It's been pretty gray and rainy on and off around here, but today was the foggiest I've seen it, even foggier than I've seen in a long time, and it gets pretty foggy in the bay area sometimes. When I opened my door, I could see the damp, gray mist rolling in toward me, like someone was running a fog machine just out of sight. Since it was so grey, and the weather forecast predicted a high of 41 (F), I decided that today was the day to visit some indoor things that I was curious about.
However, it didn't all work out quite as intended.
First, I went to the Paris catacombs. I'm sort of morbidly curious about them, and going on a nice day would seem like a waste of a nice day, so today was as good a time as any. Unfortunately, I think everyone else had the same idea, and there was a very long line to see them. I don't mind lines occasionally, but I've stood in a lot of them lately, and standing in line outdoors for a long time to get into the catacombs would be a bit silly as part of the point of my going was to spend some quality time in the comparatively warm depths of the earth.
After seeing the line for the catacombs was prohibitively long, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do next, but I saw some signs for the Montparnasse Cemetery. I think this post is making me seem a bit strange, but I'm not really usually the sort of person who wants to spend lots of time in cemeteries or crypts or catacombs. But I guess I had already talked myself into going somewhere slightly creepy today, the cemeteries in Paris are typically regarded as tourist destinations, there didn't seem to be other landmarks of interest in the area, and I wanted to get something out of my trip down there before jumping back on the metro train.
I went into the Montparnasse Cemetery, which was lined with large mausoleums, all packed in shoulder to shoulder. I didn't intend that last sentence to be literal, but looking at it, I suppose it is. I walked around a bit, and came to a sign listing the names and locations of some notable... umm... residents? of the cemetery. I didn't recognize any of the names, except for noted mathematician Henri Poincaré, so of course I went and found his tomb. The tomb is for the Poincaré family (photos to come in a few weeks). Its dimensions are what I'd think of for a burial site for just one person in our more spacious, decadent American cemeteries, I suppose like our more spacious, decadent elevators, train seats, and hotel rooms. So, I can only conclude that Henri is down there sandwiched in a stack of the corpses of his beloved family.
I told Henri that it was nice to visit him, that I was sure he'd heard about his conjecture being proved true, and that I am about to visit the institute named after him, which I haven't seen yet, but hear is very nice. There were several aging metro tickets sitting on top of the memorial, weighed down by small stones from that path. I guessed they were left by people meaning to indicate that the grave had been visited. I suppose leaving a metro ticket does seem to say something along the lines of "Hi, I made a trip out here specifically to see you," so I left my used train ticket as well.
After visiting Henri, I decided I felt unmotivated to continue wandering around in the grey chill in order to see the rest of the Montparnasse Cemetary, so I continued with part 2 of my original plan for staying indoors, which consisted of visiting the covered passages, which were in a more central part of Paris. These passages date back to the 18th and 19th centuries, and although they fell into disrepair, they've been restored relatively recently (so I've read) and are now full of cute second-hand shops and so on. The photos I saw online looked very steampunk, so I thought they'd be interesting to see. However, it turns out that the passages are kind of hard to find, and since the restoration is relatively recent, they weren't marked on all my maps. So again, my plan for finding these covered passages and browsing bookshops in the warmth just resulted in me spending lots of time outside looking confusedly at my various maps. I did find them eventually, and I suppose they were worth seeing once.
When I didn't find the passages immediately, I decided that I would do better with something warm in my stomach since it was getting late and I hadn't eaten for awhile. I also really wanted to sit down. A couple of days ago I decided it would be good to do a little circuit training with lots of lunges and squats, and now walking around is really difficult. So, I settled randomly on a little café which didn't seem terribly nice inside, but it was inexpensive, and I told myself that it was probably fine, just less touristy or something. Unfortunately I was served the grossest meal I've had at a restaurant in awhile. The texture of the croque monsieur was all mushy (in a bad way, not a lovely way, because sometimes food is mushy in a nice way, like mushy peas), and it came with a rubbery looking, slightly withered hot dog. I ate the fries that came with it, and started in on the sandwich, but once the edge was off my hunger, I couldn't bring myself to finish it. I didn't have the heart to tell the waiter how horrible it was, or the energy to come up with how to adequately express my disdain in French, which is strange, since one would think that French is a particularly good language for expressing disdain. Maybe the "expressing disdain" unit in the French program at Berkeley comes in a different course than the one I took. I ordered a cup of coffee for after the meal. I thought it would perk me up a bit, and the espressos they serve here seem pretty uniform and hard to screw up. But it was the worst espresso I've had since arriving. It was a too bitter, so I added a lump of sugar, which made it, somehow, worse. I felt just a twinge of homesickness, the first I've felt since getting here.
I was tempted to go back to the place I was staying, eat something tasty, and crawl into bed early in the day, but I hardened my resolve to see at least something of what I had set out to see, and so I found the covered passages. I suppose it was worth seeing them to satisfy my curiosity, but none of them really had anywhere I wanted to shop, although to be fair, I'm not here for shopping. There were lots of people inside them, taking photos of the wrought iron light fixtures and mosaic tile floors.
After I was satisfied that I'd seen all of the covered passages that I had hoped to see, I took the train home. Unfortunately it seemed like the best way to get back on the RER line was to change at the Chatalet station, which I really dislike, because it is phenomenally crowded. I thought I had gotten used to crowds a bit by living in the bay area, but this is much more crowded. Plus, when changing train lines, it sometimes seems like I have to walk through miles of underground tunnel to get there. To be fair, Chatalet does have those moving walkways like at airports, but they're often not just flat, but angled up and down, which I find rather unsettling.
Once I got back to where I'm staying, I decided it was time for a special trip to the bakery, so at least this day has a happy ending. I wasn't quite sure what I wanted, so I asked the woman working there if she had any suggestions. She suggested that maybe I wanted some chocolate, and that the truffles are made in house, so I got a few. So far it has gone really well when I ask people what the house specialty is rather than just choosing at random. These truffles are amazing. Possibly the best I've had. They are so incredibly intensely flavored. So I went back home, ate a truffle, had some tea, and wrote about my day.
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