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Monday, Oct. 09, 2006 - 7:03 a.m.

Oh. My. God. I. Am. Tired.

Pulling an all-nighter to get back to a decent schedule. Have been up 25 hours and 5 minutes. Went to Montmartre today, to shoot Sacre Coeur at sunrise. (Which was supposed to be at 8, but was actually at 7:40 or so.) I left the house at 6:30. Paris is a cool place at 6:30 in the morning. The streets are mostly empty and tourists are non-existent. I saw a few people on the way to the Metro, but very few, and I crossed the street without having to look for cars. (altho' my street is a major thoroughfare and *always* has cars on it. that street didn't, though.) There weren't very many people on the Metro, and it smells much better at 6:30am than it does later in the day. The guy who got on and sat next to me with his suitcases at Concorde smelt of buttered toast, there was a girl I sat next to when I changed who just smelled incredible and said she wasn't wearing perfume, and on the way to change, walking through CDG-Etoile, it smelled of pineapple juice. I got kinda hungry. :) I changed trains at Concorde for Line 1 and again at Charles DeGaulle - Etoile for Line 2, and then I got off at Anvers and took the Funiculaire up to the top of La Butte at 7:15. In addition to myself, there were 4 other people on the Funiculaire, including some asshole who figured it was his job to stare me down the entire way up. I put up with it until it pissed me off past caring, and then I shot him a nice, long, withering glance. Which caused him to stop staring, though it did not discourage him from glancing. He looked angry for some reason, and was pretty much radiating nastiness. I've learned to pay attention to that vibe, so when the Funiculaire hit the top, I waited for everyone to get off before me. I did not want the guy following me in the dark and messing with me. So everyone gets off the train except that guy. He stares at me and does not budge. I do not budge. He does not budge. Now it's getting ridiculous. The car is going to start back down, and he is not moving until I move. Obviously. So I get up and start for the door, and a second later, he gets up and starts for the door. This pisses the ever-lovin' hell outta me, so I turn left and head back down the steps. Fuck you, buddy. I stop to talk to one of the streetcleaners, who is sweeping the stairs, and we have a chat for about 20 minutes, by which time guess who appears at the top of the stairs? He sees me and heads down. I waited until he was gone and then went up. The street cleaner guy told me to be careful. He said mostly Paris is fine, but that that area is not really safe to be kicking around in in the dark and to keep my valuables on my person, not in my bag. I thanked him and assured him I would be careful, and then had to hustle to make the light, because even though it was only 7:35, the sun was about to come up, and the sky was definitely getting light.

It was hard to find a good place to set up, actually; too many trees. But I shot for about an hour and a half, and then my hands were frozen, so I went into the church and killed another half hour there. After warming up, I braved the chilly morning to head down to the access for the dome and crypt. The crypt was closed, but I bought my 5.50 euro ticket from the machine and headed up the narrowest spiral staircase I've ever encountered, into the dim recesses of the Sacre Coeur. Up over 300 steps, but I can't tell you how many, because I lost count. It was really cool; I was the only person there. I hung out and took all kinds of pictures as I meandered my way up the narrow path across the top of the roof, at the base of the domes. A mother and daughter passed me, talking quietly. I made my way to another set of stairs, shooting pictures as I went, and climbing those to the balcony that encircles the main dome. I had that to myself for 10 or 15 minutes, and then gradually more and more people started trickling in. Which was a pity, actually. It was really awesome being the only person up there. But all good things must come to an end, so I headed back down the stairs, which I lost track of again, and back down to ground, where the tourists had all finally arrived.

From there, I went in search of Le Passe-Muraille, and then Moulin la Gallette. I was going to do more wandering and picture-taking, and I heard accordion music coming from the Place Dalida, so I thought I'd go take pictures of the street musician(s). Well, it turned out it was this one guy standing on the balcony of his apartment on the 3rd floor of a residential building in the place, just going to town with that thing. He looked awesome, too - long flowing grey hair, vest, white longsleeve shirt, black pants, blue and white accordion, just having a time and giving his own concert to the people in the street below. I leaned against a curb post and watched and listened for 20 minutes and would have been happy to stay longer, but the sky was spitting drizzle, so I decided I should keep moving. On the way to the Museum of Old Montmartre, I decided I really needed an omelette, so I went to another square to eat, and while I was standing in the street pining for an omelette and thinking about how really tired I was, a girl and guy passed me trying to figure out their map. So I asked where they were trying to go, and they were headed for the Anvers Metro stop. There were no omelettes to be had, so I said I was going that way, if they wanted to go with me. Sure, they said, they were trying to get to the Moulin Rouge. I said that was at Blanche, just 2 stops down from Anvers, and that I was actually going there next, to take a picture of my favorite Paris sign (which I was). So we all walked down to Blanche, and Lisa took pictures of the Moulin Rouge while I took pictures of my sign. Then they invited me to go eat with them in Chinatown, so we all took the very looooooong Metro ride to Chinatown and ate very good Asian food (Lisa & I had Chinese, but Chris had Vietnamese) at a place "famous for its soup," according to the french guy and girl at the other end of the table. It was certainly busy and bustling, but I didn't want soup, so I had what the french girl was having (beef Bon Bo...Bo Bun? one of those), and it was damned yummy. Then we all went back to the Metro and took the train together until they got off at Chatelet (my stop was Opera), and I came home, because I'm freaking wiped and also because when I headed down the stairs at Sacre Coeur, my left knee very stridently told me it didn't want to go down any more stairs today, thank you very much, so by the time I parted ways with those guys, stairs had become massively painful.

My knee feels very stiff and hurts like freaking hell. I can go up steps, and I was able to just walk, but going down steps? NO. Not just no, HELL NO. And by the time I got home, it wasn't all that fond of just straight walking, either. So I stopped at the pharmacie and picked up some ibuprofen gel for it, and hopefully that will help, though frankly, I'm not holding out. It's weird too, because my right knee is the one that got trashed, back in 1993 or so, when I tore the ligaments in it. Other than the pounding it took running the mile in my youth, my left knee has never suffered any trauma. I don't think. It blew up and retained all kinds of water when I quit running track, but that only lasted 2 months and then it was fine, and both knees did that, so I don't think that did any real damage, considering my left knee never bothers me. The right one does all the time, but it remains unphased by today's activities, unlike the left one, which rendered me breathless from pain on more than one occasion today. :(

So anyway, I'm home now, with gel on my knee and a bit of a sore throat from being so tired, and really considering just climbing into bed right now. In fact, I think I will take a little nap. I'll post pictures later, peeps.

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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