Robin Camille

My parents arrived in Paris last Saturday and left early this morning. In the intervening week, we did a lot. Museums: le Louvre, Musée d’Orsay, Musée Rodin, Petit Palais (William Blake exhibit!). Food: plein-air market in Bastille, gourmet food shopping at La Grande Épicerie, and more restaurants than I’ve eaten at in the past six months. Outside of Paris: Giverny, Versailles, and 33 hours in London.

I’d post pictures of all this, but I only have like 28 kilobytes of space left on my hard drive, so… Maybe later.

In London, we did the super-touristy things (a double-decker bus tour) but also visited our old haunts in Richmond, like the flat we used to inhabit, the school I used to attend, and this great Italian restaurant. It was totally bizarre to compare what I remembered as a 6-year-old to how Richmond really is. It was much more chic than I’d thought, and of course there were things I’d totally remembered (such as the exact layout of the playground, go figure) and totally forgotten (there was an Underground station nearby?). And of course one of the main reasons for visiting London was having a spot of tea with Layla, my BFF 13 years ago with whom I’ve been corresponding since. It was so odd: we knew each other, and she and her mum welcomed us so warmly, and yet I’d never seen this Layla before. I only remembered the little girl I’d played Sleeping Lions with. In any case, it was super great. Also, Deven was there, and he finally had some real British tea.

Mom’s goodbye text this morning: “Having brkfst in airport. Miss u too. Was just talkng about this great short wk. Thanks to u + D for warm hospitality. We both got friskd! Xoxo.”

It’s definitely been a week of visits! After a semester of me clinging to Deven, all of a sudden we have friends and family right and left. Sara arrived yesterday fresh from the Netherlands, and before that she was in Uganda. What a traveller. She’s volunteering at Shakespeare & Co and about to be abducted for some quality time with Deven and me before we leave.

I’ve only got two and three-quarters days left in Paris. I’m kind of freaking out about it. A lot. I already miss this place and I haven’t even left it. I packed up one super-heavy suitcase that my parents took back, and my other two are lying open on my bed, half-full of things like dirty laundry and dictionaries and silly things I won’t need anymore (map of the Louvre, street fashion mag) but which are coming back with me anyway. Le sigh…

Today’s plan: make my way over to Deven’s, wake him up (it’s almost 10 here), meet up with Sara someplace, and wander Paris fervently. I’ve also got to pick up some little gifts here and there for my beloveds back home. Home…

Welcome to Munich, Germany! Deven and I visited lovely Germany last week from June 11–14. But I’ve had spotty internet and a million and one adventures since that time, hence the late update. Anyway, so Germany was home to the Olympics in the 70s. The grounds are still open for wandering and sausage-n-beer picnics. This is Deven throwing an invisi-javelin in front of the stadium, which is like a giant crazy tent, or some kind of plasma cell magnified a million times.

In the Einglisher Garten, which is like Munich’s Central Park, the river comes rushing in at one point over a rock sledge. This creates a wave, which the Germans have (naturally) taken to surfing. I sure hope those wetsuits and surfboards actually see saltwater at some point.

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On Thursday, Deven and I, the inseparable adventurers adventuring in Europe, descended down a long, narrow spiral staircase and into l’empire de la mort (the Empire of Death). Here, the bones of over a million people are stacked carefully, even artfully. Skulls, fibias, clavicles form layers like a grisly wedding cake.

Les Catacombes were created in 1786 to eliminate disease spread by improper burials in oversaturated cemeteries. The officials in charge decided to discreetly cart the bones into unused rock quarries beneath Paris. Since the 19th century it’s been a tourist attraction of sorts. Layers of bones are juxtaposed with plaques engraved with a certain brand of inspirational quotes. Silence, êtres mortels! Silence, mortal beings! Croyez que chaque jour est pour vous le dernier. Believe that each day is for you the last.

O, Death! May your judgement be filled with equity.

From Madrid, Deven and I flew to Lisbon, Portugal, where we spent 3 days. Old Lisbon (or Lisboa) is absolutely beautiful. The colorful tiled buildings, the black & white pavement, the weather, the water — we knew nothing about the city before we went, but the good things we’d heard about it turned out to be true!

We stayed in a superhip (and supercheap) youth hostel in Baixa, the old quarter of Lisbon. Baixa is currently being considered for UNESCO World Heritage status. Fun fact: in 1755, a giant earthquake destroyed most of the city’s buildings. They reconstructed the city but made it earthquake-proof this time. To simulate tremors, the Portuguese army marched around the new buildings to make sure nothing would collapse. Guess it worked — the’re still standing today.

