Foux du fa fa

Yes, I know this revolutionary etude was written for the attempted Polish revolution and not the French Revolution, but I like it, and I'm pretty sure Chopin wrote it in Paris, so deal with it:



Paris is such a great city, it's hard to compare it to the others, it's like it is in the BCS, along with London, Rome, and New York, so I can't make any comparison to the other cities I visited, although I must say Prague is the next BCS buster. If you're going to Europe for the first time, Paris is a must, plain and simple. I know some people hate it, but that's usually because they went once and something bad happened so they associate it with that. Also, I think it makes a big difference if you speak French, I've found the locals to be extremely cordial, but probably a lot of that has to do with my French.

In Amsterdam, everyone speaks English, literally, I think the animals even take commands in two languages, but in Paris that's definitely not the case. If weed is what you smell upon arriving in Amsterdam, then BO would be the scent you get in Paris, at least in the metro, ugh... I got to my hotel at about 3, located in the south part of Paris, near the Montparnasse train station. The neighborhood is really cool, not touristy at all. I love how there are stores for everything, like a bread store, a meat store, fish store, fruit store, just lining the street. When I went out to get breakfast the next morning, I felt like singing the Beauty and the Best intro as I walked down the street, "There goes the baker with his tray as always!"

Jumping back to Friday...I went to the place where I had hoped to rent rollerblades but nothing was there. I asked the guy working at the flower shop next door and he said they closed 4 years ago...great. At that point (~5pm) I started to think all was lost since I didn't know where another store was and figured they'd all close at 5:30 or 6 anyway. He directed me to an internet cafe, fortunately right down the street, and I looked up another place near the Eiffel Tower. I went there and got my blades, very exciting. I rollerbladed back to my hotel and was pretty tired. I started having second thoughts about the 15 mile trek I was about to do. Nevertheless, I went to the meeting spot at 10pm and joined about 3-4K others. They say 10K do it but I doubt that ever happens. It's a holiday weekend though so maybe that's why we were relatively few in number. When we started, I couldn't stop smiling, it was just hilarious and crazy at the same time. We had a police escort and went down the major boulevards of Paris. There were often people lining the streets taking pictures and cheering us on. Here's me at the beginning, still with lots of energy:



We would stop every few miles so that we weren't too long and wouldn't tie up too much traffic. These breaks were annoying at first but adored by the end. They say you should be an experienced rollerblader to do it and this is very true. I'm in pretty good shape, certainly no Eric Rawlings (Iron Man) but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone in worse shape than me. Your cardio abilities are more important than your skating skills, although there are times when that helps. We were going down a hill, probably about 30 mph (which is pretty dang fast on blades) and I had about 30 people all around me, I was in the middle of a rollerblading peloton, it was awesome, we were all hunched over, no more than a foot between each person. If someone fell, it would have been disastrous, but fortunately that didn't happen (in my group at least).

The coolest part had to be rollerblading around the Place de la Bastille where, almost exactly 219 years earlier (on July 14), a mob of Parisians, not unlike ourselves (although probably on skates instead of rollerblades), stormed the jail that was there and then went to Versailles, starting the French Revolution and leading to the beheadings of many thousands of people, including the King and Queen. Fortunately, we didn't head to Versailles, as I was starting to get exhausted. Here's me towards the end, by Notre Dame:



Afterwards, my feet/ankles were destroyed with blisters and such. It was so worth it though, I had an excellent time.

I got up the next morning and had a delicious breakfast of croissants and pain au chocolat. I then went to the catacombs of Paris. During the late 1700s, they were running out of room to bury people. There were lots of bodies just rotting above ground, spreading disease and obviously smelling quite badly (even worse than usual). So, they decided to relocate a lot of the dead people to an old quarry in the southern part of Paris. They also arranged the bones in a rather artistic way. Here are some pics:




It was huge, the pics are just a very small part of the entire thing. It was cool to think when some of those people lived and how they were just normal everday Jos, or Jeans.

I grabbed lunch and ate in front of the Notre Dame. As an aspiring architect, I love Notre Dame, not because of any engineering feat, but because it has flying buttresses, and it's fun to say that.



Also, people watching is very underrated. I love watching different cultures take pictures. Americans are always bubbly and take funny or goofy pictures, whereas Asians are always rather stoic in their pictures, it just looks awkward.

I did one of those free tours again even though I know about most of the sites. I learned some new things but will have to double check if they are indeed true as the guide made some very obvious errors. She mentioned something about Charlemage doing something in 975, but as we all know from my post "Put Another Shrimp on the Barbie," he dined at that restaurant in Salzburg in the early 800s. Then she mentioned the Allies landing in Normandy in August of '44...it was June 6th. The kicker was at the Place de la Conchorde where she was talking about the beheadings during the Revolution and said Cardianl Richelieu was executed here...he died a relatively peaceful death about 150 years before the Parisians skated to the Bastille. So, I left the tour (it was almost over anyway) without paying a tip.

I think on my next trip to Europe I'm going to tour more of rural France, I love the food and talking to the locals. I'm about an hour from Pamplona, and I'll admit I'm a little nervous about the bull run tomorrow. Not because I could get gored, but because I'm not sure where to go exactly and don't speak the language. So, hopefully I'll at least get to see it and possibly get in.

As we went through the western Pyrenees, I was surprised at how green and lush it was. I had always imagined the Pyrenees (since I do that a lot) as being arid, but it was very beautiful. My aunt Nancy is going on a trip through there later this year and should enjoy it quite a bit. The red tiled roofs of the villages were a nice contrast to the green landscape. Perhaps it is drier towards the east, but along the coast it is gorgeous.

I had a nice conversation with a Frenchman from Bordeaux on the last train. We talked a lot about politics, including the upcoming US elections and Sarkozy. At the end he said it's too bad that French people always think Americans are all like Bush, and that if they're all like me, the French would like Americans more. Of course, I had to explain how we don't all have chiseled abs and stunning features, but we're good people. Yes, I am kidding, just in case you don't know me and take that last part seriously. As long as I'm clarifying things, please note that the czech and checking thing is not true (from my Prague post), I made that up (but pretty clever still I think), but the rest of that defenestration is true, or at least I wasn't intentionally telling falsehoods.

Ok, I'm in Pamplona, got my red scarf, Ole!!!