Over the next few days, in no particular order (I guess my notes aren’t detailed enough), I managed to see the church of Notre Dame (which was seriously lacking in Hunchbacks), Montmartre, and some other touristy sites. I also managed to meet up with Jazz and Zaq, a British/French friend who had lived with me in the International House at UCSD, and her boyfriend who is also from San Diego.

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I spent one of my last days with a friend I had met throught he UCLA program named Tina. She had agreed with me a few days before to visit a site called “Les Catacombs,” where literally thousands upon thousands of skeletons were just stacked up against the walls of some deep underground caves to make more room in the Parisian graveyards during the Napoleanic Wars. The two of us lucked out, and for some reason gained free entrance (likely due to being students).

The catacombs were incredible, as you entered tunnels that were literally dug underneath the entire city, nearly reaching the water table underneath the city. It was very cold, damp, and small, and the farther we walked the more eerie it got. After about 10 minutes of travelling underneath the city, you arrive at the catacombs which are exactly like you see in the photos, but with astonishing scale. There are endless tunnels lined on both sides with skulls and femurs, behind which lie massive piles of all the rest of the skeletons that have been buried there. To top it off, a huge section of the catacombs was apparently closed to the public while we were there, so Tina and I may have seen less than half of it!

Afterwards we both made our way to the Louvre, where we knew we would gain free entrance due to being students on a Friday Evening. We made the rounds to all the most famous scultpures, paintings, and artefacts, including of course the Mona Lisa. The painting itself is actually pretty lame, as it’s not very big, and has rather dull colors. The only really interesting bit about the painting is its history, and the way that it is treated. In the museum there are massive crowds around the tiny painting, which is given a massive wall to hang on in isolation. Immediately opposite the Mona Lisa is a considerably more epic painting which is given the same amount of wall space, but fills the entire thing. It must have been about 10 meters wide, and 6 meters tall, yet everyone crowded around the Mona Lisa. There were countless more interesting things I saw in the Louvre, but I imagine reading about them would be exhausting, so I will spare you all the details.

I had a great time in Paris, but the city is expensive, especially when spending time with a bunch of girls. I had plans to meet up with Sara Schlegel in Goettingen about 6 days later, so I found a mitfahr back into Germany where I would be able to spend the next few days touring around without going broke.