Another Fucking Day in Paris

On my next day in Paris I jumped at the chance to see the Notre Dame cathedral, which looked incredible from every depiction and photograph I have ever seen. I'm a sucker for flying buttresses. After eating a very light, very French brunch of thinly sliced beef, fancy cheese, and baguette Nisha and her Belgian friend Janthe escorted me to the famous cathedral.

Pretty cool, no?

They drew the line at the courtyard, "We're not going in there with you." I could see why, the crowd around the church was massive. The line to the entrance was like waiting to go on Space Mountain on Spring Break. Worth the wait though, really. I wouldn't have been able to live it down if I skipped it merely because of my profound hatred of waiting and disdain for posses of flap-jawed tourists making trite observations. "It's big isn't it?"

The inside was just as epic as I expected. Well, maybe a bit less. I didn't break down into tears nor did I begin speaking in Hebrew before collapsing on the floor foaming at the mouth. But it was still pretty swell. The ceiling was massive and detailed enough to keep a bored churchgoer occupied staring for a least a month's worth of services. If you got bored with that, or if your neck started to hurt too much, the nave (central service area of the cathedral) is surrounded by beautiful stained glass windows and statues depicting biblical-looking scenes that could give comics a run for their money as far as entertainment value goes. I contented myself with wandering around the place, taking time to squint at the pretty sights and seeing if I could read the Japanese translation of the church rules. "Kutsu o..." nope. There were candles all over the place. it looked like it was the main source of income aside from what I assume to be a constant stream of big-ticket donations from classy French Christians. You could pay 10 euro and get a nice big candle or spend just one and get a candle in a tin like a wide shot glass. I guess the idea was you would light it, place it next to your favorite saint, and the pray as you feel your prayers amplified by the spiritual steroids.

Kinda gives you vertigo

One of the statue scenes depicting

Death mackin' on Saint somebody

Maybe I would have liked going to
church more if I had some of these..

After getting spiritual, we got gelato on one of the streets near Notre Dame. Nisha said the place serves the gelato in the form of a flower on top of a cone. I was a bit disappointed by the poor effort shown by my drooping cone, but I suppose that's what I get for ordering in English. We would have eaten next to the Senne, but the walk there was a couple of blocks and it was a hot day. I had to eat it. We sat on the side of the river talking about how rich some the kids at the American School of Paris are and headed to the Pompidou, which is Paris' biggest modern art museum.

When Nisha told me the building was built inside-out I was all like "WTF?" But it makes sense when you see it:

We didn't go inside because the two girls didn't want to waste their time doing something so typically French. Outside of the building there were various performers including a couple Frenchmen who were playing with glass spheres, making them look like they were making the spheres levitate in their hands as they moved their hands while keeping the ball completely still. I was laughing the entire time at how unbelievable the sight was. I would have taken a video, but I didn't. Maybe I'll feel more comfortable acting impressed later.