Day 19 – Friday December 24th 2010 (Christmas Eve) (Paris, France)

CHRISTMAS EVE MORNING! Lijah woke up at about 5am and neither of us getting amazing sleep we were bumbling around like blind zombies as we got ready to book it out of Lyon and make our way to Paris! We hung out at the train station for a while and then caught the train to Paris. We met a nice girl waiting with us named Charmander or something like that and we talked about our plans and things. She ended up sitting with us and although I remember she had pretty freckles I don’t remember much else. I’m afraid I may have fallen asleep while she was talking to me. Lijah and I woke up in Paris and we were lost sheep in the station for a while until a nice man helped us. I didn’t realize how much I was using Spanish until I came to France. I can’t say anything here! Its nuts! I’m learning though. I can order food at least. Anyway the nice man told us that everything was booked and we’d have to get a hotel in Paris for about 80 Euro a piece.. I slapped him right in the mouth and we stormed off. We decided instead to pick a random Hostel off a list and go there in hopes that they would magically have a room. Turns out they did! They also had a cute English receptionist and so I turned the charm onto full blast and made her chuckle bursts of mirth with my pure unadulterated wit. I think I would hit on a tree as long as it had an English accent. Anyway, we locked our bags up and then we were free to unleash our fury on beautiful Paris! We looked at the map and hopped into the Metro and tunneled our way to the Louvre. Once there we danced around the glass pyramid like Parisian princes and then tried to dig down to the Holy Grail but there was nowhere to purchase a shovel. It was interesting seeing people from all around the world there and we immediately started exploring the billions of statues and paintings. That’s basically what’s in the Louvre by the way, its bout 70% Statues and 30% extremely old realist paintings. There are a few impressionist Degas and others but not many. We also found that there is a temporary contemporary exhibit in the basement, which is very castle like. It was fascinating and surreal but walking about and looking at all the incredible art is also extremely exhausting. We found ourselves strewn out on a bench in some deserted corridor and realizing that if we wanted to survive Paris we would have to pick and choose what we wanted to see in the Louvre instead of trying to see everything. We made some choices and planned an escape route and hoped that we would be able to evade the swallowing endless passages of the Louvre on our way out. 231 tourists die every year of starvation and exhaustion in the Louvre (Fact). So we saw the Mona Lisa and virtually every other extremely famous piece there and then stole some blinders from a horse and ran directly to the exit. Once our great escape had been achieved we realized how weak with hunger we were. When was the last time Lijah had eaten? 3 - 4 Days ago? We weren’t sure but it looked as if a stiff breeze could blow him over. So we ate some lovely food and I drank caffeinated beverages and I was ready for more, but Lijah was still on his deathbed and so we agreed to meet back at the Hostel later in the night to prevent his almost certain death. We parted ways and I ran outside to catch some photos and find the museum D’Orsay where I knew there would be many beautiful impressionist paintings (my true love) I walked straight there and found that it was closing soon! Yikes! I bought a ticket quick and jumped inside before the unsurpassable metal door blocked the entrance. I was told I would have an hour? I’m not sure, I don’t speak French but in only a half hour they grabbed me by the pits as I kicked and screamed and threw me out on my butt.. They had closed and I was Van Gogh-less once more. At least I got to see part of the museum I thought. I wasn’t ready for home yet though so I looked on the map and found a Modern art Museum across the river. As I walked to it I found tons of monuments to take pictures of and other museums and churches and I also found a big Christmas festival where I got a snack and listened to tunes. The streets were lined with tiny shops selling all kinds of good smelling things and giant meats and cheeses and baked goods and lots of scarves. Finally I found the Modern art Museum and it was also closing soon but the ticket lady told me if I want I can run through the exhibit for free! Yay for Christmas time! I did and took some photos of the lobby and nearly bought 300 books from the store there. Then as I left the Museum I realized that there would probably be a good night shot of the Eiffel Tower from the rear of the museum. I went back there and sure enough it was glorious as bathing in warm pie. I started going deep into photo taking mode and barely realized that there