While I was traveling around Patagonia with Dave we met two french people surfing the same couch as us. We ended up traveling with them for about a week after that and had a pretty good time. I told one of the frenchies that I would be in Europe in January so we exchanged info and here I am, meeting up with him today to go check out Notre Dame.
The cathedral was huge and impressive though I’m not a giant fan of church touring in general. To me they all look more or less the same, and they all have creepy statues of jesus dying in them. Any they are dark and smelly and a little bit scary. I do appreciate the stained glass windows though. They are probably the only things I enjoy seeing when I’m inside. While it was cool to say I was there, I didn’t stay for very long and I didn’t go up on the roof (8 euros to go up I was unwilling to shell out).
My french friend, Sebastian, and I continued walking around the island while catching up. We ended up walking for a good 4 hours around the rest of the city, seeing various landmarks and famous streets. By the end of it my feet were tired so he bought us some pain au chocolate and we went to his favorite cafe/bar in the city. It’s a tiny little corner bar always full with loud, drunk french men. We drank a coffee there and eavesdropped on the table next to us full of belligerent french guys on their lunch break talking about politics and sports. The owner of the bar was the loudest and drunkest of them all, tipping back bottles of red wine with his hefty potato and meat stew lunch. He was very opinionated and very funny, even though I couldn’t understand a word he was saying. Just watching his body language and listening to him was entertaining. He even has a framed photo of himself holding a kings cane calling himself the king of the bar.
When I got back to the apartment, Nathalie and I decided to make a nice salad for dinner to celebrate our first night in her new place.