July 10th

Tuesday, July 10th, 2007
Paris, France

This morning Julia and I went to Pere Lachaise, the largest cemetery I have ever laid eyes on, and a cemetery that is where countless artists, musicians, and other celebrities were laid to rest. Thank goodness we got a map, because otherwise the cemetery would not have been navigable at all. It hardly was anyway. We missed a number of celebrities as it was. We saw the tombs of Jim Morrison, Gericault, Oscar Wilde, Chopin, Delacroix, Ingres, Richard Wright, Camille Pissaro, Georges Seurat, and more. Unfortunately, we were unable to locate the boxes that house the ashes of Isadora Duncan and Max Ernst. We also missed a number of others we wished to see, simply because we looked for several minutes in many areas without finding their headstones. This cemetery was beautiful--I cannot even explain how beautiful it was. People probably pay millions to be buried there, and while we were there construction/restoration was being done on a number of tombs.

It was quintessential cemetery viewing weather, as a light misty rain fell on us the entire three hours we wandered through the cemetery. Upon leaving the cemetery, Julia tried a crepe with honey (something that I unfortunately did not try while in France), and then we went to a grocery store to get some baguette, cheese, and jam. We went back to Isabelle's where we feasted on typical French food and watched some of the strangest movie I have ever seen. It is called "Very Bad Things," and I would only recommend it to anyone in a very demented state of mind.

Julia and I wanted to go shopping for souvenirs and gifts, but unfortunately all of the souvenir shops close down in the rain and neither of us was really able to get gifts in Paris for any of our family or friends.

I went back to Montmartre to meet up with Geiler and give him the game plan for the rest of the night. We ended up grabbing some wine and going back to the Eiffel Tower one last time. We sat on the grass in front of the tower for a good three hours before repeating the routine of walking Julia back and metroing our way home via line 12.

I packed up, and tried to rest up for the day of travel that lay ahead of us.