“Your ears are full of the language, There's wisdom there you're sure, 'Til the words start slurring, And you can't find the door”
-Coffee + TV, Blur


The pressures of writing this blog are getting to me! I’m under so much pressure to keep you all entertained, whether it be for your study breaks or your morning coffees. Just a warning- I have a seminar all day tomorrow and I’m going home to see the fam over the weekend, so you might not get anything from me until Monday. I’m just sayin’.

Okay. About to embark on an hour of typing and picture downloading.

Day 4: Wednesday, November 30th, 2005:

As our free stay at our glorious Sofitel Hotel was coming to an end, we were to switch hotels today for a more central and more affordable one. The contest portion covered $500 Cdn spending money, the plane tickets, and the hotel for 3 nights. The travel agent graciously offered to book me an extra 3 nights at the same hotel, to which I declined. You see, the hotel cost about 220 Euros a night (that’s about $310 a night, just $110 shy of the rent I pay per month). We went to the front desk to check-out. And it went a little something like this:

Me: “Hello. I’m checking out of room #46.”
Woman: “Okay. That will be 860 Euros.”
Me: “Excuse me?”
Woman: “710 Euros for the room plus room service. 50 Euros per day for breakfast. 860 Euros. Credit card?”
Me: “We didn’t have breakfast here.”
Woman: “Okay. We pre-charge for breakfast. 710 Euros.”
Me: “Ummm…I won this stay as part of a contest and it’s to be paid for and booked through EMI Music Canada or it might be under Elle Magazine.”
Woman: “I don’t have any record of that.”

Basically it went on like this and I told her that it was all booked thru EMI before I left and they made all the arrangements and they knew all about it when we checked in. I gave her the phone number of the travel agent in Mississauga. She called the travel agent. It was 430am here, obviously no answer. She says okay and she’ll figure it out. I pay the 18 Euros for the pizza from room service and a phone call and we leave. It would have been fun for her to try and charge the $1200+ Cdn equivalent to my credit card. Like it would have gone through...
We took a cab to our next hotel- Hotel Moderne St. Germain- in the Latin Quarter of Paris, right near the Pantheon, and close to the Notre Dame and the Jardins du Luxembourg area. I read horror stories about this hotel after I had booked it, but it was really nice and we got a good deal which included breakfast. I was impressed either way. And who goes to Paris to hang out in the hotel room anyway? It’s not like they had Pay per View movies.

We decided to explore the area and walked out of the hotel, turned the corner and we were staring at the Pantheon. Very cool indeed. The Pantheon in Paris is modeled after my favourite building in Rome, the original Pantheon. It’s really just a church with a big dome on top.

We walked through the Luxembourg gardens. There were still flowers out, which is a nice change from the harsh, frozen tundra we came from (okay, I exaggerate. It’s not like we were in Ottawa or something). We crossed the Seine back to Notre Dame to go up the towers to have some great views of the city and get a little closer to the gargoyles.

It was cloudy and a little misty when we got up there so we didn’t have a very far view into the horizon. The Eiffel Tower was pretty much under clouds. I don’t know what it is with me and Notre Dame. The last time I was in Paris and went up the towers, I didn’t have a view either because it was rainy.

Quasimodo’s bell is up in one of the towers. It is so narrow and hard to get around up there in all of our winter gear, but it’s fun to be at the very height of the cathedral.

After a delicious goat cheese sandwich (baguette + goat cheese= delicious! But not my all-time favourite sandwich…you’ll have to wait until my next post), and a bathroom where ladies had to pay 75 cents/50 Euro to use the toilet…and men are free- we took the metro to the Montparnasse area of Paris, which is more like a business, non-touristy area. We walked by another famous cemetery, and looked for the entrance to the Paris catacombs. The catacombs were the highlight for me, because they were so different, and not at all what I had expected. The catacombs are underground burial chambers used in the 1750’s and 1800’s to bury the city’s dead when they had started running out of room above ground and when disease was rampant. I like to think of Interview with the Vampire when Brad Pitt is in France, eating rats during the plague and the French guy says, “Don’t go that way monsieur, it’s the plague” while carting a wheelbarrow full of dead bodies. That will get you in the mindset.

