which is barely hidden from view by rusted metal dividers, and worn concrete. Every inch of available space is written on in spray paint. Even the vegetation is affected, the grass is brown and uneven, very long here, non existent here, its like the unfortunate end of a story that starts: "Rodney had been drinking heavily against Doctor's orders after his concussion, and so he decided to cut his own hair..."

I chose to get off at Gare Du Nord, which is one of major train stations in the city. Leaving the platform and coming outside there were seven hotel signs immediately visable. I visited all of them, with no luck, until four blocks from the station I found this place. For 65 euro (far too much, but far cheaper than anything else I had encountered) I got this:

Notice my things already sprawled about.

I unpacked, found that I had not brought my Ipod's usb charger, and promptly began my 3 month adventure with a 4 hour nap.

When I woke I set about planning this coming week before I head to Oktoberfest in Munich (Munchen on my Eurail timetable) to celebrate my birthday. Tomorrow I will go to Versailles, as I have never been, and I will probably spend the night before returning to Paris the next day, go to the Louvre and wait for my train to Nice. I am going to Nice, Bordeaux, and Tolouse, on consecutive days before my train for Munich leaves from Paris. Four nights next week I will sleep on trains, which is good for saving money, and not so good for staying in touch. Expect me to drop off the map for a few days.

Having done that, it was already nearly 9PM France time. I was packed into a clausterphobic and sweaty heap of people on a metro train headed southwest. What happened to the oxygen in the car was basically the same thing that happens to sex workers, too much use. The air was so recycled, and moist, and warm from everyone else's lungs that you'd feel a little icky standing in it. Needless to elaborate that is was a relief to be off, and back into the light filled, music saturated, evening. I got off at St. Michel and saw a fascinating throng of people/tourists that represented an impressive cross section of everyone and everywhere. I counted 15 languages spoken along the confined banks of the Seine river. It was some of the best people watching you'll ever see. There were Parisian natives dressed to the nines, annoyed at the obstacles, with mobile phones glued to their ears, English students organizing a pub crawl, a German couple holding hands on one of the tourist river boats that cruise by every few minutes. I saw a Brazillian Soccer team with sleeveless tees and nylon pants, groups of Asian people talking and laughing, and sitting in front of Notre Dame a clutch of gypsies who all had dogs, who were all running about and nipping at eachother. The air was heavy with unfamiliar words, food smells, and music from several points. A group of street musicians had set up amplifiers and microphones right next to the river, right next to the Cathedral, and as I sat in front of the impressive gothic edifce I could hear them playing La Bamba, of all things, and then Twist and Shout, and then La Bamba again without stopping. Lots of people had gathered around them.

Yah. La Bamba. That's what I said.

I think that Notre Dame is my favorite place here. It was built over 500 years, like a gift from the human race to itself. I am not a reglious person, but I know and care for lots of Catholics and I can only imagine with much respect the feelings such a place would give. It is a place of such grandeur that it functions as so many things, a literary reference, a religious experience, a tourist trap, the shadow of the Cathedral could make you feel like you were in a movie or suddenly very much aware that you are smack dab in the middle of your own life and make you wonder what it all means. How many people have sat where you are sitting, what did they accomplish? How did they die? What was their story? Places like Notre Dame give me a sense of the meaning of things, and yet how casual those meaningful things are in the cosmic sense. It's a mirror you look in, that both dwarfs and magnifies every single thing. My crappy pictures won't convey this, especially since my flash ironically adds a hellish looking red tint to everything, but here you are anyways:

Think it was almost an hour and a half I sat there watching people. Long enough to see them hustle everyone out and close the doors. I stood by the river awhile and listened to all the music, bought batteries for my camera, and I smiled at the people sitting at the streetside cafes drinking coffee, and beer, and burying their faces and social anxieties into their cell phones.

The train wasn't as oppressive returning, I got a 3 euro panini from some snack stand and returned to my humble room, where I am sitting in my boxers and a tank top, by an open window over a busy Parisian street.