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Saturday, Sept. 02, 2006 - 3:50 p.m.

CABLE!!!

Nuff said. (except that Cosmo Cats just came on here, while I've been writing, which is actually Thundercats, and I can't believe they let kids watch this; hissing demons, spider-creatures with scary faces, creepy, scary voices...what kind of mindbending drugs were these animators on? Holy god.)

Dude, you guys, I'm wiped. I went to Montmartre this afternoon after catching up on some much-needed zzz's this morning and just sort of waking up slowly when I got up. Montmartre is on the far side of Paris (I'm far Rive Gauche, it's far Rive Droite...in fact, both of us are so far as to technically not be Rive anything), so to get there, I have to change trains at Madeleine, which is basically the halfway point, and jump from line 8 to line 12. Normally, I change at Concorde, but that's a hugeass station, and I always have to walk from one long end to the other, so today, I opted for Madeleine instead. So I get to the exit at Abbesses, which is the other bitchin' art nouveau edicule by Hector Guimard, and I make the incredibly long climb up to street level, rather than taking the lift. See, Abbesses is located under La Butte, the hill of Montmartre, and is one of the deepest subway stations. So they actually provide you with 2 nice big honkin' elevators that will each hold like 20 or 30 people, but me, I'm a rebel, so I climb my way to the top up this freaking long winding staircase with murals all painted on the walls. When I was here in 2003, the murals were nice, but they've been graffitti'd to death now, which really sucks. In fact, the entire station is in major disrepair, as it's undergoing renovation. It'll be closed from mid-September to mid-December for tiling and improvements to the line, etc., and it's kinda cool, because they've torn all the tile off the walls and you can see the rock behind it. But I digress.

I climbed the incredibly long winding staircase the 30 meters (100') to the top and then up another set of stairs to actually get out onto the street level, and that will be important later, so go with me on it. Up at the top, I wanted to take pictures, and I did get a few, but there was a street fair there and also a lot of construction, and believe me, it wasn't as picturesque as it sounds, so I got a few closeups and that was it. It's a shame the station is so trashed, but it looks like it'll be really pretty when it's done, and if you go to the link above, you can see a decent image of what it looked like when I was here in 2003.

So anyway, I climb up and then head up the hill to the steps, because I wanted to take pictures. I had planned just to shoot up them and then take the funiculaire, which is a little tram that hauls your butt up the side of the hill to Sacre Coeur at the top, but I decided to climb the stairs because I've never done it before. That too will be important later.

So I climb the stairs and take pictures here and there, including Pete pictures, and then I meander around Sacre Coeur snapping pictures and through the streets, looking for Le Passe-muraille and the Moulin de la Galette, which I forgot to note the locations of before I left home, and taking pictures of the 15th century vineyard of Montmartre and the Lapin Agile, which disappointed me some by repainting the fabulous faded blue lettering they used to have on the side of the building just inside the pitch with depressingly modern yellow and green, but it looks okay in black and white. By the time I wend my way through the streets and back up to the Place du Tertre at the top of La Butte, it's dark and raining, so I wander around a little and pause to take some pictures of the lit facade of the cathedral, and then these tourists happen by and ask me where the Place du Tertre is, so since it was dark, I walked them to it and then back to the steps, and then I took some images down the steps before hoofing it down them and back to Abbesses, which I reached at about 10:10pm, after a day of repeated squats and lots of uphill walking and climbing more than few stairs.

With me so far?

