last post!

Moving to the hotel today! But there's no internet there, so I will have to survive without. I went with the other girls in my room to watch the world cup at the eiffel tower yesterday. Oh my god there were so many people there and it was really fun.

I'm so tired and I feel like I haven't been properly clean since I got here. And I have 30 Euro left for 5 days. I tried to budget but i guess i didn't do a very good job. I would come home now if it weren't so much money to change a plane flight. Oh well, I'm sure I can survive. I hope there's a tv in the hotel room, right now I really just want to veg for a day.

Up and down day, in more than one day!

I went to the catacombs today, which sounds creepy, but it was actually very peaceful and solemn, except for the occasional giggling teenager/little kid. They are old stone quarries that have been filled with the bones of those buried in the cemetery of the innocents from the 1200s until 1785. Anyone not rich enough to buy a plot in a proper cemetery was buried in a mass cemetery, and after hundreds of years there was a huge disease problem in the area, so all the remains were moved and the cemetery closed. Anyway, it's beautiful in it's own way. The only problem is that they only allow 200 people underground at a time, so the line goes really slowly, and my lower back was absolutely killing me today.

Also I really had to pee when I came out of the catacombs, and the first public toilet was out of order, so i went into the one at the montparnasse cemetery and the women's toilet was, no joke, a hole in the ground, two platforms for your feet and handles to hold while you squat. Gross.

I had to come back to the hostel early because my back was hurting so bad, and I was thinking I might change my plane ticket to go home early, but it costs $300 just to change it, plus any extra cost of the different ticket. Plus I realized I have 50 Euro less than I thought, whether because I counted wrong or lost it or it was stolen, I don't know. I was feeling thoroughly spent, exhausted, and broke, but...

There are two really nice Dutch girls in my room who gave me some beer and are feeding me dinner and I think I will go with them to climb the eiffel tower at sunset. So hopefully the day will end on the up and up.

I had an epiphany...

I was sitting on a bench watching the traffic at the arc de triomphe, when one of those double decker tour \buses goes by and people are trying to take pictures from the moving bus, and I thought, that's dumb, those photos won't even turn out, plus there's a million pictures of it already, good pictures by real photographers, which is when I decided to only take pictures of unique things, like tiny parks with giant fountains.

As of now I have seen, in addition to the arc de triomphe, the eiffel tower, sacre coeur, les jardinieres tuileries, notre dame, the sorbonne, moulin rouge, palais de justice, and on and on and on.

Today i went to the Montmartre cemetery (in the rain, how fitting), which was interesting but not as cool as the Mont Royal cemetery. Then after some wandering I made my way to parc monceau, where there were lots of people jogging and very few tourists. Then I ventured as far as the park on the edge of the city, I don't know what it's called, but it was so lovely, with forested areas and bike paths.

Yesterday I was in the Latin Quarter and a Turkish guy asked if I would marry him and take him back to the States. Boo. But then I found City Lights Paris, which has a reading room upstairs with a piano and I think I will go back there to hang out for a bit longer next week.

I'm doing an excellent job conserving my money thanks to the experience I gained in SF, and by the time I move to my hotel from the hostel, I should be able to do some serious French eating., but for now it is baguette avec fromage, et abricots.

My computer is totally messed up and won't upload any pictures, so that will just have to wait.