(no subject)
last night, i went with sydney, her friend jasmine, and a couch surfer nikki to the catacombes de paris. we met at porte d'orleans at 10:30, but i was like an hour late. then, we went down some train tracks past an old station and ended up in a tunnel. the entrance was on the right.
when we first went down, the ceiling was low, so we had to crouch for a little while to get to where we could stand. i thought this was bad. in any case, we were trying to find la plage, which is some room or something, i'm not really sure. nikki was acting as our guide, but she had forgotten her map at home. so, there were points when we didn't know where were going and we just turned around and tried another tunnel. we went in one tunnel that had all of these cables along the wals. the water was too deep to walk on the ground (for those of us not wearing boots), so we walked along the cables.
we finally got to the point where nikki was getting worried about getting lost. sydney was in the process of carving us a not on the wall so we could know how to get out when tout a coup, we saw some flash lights coming towards us. it was three mecs who seemed to really know what was up. sydney and i, being the only french speakers in the group, asked them if we could come with. it turns out they also spoke english, but it was fun to speak french to them. we later learned their names: thierry, bejamin, et telmo.
they brought us to a really super secret mineral chamber. there is a more well known mineral chamber, but the one we went to is really hidden. nikki didn't even know it existed. unfortunately, to get to this room, we had to shimmy on our stomachs for what i estimated to be about 50 or 60 meters. but, i don't know exactly what a meter is, so i could be wrong. in this phase, i got a lot of gnarly bruises and even a couple scrapes. also, i had my bowl in my pocket. unsurprisingly, it broke and the glass stabbed my leg. the room was covered in graffiti from the 1800's. it was really sweet, even though i was cranky and tired. my crankiness stemmed from the fact that all i'd eaten that day was half a falafel sandwich. i was too late to eat dinner, so i just didn't. it was kind of a bad choice.
the super crappy thing about the mineral chamber is that you have to do that on your stomach, upper arm strength, military maneuver twice. i mean, you could do it once, but that would entail staying in the room forever and you would probably die pretty quickly.
after finally emerging and feeling like i had just relived my birth (albeit much more dirty and i imagine more difficult than my actual birth), we went to see if we could get into an ampitheatre in the faculte d'assas. the other 6 of them went, but i really couldn't muster up the strength. i was just way too hungry and tired. nikki took my camera up in her bra to take pictures. i probably missed out on something pretty cool, but it was just too tough at that moment. oh well, i am lame.
then we decided to head out. after those two awesome places, the boys didn't think we could do much better. so, we trudged through some sewage to try to open a manhole and get out. i was a little worried about this. if i couldn't climb up to the faculte d'assas, how would i ever climb up this ladder? i figured i had to try anyway, because, if i didn't, it would be at least a 2 hour walk to get to another exit.
thierry and telmo were brave strong men and somehow managed to move the 250 kg manhole from below. we emerged after a long slippery climb of at least 30 meters. it was raining, and that was wonderful. i'd never been that dirty in my entire life. the first thing i saw when i got up was the restaurant noura. that had to be a joke. after spending about 5 hours underground, what are the odds that i'd emerge right around the corner from reid hall? sydney came up shortly after me and was just as floored as i was. i never thought i'd see reid hall again, and certainly not under these circumstances. we took shelter under the awning of chez fernand and traded email addresses and phone numbers so i could send everyone the pictures i took. it was about 4 am at this point and we decided to drink some wine in a park until the metro was running.
we went to the park of the infamous poop shoe. we sat on the bench that we sat on when sydney and norabelle were drawing a building and christina and i were watching children suck at life. i actually didn't drink any wine because i thought it would make me sick since i was too hungry. so, i drank water and my 6 comrades drank wine. we fumed some shit. we chit chatted in the rain, in the park, in montparnasse. then, some flics drove by as we were leaving. i was scared because les flics are scary. that and it was pretty obvious from how dirty i was that we had just been in the catacombes. i'm not sure how, but i managed to be the dirtiest one. in any case, they followed us for a block or two and then left. we walked up boulevard st. michel to watch the sunrise by the seine. while nikki and sydney were in a restaurant to use the bathroom, a man asked me if we had just been in the catacombes. "en fait, oui" i responded.
we sat on ile de la cite and the sun rose secretly. we never really saw it rise. it was just kind of....up. then, everyone but me walked to bastille. i walked to gare de lyon and took line 14 home. i got a lot of weird looks. then, my feet were so done with shoes. after having run to meet sydney, then going through the catacombes, all that shimmying...my feet were really pooped. so, i walked down rue de tolbiac in my bright red socks, in the rain. i got home at around 7:30 am, washed the rocks out of my hair, and went to bed.
memorable quotes (actually all from nikki):
-i've got wicked butt crack dirt.
-this manhole is being a cunt.
-anniversary of what? first getting together, first having sex, and....first having your period together?
edit: i forgot to add that the paris catacombes are not "real catacombs." there are a few quarries with bones, but for the most part, the tunnels are just exploratory tunnels. originally, there were quarries willy nilly. people dug them to get rock to build buildings. but, then the city expanded and they wanted to know where the quarries were. so, they dug new tunnels to find the old quarries. this created the maze of tunnels that exists today. we did see a few bones, but nothing like what they show you in the tourist part. we also saw the door that leads from the tourist section into the illegal section. also, they go down from time to time to inspect the tunnels to be sure that the buildings above them do not collapse. this is obviously for the safety of those in the buildings, but, it helps the cataphiles too. it's nice to know that the walls around you probably aren't going to collapse. there is also a patrol of policemen called the catacops that go around and look for people. thankfully, we didn't run into them.