Back To Paris

26 September - Had a very nice time in Lesches but needed to get back into Paris to tick some more things off the list. Papi Mueller had kindly offered to give me a lift into the station (he also kindly suggested that it would be proper if I shaved beforehand) - but i am a traveller and no blade shall touch my face until I am standing in front of my own mirror in my own residence somewhere in Canadia. I couldn't quite pass this philosophy onto him but I hope he was not too disappointed.
First thing upon arrival was to visit Notre Dame, which was packed full of people and despite being very grande was not terribly interesting. Perhaps i'm just still suffering from temple fatigue from Asia and Angkor Wat is still as good as it gets when it comes to temples (and you can climb on them and actuallydo stuff rather than be shuffled around by standoffish french tour guides). After that I went of to the Natural History Museum and looked at the recommended paleontology department which was outstanding - I think there are about a million skeletons on display there (admittedly some of them are exoskeletons and don't require as much work to set them up) but it was very impressive. Every animal you could conceive including dinosaurs on the second level - it's amazing how similar we are to all the other creatures when you take off the outer shell. If I had a complaint it was that there was absolutely no English translations there but still most of the tanimals were easily identifiable. One interestingaspect were the sculptures of all of the animals organs - obviously the various apes and mice and dogs had been vivisected and there were expressions of agony and terror on that of the apes - very disturbing and very noble of the artist to recreat tthat aspect of their feelings. also slightly dodgy pricing practices - you have to apy for every section of the museum - that's one thing I love about UK - they ar so proud of the fact that they have free museums and they're open to everybody.
After that I went sync up my avantgo on the wifi at the local mcdonalds - one thing i've noticed about the differences between australia and france are the little things - you see, in mcdonalds in oz they have wifi but you need an account from Optus to use it but in france it's free, also, they don't have a quarter pounder with cheese, they've got the metric system so they call it a royale with cheese ...
Also went to see Tour Montparne - one of the tallest buildings in Paris and one of the absolutely most touristy thing to do - great view of the city and has the advantage of actually having the ability to see the Eiffel Tower (unlike when you’re on the Eiffel Tower you get to see Tour Montparne (which is pretty ugly). Also finally managed to get to Pare Lachaise cemetery - final resting place of lots of famous people - Jim Morison's grave still loaded down with flowers and looking muc like it did at the end of the movie "The Doors" (apparently their is talk of moving his body to the US because of the riff-raff it attracts to the cemetery) - also a highlight was seeing Oscar Wilde's grave - I recommend anyone going to see it to remember to bring a stick of bright lipstick so you can leave your mark on the gravestone, thousands of lipstick marks payingtheir respects (although I don't think the people who run the graveyard ar too keen on tourists doing that) - I also recommend anyone going to purchase a map outside because you can't get one inside as I realised when I got lost in the middle of it. i'm out now anyway.
My big heart also got the better of me - I was making a few phone calls at a payphone when an older couple net to me asked for some help with their phonecard - theirs wasn't working - I told them to use mine - they said it was international and that they couldn't do it - I presumed they were italian so I insisted and telling them that I was leaving paris very soon they finally relented - while the woman was talking on the phone I spoke to her husband and found out that they were actually from Argentina - and later when I tried to call alice for a pickup I found that I didn';t have enough credit and there was nowhere to buy a phone card (Disneyland station had closed and the woman running the information desk was beinga right bitch about it) - managed to convince some locals to let me use their phone and all was well. Had a final farwell from Alice and Marcel that night (they left tfor work before I got up) - will definitely miss staying here but it's time to move on - tomorrow night I’ll be in Paris for my final night before back to the land where I can understand the language ...