was another photographer with me. He looked at me and then said in an English accent, are you a professional photographer? HA! I liked this guy already! I told him I was very very amateur and he explained that he was too and that he’s from London and meeting a friend later. We were talking and walking around when he asked if I wanted to go with him to this famous bookstore near Notre Dame. I said SURE! I have no plans, lets do it. So Calvin and I strutted over to the metro and made our way to this famous bookstore. Calvin was a cool guy, born in Hong Kong, studying Law, Dresses like a fashion connoisseur and his true love was philosophy. He had read about this independent and very old and bohemian bookstore that loads of famous Authors had gotten their start in. The bookstore called The Shakespeare Company is covered in tradition. They have beds upstairs for struggling writers who need a place to stay and all that they ask is that they work a few hours in the bookstore. They also have a little alcove with notes of encouragement on the wall and a typewriter and curtain for privacy, just in case a someone is caught in an idea and needs to get it down on paper fast. The walls are covered in books old and new and there are piles of books on the floor and stacked in corners and on tables. Nothing matches and the lights are old and flicker. There is a large mirror in a pillowed alcove with hundreds of notes in every language taped to it and stuffed into cracks and covering each other. There are layers upon layers and it gives a sense of incredible gratitude for this place and history. Calvin and I sat upstairs and I read from Naked Lunch by William Burroughs and an Allen Ginsberg book of beat poems and some book without a cover or title page. We ended up talking about philosophy with this girl named Phillipa from Perth Australia. We talked about Hume and causality and the meaning of morality and what justice is and feminism. I feel I had a lot of help from my mission and The Book of Mormon because I was able to bring up ideas I learned there. When the bookstore closed we left and decided to go to this café that was pretty famous in literature because Truman Capote and Henry David Therou used to go there as well as a bunch of others. It was extremely expensive but there were definitely a lot of cool looking free thinkers there and the bathrooms had an attendant but they were men and women together so that was odd. I ordered pate and Calvin ordered pea soup and we sat there and talked about philosophy for 4 straight hours. It was great, he knew all the big players and ideas and he would ask me questions and I would come up with the exact solution that these philosophers had come up with over the span of thousands of years. It made me feel great because he got so excited that I was say all the right things and he kept telling me that I have a very logical and intuitive mind and that I need to go into philosophy. I personally think it was everything I had learned as a missionary speaking. Bruce R McKonkie once said that the only true philosophy is the philosophy of Christ. He was surprised to learn that I was very religious and I talked to him a bit about Christ because he’s Agnostic. We had a great time even though we were accosted by some drunk French women who put weird smelling perfume on us and posed for us to take pictures of them and then came inside and got a bit too close. HA the waiter actually had to ask them to leave. We just chocked up the experience to the French being eccentric. No matter what the French do its kind of posh or chic. We even saw mice running around the floor in the Café, it was a total ratatouille experience but no one seemed to mind. Eventually we had to leave the café and catch our metro back home. We rode on the same metro and saw a mugging of some woman right before we said our goodbyes. It was an eventful night to be sure. I was exhausted and so I walked home to the Hostel and found Lijah on the computer trying to call me. He had woken up a few hours ago and as it was about 1 or 2 am he was sure that I had fallen asleep in some ditch somewhere. I was near to it though so I went up stairs and promptly passed out. I was woken up a few hours later by a frantic Lijah. Mrrhhph? I said. Griff! Theres some cazy guy with a knife! Huh? Yeah, he said, I was downstairs and I heard these guys yelling in French and I was just like… ughgh French people are loud.. and then I hear our english friend yelling hey! Don’t let him get away! Don’t let him go upstairs! And so I looked out to see these guys and this other guy standing there with a big knife and then he ran upstairs. So I waited for a while and then I ran into the elevator and got to the room as fast as I could. Whaa? I said.. yup, he said. So I made the decision to not venture outside the room to call the fam on Christmas eve. I was still real tired anyway.