In fact, it's one of my fondest memories from the trip.
The day we went to...
Well, after the the market we headed straight there. The line snaked along outside of the place.
A lot of people were interested in seeing it, I suppose.
We weren't sure if it was the right spot.
Two young girls were in front of us.
We gave each other the "who's gonna ask?" look.
I decided to Nike (lol) and just get it over with. My mind found a way to ask in French.
"Le ligne, c'est pour quoi?"
It worked. I got the response we were looking for.
"Les Catacombes."
Now insert "The Sixth Sense" reference.
It's a good thing we headed straight there. The line was pretty intense.
In fact, some of the group went home to eat first, but we lucked out.
Right across from us we saw a café.
And I'll stop here.
Some of you might be wondering what my favorite food in France was.
You gon' learn today. *Kevin Hart as Kevin Hart's dad voice*
Elly stayed in line while Molissa, Lesleigh and I got food from the café for all of us.
I got a croque madame.
And it was heavenly.
I think I'll venture to say it was the best French food I had over there.
A croque madame is basically a grilled ham and cheese sandwich with an egg on top.
Oh man.
Dat cheese.
Dat egg.
Dat jambon.
Anyways, we ate in peace as the line inched along, waiting to view the dead.
Soon, more of the group showed up.
We found ways to pass the time.
And this is what made going to the Catacombs such a fond memory.
You know, you always hear that cheesy expression "it's not the destination. It's the journey."
But man is it right sometimes.
Waiting in line, I laughed some of the hardest I did on the trip.
And for that, I thank Molissa.
Anddd stop.
Again.
For those of you who know me well, my tone in this blog is not surprising at all. It's pretty much day-to-day me.
Some of you might be a little surprised. I tend to cut back on my usual snarkiness in certain environments.
I wish I were a nicer person sometimes.
And other times, well...
Being who I am just seems more fun.
So I'm going to recount to all of you guys what a horrible person I am and hope I still have friends at the end of this post.
Somehow waiting in line we got on the topic of animal stories.
And Molissa told me the story of her pet catfish.
She never found out the gender (she hoped it was a girl), but the name of the catfish was Fishie Wishie.
Anyways, being the red-blooded Ron Swanson American I am, I already thought it was funny you'd keep a catfish as a pet before frying it up for some dinner.
But the point here is that Fishie Wishie got bacterial infections which led to secondary fatal infections and they had to "put her down."
Even now, I had to stop and chuckle before typing that.
"Put her down." (still chuckling)
Like really, wth!?
You put down a dog, not a catfish.
You guys, I lost it.
I could not stop laughing.
I blame the wording (still chuckling).
Soon others in the group had to know what I was losing it over, and poor Molissa had to tell the story again. She said it was traumatic when she was a kid, which just makes me an even worse person.
In my defense, I wasn't the only one who found this funny (though no one else laughed quite as obnoxiously).
Anyways, soon we got on the topic of cat fish surgery and my mind was "literally" blown.
What?
How do they do that?
Is the surgery underwater?
Somehow, all of our rando conversations made waiting in line seem a lot shorter.
I didn't even realize it took at least more than an hour, maybe a little more than two.
Who knows?
But finally we made our descent into the Catacombs. The deeper we went, the cooler it got. Nice for a hot summer day in Paris.
On the walls we saw inscriptions about death written in French.
And finally, we got to the skulls.
It didn't make my bones shiver. It didn't make my skin crawl. The hair on the back of my neck stayed in place.
But I just felt...
I don't know.
Sad? Reflective?
It's hard to put a word on it.
Distant.
Maybe that's it. Distant.
I kept trying to wrap my mind around the fact that these skulls were once people. That now they're dead. But that once, they were living, breathing human beings.
And I couldn't.
Seeing them stacked like rocks, exploited for the amusement of tourists like myself...
I couldn't personalize it.
I didn't seem real.
So it wasn't scary.
Before we got to the actual bones I tried taking pictures on my itouch, but it was too dark and I ran out of memory. By the time I actually got to the better lit areas with the skulls I had no room for pictures.
And I'm actually kind of glad.
Some things don't need to be captured, I think.
Soon we began our descent up and suddenly it was a bright afternoon in Paris again.
It was like stepping out of a movie theater.
Right across from us was the usual overpriced gift shop (but this one was Catacombs-themed), so we looked inside.
As I looked around, I heard a song playing that I liked.
Nice.
After that I heard another song.
Is it?
No.
Couldn't be.
Yes. Yes it is.
Kid Cudi's "Pursuit of Happiness."
Man, this really was a great day.
But wait, there's more! *Billy Mays voice*
Before we headed back to the metro, we went to a café for dessert.
Café d'Orleans.
I ordered a Pêche Melba.
I had no idea the beauty I was about to behold until it was placed in front of me.
My profile picture on Facebook says more than these words can.
Man, that really was a great day.
P.S.
Forgot about those market strawberries in my backpack? Yeah, so did I. They were bruised and stained a few papers in my bag, so I threw a lot of them away. But the ones I shamelessly sneak ate at Café d'Orleans were delicious.
P.S.S.
RIP
Fishie Wishie
2010?—2012
P.S.S.S.
Tu aimes le titre? Jeu de mots ftw. ;)
No comments:
Post a Comment