paris [take 2]

so a while back, i wrote about paris & my time there with L.G. (11.08.07 - 13.08.07) so that was part 1 and now here's part 2.

so yes, after the debacle at BT, seeing L.G. was the thrill of my lifetime. honestly. i don't think anyone who hasn't wandered around 2.5 floors of the BT can understand the sheer horror of the experience. the 6th floor of the BT is part restaurants (vastly overpriced - i had miso soup for you don't want to know), part tourist kitsch (also overpriced schlock) & the wedding floor (stepford couples holding hands gawking at dresses & invitations - barf triple barf). but i digress.

so here's some stuff about the place we stayed at. it was in the chinatown area, near the belleville metro stop. sort of a slightly dodgy seeming place but nothing terrible or worrisome. of course my street skillz have picked up considerably since traversing franklin ave. on a daily basis. the place we're staying in is the apartment of a post-hippy hippy. she rents out one of the rooms to tourists for cheap. L.G. found the place. the price was right, near the metro. we're cool. two slight glitches. the place has cats. i'm not positive but i think L.G. is allergic to cats & so am i. but the room we're renting is cat free. also, like all other parisians, our landlady's lungs are dripping with tar. but the room we're renting is smoke-free. we figured we weren't spending loads of time there anyway, so the cat- & smoke-ness of the place wouldn't be a big deal.

and really it wasn't a problem, but i still want to tell you about two really gross things about the place >>

^ the cat litter was right beside the toilet. uncovered. smelly. with cat crap on the floor. suffice it to say, it was a shoes on all the time sort of situation. and yes, i know, being allergic to cats & never having had any pets of any sort whatsoever, i'm overly squeamish about such things. but really. is it necessary for me to see & smell & potentially feel cat poop in the intimate act of performing my own bodily functions. maybe that's the normal situation of cat litter. normal doesn't mean it's still not gross.

^^ this was both gross & creepy. the bathroom (where there is a sink & bathtub/shower) was a cesspool of disease. firstly, there was (i swear to you) mold growing on the ceiling. a humid environment, no ventilation. really bad idea. i am quite certain that i will develop a respiratory problem within the next 6-8 months as a direct consequence of this woman's bathroom. but if you think that's the only weird / gross thing about this bathroom, you're wrong. as many of you know, i have really really really poor vision. really poor. so there i am showering away in the tub o' death, staying as far from the mold as humanly possible. when out of the corner of my blurry visioned eye, i see something fuzzy/hairy & black & sort of long. for an instant, i think it's one of her hell cats (i was warned by the landlady not to touch one of them & by L.G. not to touch the other). seriously this weird hair thing looked like some sort of small animal of some sort. quickly finishing up in the shower, i put on my glasses to inspect the object. it is a weave. i repeat. it is a weave, a la black women. why does a blond woman have a black hair weave? one can only speculate. she moonlights as a diana ross impersonator? she is trying to work out white guilt? she doesn't yet know that she's not a black woman? who can say. but both L.G. and i are seriously weirded out by the development.

oh, i just remembered two more things about the living situation i wanted to tell you >>

^^^ the lightbulb in the bedroom we're renting is possessed. possessed. i'm not kidding. the first night, we couldn't actually turn the light off. we could only dim it as much as possible before bed. the second night was really odd. the light kept flashing on & off like a freaky disco light. really strange. i was not impressed. & frankly, the problem was with the light, not us. i know some of you might be thinking that somehow we weren't able to figure out the light switch. let me disabuse you of that foolish notion. we have traveled far and wide & operated switches of many variety. trust us. this light was possessed. so L.G. did the most brave, selfless & charitable act i have ever encountered. she stood on a chair in the middle of the room, and with her BARE hand (covered with a towel) removed the light bulb. i warned her not to do it. she is a young, beautiful, intelligent woman, in the prime of life. she has so much to live for, so many dreams to fulfill. but she, foolish, brave woman that she is, put it all on the line for our sleeping comfort. and come what may, L.G., i will always love you for that.

^^^^ an odd moment with our landlady deserves mention here. we were on our way out of the building when we ran into her coming in. she stopped to ask us how we had slept the night before. something like: "did you sleep well? i hope you weren't on top of one another." [pause] she awkwardly says: "well actually, that's none of my business." [awkward pause; silence; she scurries away; i look at L.G., L.G. looks at me]. what a weirdo. apparently she told L.G. that there was a good french restaurant nearby run by "gays". dis.turb.ing.

anyway, L.G. and i had big fun wandering around. we had awesome sorbet. saw notre dame, other sights. we saw the movie "two days in paris" in english/french. quite possibly the two most unlikeable characters i've seen in a movie in a long, long time. my favorite area to wander in was the 4eme arrondissement, marais. this neighbourhood is jewish/gay/alternative (what isn't alternative though). anyway. cool area to putz around in & i went back there on monday (13.08.07) when L.G. went off to meet up with some friends. sunday night, we found a cute wine bar / bookshoppe, and got a drink there, while having odd conversation with the bartender. it wasn't odd interesting, just odd. i seem to have a knack for bringing out the whimsy in people (that's L.G.'s take on it). then we walked across the street for a night dinner. can't remember the name of the dinner place. it was quite delicious.
we ended up wandering the champs elysees and the virgin megastore! yay.

monday was also wonderfully low-key. we left in the a.m. for wandering, shopping. L.G. was heading off in the afternoon to meet up with a couple of friends in town (one from toronto who was going to be in paris & the other who had just returned home to paris). i walked back to le marais and went to this store that i had wanted to check out. i ended up eating lunch at le pain quotidien. in paris. i'm such a weirdo. like i couldn't go to one of their 40 nyc locations. whatever. now i'm a transcontinental patron of le pain. we planned to meet up around 5:30 at the BT. we figured we knew it like the back of our hands, so we might as well do that. & then we could wander around and shop there too. i gave up my search for internet & for camera battery & got there early. i found a couch near the soon-to-be wed & promptly started dozing off. when L.G. and her friend got there, i was practically catatonic. i must have looked really out of it because L.G. started apologizing for being late. i wasn't upset at the time; just having come in and out of shallow sleep. so we shopped around there, looking at mad crazy expensive lingerie. we then went back to the champs elysees & the arc de triomphe (so L.G.'s friend, who was in paris for the time, could check it out)
it's educatin' time:

+ the arc honours those who fought for france, especially during the napoleonic wars & it also includes the tomb of the unknown soldier. the monument was designed in 1806 & stands over 51 metres tall, 45 metres wide, making it the second largest triumphal arch in existence. the north koreans took the piss out of france when they built a slightly larger one in 1982 for the 70th birthday of Kim Il-Sung. the french then retaliated by banning the consumption of kimchee in france.

tuesday morning, i bid L.G. a sad goodbye (i miss her super lots!) and headed out unbelievably early to catch the metro to the RER to CDG airport. i didn't spot a ticket booth for the RER ticket. i thought maybe my metro ticket would get me on the RER to CDG as well. well no one checked. but i had to jump the turnstile at the airport stop. i am rebel.