Today was a weird day. There were a few disappointments, but a few nice surprises as well. The first disappointment was that Erica woke up this morning feeling nauseous, and so we stayed in the room for a while hoping she would feel better. At about noon we decided to head out to the cemetery, Père Lachaise, even though she was still feeling a little queasy. We toured the huge cemetery in a couple of hours, and it was cool getting to see the burial places of so many famous people. A lot of musicians, composers, and writers are buried there. We saw Jim Morrison, Georges Bizet, Fèdèric Chopin, Giacomo Rossini, Camille Pissarro, Honré de Balzac, Jacques Louis David, Eugène Delacroix, Marcel Proust, Georges Seurat, Oscar Wilde, and Victor Noir. But it wasn't exactly upbeat, as you can probably imagine.
After the cemetery we did something that we've been intending to do ever since we arrived in Paris: we ate crêpes at a sidewalk café. It was awesome because they were really cheap and really tasty. I also got an iced chocolate coffee drink, which was also very tasty. What made this visit really interesting, however, was that our waiter seemed to be having a rough day. He was moving way too fast and trying to do too much at the same time. Finally the inevitable happened: he dropped a tray of dishes on a young American girl, getting mustard all over her dress. Luckily, the family seemed to handle it fairly well. No one yelled or anything. But we did feel bad for the waiter.
After this we planned on visiting the Crypte Archeologique, the ancient Roman town buried under Notre Dame. We were very excited about this, but when we got there, we saw a sign that said "Crypt Closed"! It was very disappointing. We're still a little bummed about it. But I'm trying to be positive about it: it gives us something to do the next time we're in Paris!
After this disappointment, we decided to visit the Jardins du Luxembourg, which were nice, but not as nice as some of the other gardens we've been to. Also, it was very hot and humid today, so it wasn't exactly enjoyable to sit there in the sun. Because of this, we decided to make an unscheduled stop at La Défense. This is the commercial area of Paris, and there is a large mall as well as the famous Grande Arch, which was absolutely gigantic. La Défense is a district in western Paris that is basically like the downtown areas of most big cities (tall buildings and shopping centers, etc.), but it isn't in the center since the city wants to keep the historic feel of the center of Paris. We spent some time touring the mall, and decided to eat in the food court. The meal we had there was one of the best and one of the cheapest since we've been in Paris. It really surprised us. I had a four-cheese pizza and Erica got penne arrabiata. The restaurant was called Viagio, and was a kind of Italian up-scale fast food place (we decided it was somewhat similar to Quizno's in the US). It was awesome for me because I got a large soda for €1.30. I had become accustomed to paying at least €4.00 for a drink at a European restaurant!
Erica says she's still feeling a little funny, but that she's not feeling nearly as nauseous as she was this morning. Hopefully she'll wake up tomorrow feeling much better!
Tomorrow we have a busy day. We're going to attempt to see as much of the Musée d'Orsay as possible (a museum that holds a lot of works by famous painters such as Cezanne, Monet, Manet, etc.), then head off to the Catacombs, a centuries-old Parisian burial site, and try to catch our train back to Berlin by 7:48 pm! Hopefully it will work out better than our plans for today did!