We had to walk down all these stairs and follow endless tunnels under the streets to get to the actual burial chambers. It was a good 10 minute walk down dark, damp, narrow tunnels, some of which Rusty had to duck under because the ceilings were so low. Not for the claustrophobic. I had seen catacombs in Rome before- hollowed out areas underground in the walls where there were some bones or crypts- but I wasn’t prepared for this:


Walls, the height of my shoulder, built entirely out of human bones and skulls. Piles and piles of femurs (thigh bones…I knew that waste of a time kinesiology class I took in OAC might come back to haunt me) and skulls formed the walls of the tunnels and pathways. The back part of the wall that wasn’t exposed to the front of the pathway were just filled with the remaining bones of people, at least 3 feet thick.

There are no plaques or markers telling you who these people are. The man who ran the catacombs just arranged bones into patterns and designed as he got them in the 1700’s. There were some in the heart and cross patterns. Some skulls are totally cracked open allowing you to see inside. This beats Body Worlds at the Science Centre. Dirk would definitely pass out here.

It took a good hour to go through all the winding paths, and there were many more that were closed off to the public. When we emerged from the underground, we were a full 5 blocks from where we had started. We took the metro to the Hotel des Invalides and over to the Champs Elysees. Look: skulls shaped like a heart. They're in love...

We had planned on coming back to the Champs Elysees on Friday to go up the Arc de Triomphe, so we just looked in a few shops and walked up and down the street, waiting for the Christmas lights to turn on at dusk. There’s nothing I love more than Virgin Megastores, so we spent some time in there, although we can’t afford to buy anything (ie. Kaiser Chiefs CD at Virgin= 27 Euros. Kaiser Chiefs CD at HMV= $9.99. Smug satisfaction that I saved over $30= priceless). The did have a nice U2 Vertigo DVD display set up…

We had dinner at a Greek restaurant and walked around looking at more shops. You can see how cloudy it was. The top of the Eiffel Tower is covered in the clouds.


And look, Harry Potter et la Coupe de Feu! Actually it was a picture of The Lido, a famous dancehall of the Moulin Rouge variety but not quite as famous as it didn’t have it’s own movie starring Ewan McGregor. If there were to be a movie called Le Lido, it would probably star John Travolta. Or Jared Leto. B list all the way.
This is just a picture of a fountain that was in the Latin Quarter near where we had dinner.
And that’s it for Wednesday. Next post will be our trip to London (look for it tomorrow or Monday)!

Oooh and I’m excited because the Grammy nominees were announced today. I love Awards season! Here’s the interesting categories that matter (to me):

Album of the Year:

U2 (obviously my choice)

Kanye West (not bad)

Gwen Stefani (Worst. Album. Ever.)

Paul McCartney (didn’t even know he had a new album)

Mariah Carey (no talent bimbo)

Song of the Year:

Bless The Broken Road, Rascal Flatts- I don’t know who or what this even is.

Devils & Dust, Bruce Springsteen- everyone loves The Boss…

Ordinary People, John Legend- as a rule, I stay away from R&B rubbish

Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own, U2- this song makes me cry. It’s about Bono & his father. I don’t know and I don’t care what the other songs are about in this category, because U2 should win.

We Belong Together, Mariah Carey- I swear this is an old song from the early ‘90s…

Best New Artist: Keane is nominated and I love them. So here’s hoping they beat Ciara and John Legend.

Best Pop Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal:

What I don’t understand is why Maroon 5 is on the list with This Love. Didn’t that song come out like 2 years ago? No one cares anymore!

Mr. Brightside by the Killers vs. My Doorbell by The White Stripes. I have no preference.

Best dance Recording: Usually I wouldn’t care but LCD Soundsystem’s Daft Punk is Playing at My House is nominated with Galvanize by Chemical Brothers. And I just like both because they remind me of Zaphod’s.

Here’s where things get tricky-

Best Rock Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal:

They’re all songs I like- except for the Foo Fighters, OBVIOUSLY. How did that even make the list? My loyalty is with U2.

Speed Of Sound- Coldplay

Best Of You- Foo Fighters

Do You Want To- Franz Ferdinand

All These Things That I've Done- The Killers

Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own- U2

And I'm fed up with Blogger problems, so that's it.

OVERRATED: Free chocolate cookies. I hate chocolate. I love cookies. I’m going to eat them because they’re free but you know I’m not enjoying it.
UNDERRATED: Finding an Inside Entertainment magazine in one of the kitchens at work that has Franz Ferdinand on the cover, a picture of Bono inside, and a 2 page picture and interview with Cillian Murphy in it + an additional page about Red Eye. Who says I’m hard to please? Made my morning.

“I've seen so much, I'm goin’ blind, And I'm brain-dead virtually”