Mark's Spring Break - Part II: Paris

The morning after having the most beers that I've had since my Bierdiplom, Mark, Corinne, and I set off for Paris by way of Munich. The plan was to see Amon Tobin for free at the Maison de Radio France. For two weeks the Institut national de l'audiovisuel had been presenting PRÉSENCES électronique, a free electronic music festival. The plan was to catch the train to Munich, and fly to Paris. After a short layover+pizza in Munich, we hopped a plane to Paris. Corinne's friend Arthur who was studying in Paris picked up the tickets for us, so all we had to do was make it to the venue. To get from Charles de Gaul to the stop we needed required two train changes. When we got on the final train we noticed that the stop we needed was closed due to repairs, so we decided to get out at the stop before it and take a cab. In the cab on the way to Maison de Radio France, Arthur gave us a call saying that they had closed the doors and weren't letting anyone in. We were less than 5 minutes late. All was not lost though, Arthur gave us a night tour of the student districts in Paris and introduced us to the French style of Doner which was wrapped in tortilla with french fries on top. After walking around for a bit we took a train back to Corinne's sister's house. Corinne's sister, Laurence, was nice enough to pick us up at the train station and drive us back to her place.

The next morning we woke up early and the four of us (Mark, Corinne, Laurence, and I) took a train to Paris and in one day saw all of the major sights that the city had to offer. We started at the sight where the French revolution began, the Bastille. Since the Bastille was totally demolished at the onset of the French revolution, all that was there was a monument. After that we took a train to the Louvre, since we had all been there before we just posed for a few photo ops outside and then moved on. After a scenic walk we found ourselves on the Champs-Élysées, here we purchased our lunch and took it to the top of the Arc de Triomphe. At the top we were surrounded by Japanese tourists all posing the same way. Laurence even hopped into one of their photos, which they thought was great so they made her wait while they passed around 30 cammeras. After lunch we caught a train and took a not so scenic walk to the Moulin Rouge. The Moulin Rouge is nestled in the red light district of Paris so the walk took us past the famous Chat Noir as well as more than a few sex shops/strip clubs. Rather than going inside we decided to take a few pictures outside and move on. And move on we did, to the church of the sacred heart. At the church we had a panoramic view of Paris, along with more than a few tourists. After taking a short sit break, we caught a train to The Eiffel Tower. The lines to go up to the top were super long, and Laurence had to get back to her place so that she could prepair for work the next day, so we said adeu to her and made our way to Maison de Radio France for the last day of the music festival. I was scared that free meant not free, but luckily for us the concert was free as in beer. We listened to some incoherent abstract, really wierd post-modern noise music. The brochure assured us that the artists were soon to be huge, and used math in their music somehow... whatever. After the concert we checked out the Eiffel Tower again and grabbed some authentic French cousine. The day had left us exausted, so we headed back to Laurence's for some sleep.

The next morning we were awoken with some frantic french. Laurence thought she had to be at work at 10am and went to sleep under that impression. However, the next morning at 8:30am she recieved a call from her commanding officer (she studies and works at a french military academy) wanted to know why she wasn't at work. We quickly gathered our things and rushed out of the door. Since we didn't want to carry our luggage around with us all day, we found some lockers at Gare du Nord and left our stuff there for the day. We spent a good part of the day shopping and pretending to shop in stores that were well out of our price range. When we got back to Gare du Nord there was quite a bit of smoke pouring into the train station. Appearantly outside there was a rather large protest going on, and the protesters had set fire to a large pile of debris in the middle of the street. Curious, Corinne, Mark and I wandered outside. On the ground were several leaflets defaming International Paper as an American imperialist evil or something like that. Mark and I decided then not to speak english to each other too loudly until we were somewhere away from the people trowing/burning things. So we grabbed a coffee and then caught our train to Charles de Gaul airport.