Day 4
Yesterday morning I accidentally slept late--again--and so we had to rush to get to the station. However, it is difficult to do that when you don't know where you're going. We didn't want to reenact another scene like the night before, especially since my feet were still sore from it, so we made sure to pay attention. Although we did our best, we did manage to get a little turned around and we asked a few people along the way to clarify if we were headed in the right direction. I felt really stupid when I asked a girl we passed in the park where the station was when it was straight ahead of us--but there were some trees there and really how was I to know that? Everything around here looks familiar because we walked down every single wrong turn the night before.
Anyways, we found the station relatively quickly (in about 15 minutes or so) and ran into two other girls in our group who are living in Vecinet. We rode the train together to Paris and went to class. Class was the usual. Afterwards we all conversed on what to do. Some of the group decided to go see Iron Man II because it came out here a week before the States and the rest of us decided to go on another walk. So five of us took the metro to the Ecole Militaire (by the BYU apartment) and walked to the Eiffel Tower to eat lunch in the park. Marissa and Katherine stopped in a little Cafe with me to grab a sandwich. The sandwich was really good but I was insulted because when I ordered in French (and yes, I realize my accent is atrocious) and then asked how much it would cost the man replied to me, "Four euro" and held up four fingers. DUDE. I'm not deaf and I can understand the word "four" in English and French! Seriously. I'm pretty sure most people recognize numerals from one to ten, I'm not an idiot. Blah. That was annoying. I should have quoted Victor Hugo to him or something just to spite him. Too bad I can't even quote Hugo in English!
So then we ate our lunch in the park in front of the Eiffel Tower. It was a pretty nice day. And as we were walking back to the metro we passed a trash can that had a whole ring of little Eiffel Tower souvenirs. Tons of guys stand around the area holding them trying to sell them to you for around three or four euros depending what size you get. Well, we see a whole ring of them (there are tons on the rings) so we stopped and tried to figure out why they were thrown away. So we're debating nearby whether or not to take it out of the trash because, hey, free souvenirs for the family right? Next to the trash there was a couple sitting on a bench watching us. I don't know if they were tourists or not but they seemed to know what we were doing because they were laughing at us. Finally I decided that I couldn't pass up a bargain like that. So I awkwardly walk over to the trashcan, trying to be nonchalant, and put my hands in the take it out. As I'm pulling the ring out one of the Eiffel Towers gets stuck on the side so I can't fit it. At this point its pretty obvious what's going on and I don't want to get caught (even though its trash) so I call over to Jessie to "Aide-moi!" and help me. Together we get the ring all the way and I start walking away with it when I hear a yell from behind. One of the vendors had been drinking coffee with his back turned and then heard us and saw us walking away with what was apparently his ring of towers. Well, I don't know if you realize sir, but your trinkets were in a trash can. Not a safe place to keep free souvenirs from the most populated tourist attraction in the world, even if it is a trash can. So he calls out to me and is like "Au voleur! Tu vole mes trucs!" He told me I was stealing his souvenirs so I stopped and gave them back. Adrenaline rush let me tell you. I was a little nervous. I just told him I was sorry and walked away, as another vendor who saw the whole thing came up to me and asked if I had wanted one and he tried to sell me one. Heck no Monsieur! I wanted the whole ring for FREE! Well, I guess its a good thing we got caught, putting an early end to my career as a professional souvenir thief. The black market would have been full of my contraband trinkets.
Well, after shaking off that rather exhilarating experience we all headed over to do our "Paris Walk" of "La Route Des Manifs" along the Saint-Martin, Republique, Bastille and the Viaduc des Arts. Its a path that has been taken by French protesters since they tore down the Bastille in 1789 that is now mostly taken by workers' syndicates protesting government reforms or by minority groups trying to publicize their cause. And that is exactly what we found as we were walking. We got to the square at the Place de la Republique where a large demonstration was going on. There were people all around with red flags and a huge area of protestors supporting the French Communist Party. There were pictures of Stalin and Mussolini all over. There were even people carrying signs for the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka. One of the signs I saw said "Travailleurs du monde entier unissons-nous!" which means, "Workers of the whole world UNITE!" Sound familiar? Because it made me think of Dwight's speech in The Office. Ha. Yeah I would think of that. Anyways, I thought it was just a little bit hilarious, and when added to the fact that it was a huge Communist demonstration, well, then I couldn't take any of it seriously.
So we continued on our walk--no one got eaten by a Communist--and crossed a bridge over the Saint-Martin Canal, a very picturesque place. One of the things that is different about France is there are very few public restrooms and no drinking fountains. So its important that you "start on empty" as my professor says and bring your own. There are occasionally these fancy bathroom cylinders around the city that have an automatic door to open and you have to push a button to get in. Well, Jessie had to use the bathroom and one of these cylinders was by the river so she went up to it to try to get in. She pushed the button and the door opened and she went in. And then the door opened again right away and she couldn't get it to close. Then the alarm sounded. The bathroom was beeping for a good five minutes before it stopped. Needless to say Jessie didn't go to the bathroom there. Instead she and Marissa had to go buy fries at McDo (McDonald's) down the street and thereby use their restroom. The funny thing was though, even though Jessie set off the alarm, she wasn't the only one who couldn't figure it out. While we were waiting for her and Marissa we watched as one guy tried to get in for a good five minutes before giving up. Oh the things you see in Paris.
After that little adventure we continued on the walk to the Bastille monument where we found a cute little market. So we rested on the benches there and went through the market looking at all the art displayed. It was really interesting. They had some cute hats and some unique artwork. Then we walked by the opera house, where we will hopefully go sometime soon, and passed the home of Gustave Flaubert, the author of Madame Bovary. While we were admiring the building from the outside and taking touristy pictures an older gentleman went inside and invited us in. It was so nice of him. We went into the inner courtyard of the apartment building, which was adorably cute and French, and he pointed out where Flaubert's floor was (fourth floor). Then he left us to take pictures and let ourselves out. It was such a neat experience. I'm glad we were there at just the right time for that.
Then we moved on down the street for another half hour until we found the Gare de Lyon (train station) where we finished our day by catching the metro home...or, almost home. Unfortunately Marissa and I still didn't know how to get home, even though we made to the station without too much trouble. We did well at first, taking the right turns up until La Route de la Princesse. But then we could not figure out which street was our next turn. Well, needless to say we ended up in the centre-ville where we'd never been before and were even more lost than the night before! We asked a few people for directions but they didn't know where our street was. Finally after about an hour and half (again) we asked some cute old ladies where to go and it turned out we were only about a street away from our house. So we finally made it back and our "mere" asked us if we had a better time of finding our way (we had told her about the night before). Well, no, we told her, it was just as bad. To which she replied that it shouldn't be confusing because its only three turns and if you walk fast you can make it from her house to the station in 8 minutes. Really? Because our average is about 75 minutes.
So then we made ourselves dinner again (I had leftover couscous and a baguette and two bananas with Nutella, mmmm, for dessert) and went to bed.
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