Paris - The Later Years

I wasn’t exactly in the mood to go to a cemetery, and I am not a fan of the Doors, but I still ended up in Pere Lachaise Cemetery on Thursday morning. It was cloudy and cool, and actually the perfect weather for French-cemetery wanderings. I snuck into a tour group of German teenagers, but when I realized they were a school, I felt like too much of a weirdo to follow them on their tour-de-dead people. At the newsstand outside I bought a copy of Pariscope, the events guide of the city. There was an exhibition of self-protraits by Takashi Murakami at an art gallery in the Marais district. Murakami is a strange guy, and some of his art is not appropriate for this blog, but here is some of his work with his main characters Kaikai and Kiki.

There was also a display of his cartoons, which were extremely colorful with and inordinate amount of poop references. After the exhibit I wandered around and found a French/English bookstore called I Love My Blender. If only I could read all day, but someone has to do the sightseeing.

On Friday I went on the New Europe free walking tour of the city. It was a little repetitive after the Fat Tire Bike Tour, but the tour guide was silly. If there is one quality I admire it is the ability to get silly. What is life without absurdity? I also met two girls who went to UCLA and graduated last spring, which was a nice break from Team Australia. That night I went to a party hosted by some Colombian students with the tour guide from my bike tour. It was strange, but I ate some delicious food and talked about genocide and revolution (what else does one do at a Colombian house party?).

Saturday I decided to take one last walking tour of Paris, the Montmartre tour. Saw the Moulin Rouge, Van Gogh’s home, the restaurant where Picasso traded paintings for food, the last vineyard within the city of Paris, and again Sacre Coeur. Nice bookends, however there was possibly the most annoying Australian man I have ever met. Everything he said (which was a lot) was either about the sex museum or dog poop. Even after the tour when me and the tour guide (the same one of former silliness) and some other young travelers went for drinks, we all complained about his off-color commentary. Strangest thing I have observed so far: he was married! I couldn’t even stand a two hour walking tour with this guy! Well, almost. The tour came with a free glass of wine at the end, which turned into three glasses and some snacks provided by the old bar manager whom we suspect to be a former madame. That night was Nuit Blanche, so the group of us went to a park to see some light shows and eat cotton candy. It was me, two Aussies, one girl from Davis, and the Maltese tour guide. Plus, one guy who claimed to be from Paris, but had a stronger American accent than me. I finally ate some kebab, felt sick, and went to bed.