Paris is to Die For

If you have not already read Leo's post from today, skip immediately to it and come back to mine later.

Ok, I must start by apologizing for yesterday's post, I was incredibly hurried, unprepared, and distracted by the fact that Leo was getting his mack on with a hot girl from UC Berkley (start singing "Californiaaaaa, Californiaaa..." at your leisure), I was also carrying the heavy burden of trying to please our fan base, one of who had just called me out for not being funnier in an email, on the fly. Today should be better and shorter. However, this dang French keyboard is not the same and it is really really difficult to type. (in case I don't catch my mistakes q=a and ,=m those are the major differences causing ,e problems so fqr.

So as you just read in Leo's post we split up at the begining of the day to do our own things. I went straight for the Catacombs. There was a warning sign at the door that the path was 1.7 km and included 130 steps going down and 83 going up (which really concerned me cause I didn't want to end up only 2/3 of the way back to ground level. I put that behind me and headed down a long spiral staircase. Luckily, I am quite used to long spiral staircases in Paris now, but this one was particularly narrow. When I got to the bottom there was no tour and nobody, so I just started walking...and walking...and walking. I saw nothing and noone, so I just kept walking. I had all but resigned myself to the fact that the Catacombs were just a very long underground hallway with nothing really to see (though I was taking some pleasure in imagining the French resistance running around in these tunnels unknown to the Nazis above) when I came upon a sign that said "Boulevard Du Mort" or something like that. From that point for the next half a mile or so both sides of the very long hallway were completely covered with bones and skulls. I mean completely covered with tightly and neatly packed bones and skulls. Thousands upon thousands of 200 year old bones and skulls. Now, on top of these piles the bones appeared to be just lying around and I was unable to resist the temptation to pick up an old skull. I IMMEDIATELY regretted that decision! From the very second of contact with the 200 year old skull my hand seemed nothing short of repulsive and I was overcome by the notion that I was now infected with the plague (yes, I know the plague was not in the 1800s, but it just felt that way. My hand was immediately quarrantined to my pocket for the rest of the day (since I was stuck in a mile long tunnel without the handy hand sanitizer that the Snooks gave me). I finally made it out of the Catacombs and headed to my other priority sight of the day, the Conciergie (the place where over 3,000 "enemies of the state" (including Mary Antoinette and Maximillien Robspeirre) were executed by guillotine. This was located on the same island as Notre Dame and it was very cool. It was an old palace that had been turned into a jail and it was in the same complex as the Parisien Court building and a very old Cathedral that had been built to house Jesus's crown of thorns. So I strolled through the cathedral while I was there and it had the most incredible stained glass I have ever seen. From there I grabbed some lunch at Quick (like French McDonalds, just as plentiful) I decided to try the "Chicken Supreme" which I have seen advertised in Quick windows all over Paris. It was not until my first bite did I realized that "supreme" is the French word for "make me want to puke." My typical fast food chicken was covered in a sauce that was anything but special. Trying to fit in, I ate as ,uch as I could, but ultimately I had to take a napkin to that thing and clear it off. I went back on to the island looking for the Notre Dame Crypte and saw that they were about to have a service called the Veneration of the Crown of Thorns, so I went in and watched. It was a neat service with beautiful organ ,usic and french singing, but I'm still undecided one whether or not I believe that what I was looking at was the actual 2000 year old crown that Christ wore when he died (Jamey, maybe you or some other Catholic out there can help me know whether I should believe that). From there I took a quick look at the Crypt and upon reading a plague that contained the words "ice age" I realized this place was more for Leo than it was for me so I went to the Musee D'Orsay and took in magnificent art, before taking a quick stroll through the Luxembourg Gardens (where they were preparing for a concert and blasting "Gangsta Paradise") and coming here. Tonight is our last night in Paris then off to Mt. St. Michel. So good bye Paris and hello the rest of our trip.

ps. I must tell you that we are both very disappointed in the poll results so far. I'm assuming that your silence means that you all understand that the rooms where Winston Churchill saved the world are so far superior to a fake Dineyland version of the Globe that you need not even respond, BUT if we don't get a higher participation on our next poll the blog is in danger of losing that feature all together, so lets get on it people!