Paris, France - 9/29/00

9/29/00

Long day!  I'm writing from Paris, by the way.  Sarah woke me up at 6 and I got ready pretty quickly.  I went downstairs and called Jamie right before we left for the bus and it was wonderful to talk to him!  I called him at work just long enough to let him know I was going to to be in Paris instead of Nice and to tell him I love him.  I'm going to make an effort to call him tomorrow, but I don't know if it'll be easy.  We got on the train with a bit of time to spare and two girls were taking up the entire compartment and seemed angry that we'd shown up to get our reserved seats.  One wanted to smoke (in a non-smoking car) but we told her we'd rather she not.  We got to Gare de Lyon [in Paris] and called our first-choice hostel, who said they were full, so we ended up getting a hotel near the station.  359F for a triple (with room for 4) with shower, toilet, sink, phone, TV... not bad!   And the hotel people said they'd try to arrange it so we could stay all three nights.  We went to Notre Dame first and went all the way up the towers for a great view of the city.  And lots of pictures of gargoyles!  Then we walked a little bit into the Latin Quarter before deciding to go to Centre Pompidou for the evening.  The fountain is really fun and I finished off a roll of film there.  The museum itself wasn't great.  We got a great view of the city at night, but I am not a modern art fan.  I did see a couple Matisses and Picassos that I liked, but most modern "art" is stuff that was done by someone with no more talent than me, or someone with a really screwed up mind.  We finished our time there with a weird noise and "dance" show.  Awful.  Lunch was at a good Italian place (we had to pull the table away from the wall to squeeze into our seats), and dinner at a really good chinese place.  I ate the whole thing with chopsticks!  There's a lot more to write, but I'm exhausted.  I love you, Jamie!

Notre Dame - Paris, France

Notre Dame - Paris, France

Rose window in Notre Dame

View from the top of Notre Dame

View from Notre Dame

My favorite gargoyle

Notre Dame's bell

Gargoyles at Notre Dame

The fountain at the Centre Pompidou

Centre Pompidou