So I get down to the platform at Abbesses, and I wait. And wait. And wait some more. I flash Pete at the little girl who's there with *her* teddybear, earning a smile. The PA clicks on and makes some sort of barely audible announcement, because they've torn the old loudspeakers out and replaced them with temporary things roughly the size of a 1950's transistor radio. With the volume on low. The little girl's mom comments it's been a while, but they don't know how long it usually takes for trains at this hour, and I say they're usually 10 to 15 minutes apart at this hour, and she says, well, it's been a little over 20. Right about then the announcement goes off and I cup my hand around my ears and stand directly under it, straining to hear it, and I catch that it's something inaudible about the train, which I pass on to the woman. We ask a french girl standing a ways away, and she verifies the train has stopped between stations Concorde (remember Concorde?) and Lamarck Caulaincourt, which isn't very helpful, as Lamarck is the next station down, and we can see its lights just at a bend in the track, and the train is clearly not there. Which leaves between us and Concorde, and frankly, that's a good long way. So we wait a little longer, and then we all decide pretty much en masse to head back up to the gates and the little window where they sell tickets. We've all been walking all day, so we decide to wait for the lift, which is up two flights of stairs, right next to the bottom of the hideously long spiral stairs to the gates...the ones I climbed once already today. Only the lift is not working, so now we all have to trek up the stairs. The ones that actually winded the crap out of me and made my legs burn a few hours before, and that was before I'd climbed all the way up to the top of La Butte twice. So I'm climbing those damn stairs and this is where all the prior stairclimbing is important, because now I kind of just want to sob. My legs are going all fiery rubber on me, and all I can think is that if I'd known I was going to be doing this twice today, I'd have taken the funiculaire up the side of the damn hill earlier. But climb them I do, and when I get to the gate - out of breath and knees knocking, I ask a couple if they speak english, and the girl does, and I ask what's the deal, so she goes to ask the station guy, and it turns out that there was a fire at one of the stations down the way, and the entire line has had to shut down.

Down the way.

As in, between me and home. (Remember Concorde?)

So I'm at a bit of a loss, but she and her boyfriend have had time to figure out where to go to grab a train off of line 2 instead, so they offer to take me with them, bless their wonderful little generous Dutch selves. So we start trekking up the last set of stairs to the street, and when we get to the entrance, we pass a guy coming down, who asked me was the Metro working then, and I said no, and it turns out he's from England and also trying to get home in the same direction I am, so he also throws in with us, and we all walk about 3/4 of a mile to Blanche, and he and I grab a train on line 2 which we ride to almost the very end, on the very western edge of the city, where we can pick up line 6 and head back in toward home, which for both of us is on the southern edge of the city. (We started just inside the northern edge.) So we change trains to line 6, and it goes one stop and then...well, stops. Does not move. For a long time, about 20 minutes. During which time we literally sweated it, because it was hot as hades on the train, and also because we were like dude, this is gonna be one helluva long walk home if this train doesn't freaking move. I start problem solving with well, we can go back the opposite direction and pick up line 1 instead, but that depends on whether the fire was at (say it with me now) Concorde or not, and we really were starting to come to grips with the idea of having to walk literally halfway across Paris, when happily, the door horn blew, they closed, and the train started moving. He was actually a really nice guy who it turns out sometimes teaches self-defense classes to organizations for kids, and he was concerned about whether or not I could get home okay or did he need to walk me, but I assured him I live close enough to the Metro that I thought I'd be fine, and I think he was pretty relieved that he wouldn't have to walk me and then try to get home from there. We parted ways at La Motte Piquet, where I changed trains for line 8, and he continued on 6 to his exit at Pasteur, in Montparnasse. I finally got home at 11:30. And I don't mind telling you that the 4 flights of stairs to my apartment were more than a little daunting at that point. I also hadn't eaten all day, so I can't tell you how happy I am the urge for Indian food hit last night, and I had half a chicken tikka masala entree in the fridge I just had to stick in the microwave.

And now it's like 1:45am and my legs and hips are killing me, and I have to be up at 7, so if you don't mind, I have to go brush my teeth and take out my contacts, and climb the last 6 freaking stairs of the day, to my bed.

Peace out,
Katie

copyright 2002 - 2005 Katie Doyle; all rights reserved
Don't even think it, punk.






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Yesterday's News - Next Stop

In which Katie shares sad news - Wednesday, Apr. 01, 2015
In which Katie returns after a very long absence - Monday, Jun. 25, 2012
In which Katie pokes her head in and brushes some of the cobwebs away - Thursday, May. 06, 2010
In which Katie asks you to write your congressman again. - Monday, Jun. 02, 2008
In which Katie asks you to please click the link and send the message to protect the rights of artists - Wednesday, May. 21, 2008

 

 

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