I ate snails! They were pretty tasty, served in their shells with some kind of buttery pesto sauce. Some of them put up a good fight as I tried to extricate them from their shells, even though I was armed with utensils that looked like medieval torture devices.
Yesterday I took a bike tour of the city, from the same company “Fat Tire” that I used in Berlin. It was a great way to see the city, and check off a lot of the sights all at once. We got a lot of historical background on some of the older streets and plazas in the city, from public guillotine sites used during the French Revolution, to the streets where the Allied Troops marched through when Paris was liberated from Nazi control. Again, I was reminded of stories my grandfather told me about WW II. He was among those troops marching through Paris, and a little girl ran up to him and handed him a small figurine of Napoleon, a token of thanks which he kept on the windowsill in the living room.
I posted a message in the couchsurfing forum for Paris that I was traveling solo, and looking for other solo travelers to meet up with. Yesterday I got a response from a fellow CSer named Jules who is from Berlin. We met up in a park in the afternoon, and sat and watched a drum and dance performance put on by a group of rhythmically-gifted individuals from Sierra Leone. Then, remembering some advice from Anna about how to truly enjoy a relaxing day in Paris, I suggested we go to the store. We brought a whole heap of cheese, wine, and bread back to the park, and slowly grazed while enjoying the music. All the stories I heard about the bread in France were indeed true. It was so wonderfully crispy-crunchy on the outside, and perfectly soft on the inside. And oh how I wish we could get giant hunks of delicious brie for €1.50 in the states.
Today, Jules and I are going to meet up and explore the “Catacombs” of Paris. Apparently long ago the cemetaries here were overcrowded and they exhumed thousands of skeletons and stuffed them into underground tunnels which you can now walk through. Lonely Planet calls it “creepy, but fascinating”. After that, we are going to try and check out the Tour de France. The final stretch is running right through Paris so hopefully we will be able to catch a glimpse.
-d
Nice Dave…
BTW,we look forward to a video like this from you
http://www.vimeo.com/1211060