Let’s start with what we walked on. Portuguese pavement is made of small (~4″ square) blocks of limestone and basalt, arranged into various patterns. Sometimes, in front of shops, they’ll configure the blocks in the logo or name of the store. (Typomaniacal glee.) It’s apparently a dying art, since after all it’s backbreaking work arranging the tiles, but it truly “makes” the city. In all of our wandering in Lisbon, even outside the old Baixa quarter, I only saw one concrete sidewalk.

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After our classes had (mostly) ended this month, Deven and I embarked on an adventure in Western Europe. This is the first installation of a planned trilogy detailing said adventure!

We spent 3 days in Madrid, Spain. It was a lovely city, literally in the very center of the country, and surprisingly newer than I thought it would be — the buildings, at least. I was also surprised at how much Spanish I remembered. Guess those tons of worksheets I filled out throughout high school helped (yo/tu/él/ella/nosotros/ellos/ellas), although the Madrid lisp (”grathias“) was totally bizarre. Above, random and delightful street art photographed as we searched out a “taquería mexicana auténtica” which was a’ight but nothing compared to Juanita’s. That’s no fault of their own, though, because Juanita’s Carnitas is tops.

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I’m back in Paris for one (surprisingly productive) day before going on to Munich tomorrow with Deven. For the past week, we’ve been in Madrid & Lisbon! A full picture-laden post will follow but some Portuguese tile will have to suffice in the meantime.

Since coming here, as some of you have no doubt surmised, I’ve been super interested in the Art Nouveau style — that is, art from around the turn of the century, like Mucha and Guimard. There’s not much Art Nouveau in America, save Tiffany lamps, but there’s a ton in Europe, its birthplace. Thus I’ve en profité by seeking out as much AN as I can, and Munich for the next four days will be no exception. Deven doesn’t know it yet, but he’s got at least 12 hours ahead of him of wandering around Schwabing, the AN quarter of the city. He thinks he’ll be exploring the old Olympic Village, eating sausages with oompah bands, and throwing back pints in beer halls… Nope! He’s gettin’ buildings.

In other news, I’m thinking of taking Japanese in the fall, just for kicks. I want to explore more Japanese art (and cuisine, mmm) and sometime in the future I’d love to visit Japan. Thoughts?

If you are not one of my parents, please disregard this blog post!

However, if you are, neither of your Roadrunner email addresses are working. I keep getting “invalid mailbox” auto-responses. Bug in the system? Grr! The internet has turned against us these past two weeks. I just wanted to ask if you could set up a Detour wash/cut appointment and also make sure I had an appt with Dr. Morgan (I think I remember sticking the tooth sticker on the calendar). Dad, hope you’re surviving your grueling 5-day workweek, and Mom, only 7 days of school left, yay! I probably won’t have email access until Sunday, btw.

Neither of you probably saw this, but to all my peers out there who just read this whole thing, hey.

Taken a few hours before sunset, as the clouds prepared to become prismatic. Sunsets in Neuilly-sur-Seine have been wonderful lately. The view from my apartment is pretty expansive, so I get to see almost the whole sky! What’s more, the sun doesn’t go down until 10pm. How luxurious it all is.

Tomorrow, Deven & I depart for Madrid, Spain. We’ll stay there for three days, then Lisbon, Portugal, for two and a half. Then back to Paris to breathe for one and a half days. Then off to Munich, Germany, for four. I’ve not been to any of those countries before, and neither has Deven! Adventure time! By which I mean, 10-bed hostel time! Where are my earplugs… Actually, it won’t be that bad, we booked early so we got the smaller rooms in top-rated hostels. Have you any suggestions for Things To Do & See? Preferably of the Cheap As Free variety?

(BTW: I have been pretty lame on the Flash Fiction Fridays for the past couple weeks. I didn’t even post the story I wrote for my own rule. It wasn’t that great. When I feel better about it I’ll throw it up here. Sorry fellow FFFers for having low story morale.)

The great Dan Deacon performed at a free concert at Parc de la Villette in the 20° arrondissement yesterday. It’s a huge park surrounding a science museum. Funnily enough, Crow saw Dan Deacon in Providence only a few weeks ago! Anyway, it was, in a word, awesome. The stage was set up in front of a huge, mirrored geode (Dan Deacon: “Can we take a minute to appreciate this huge f—in’ shiny ball behind us? Okay!”). He spoke no French whatsoever and so got audience help translating things like “Group Interpretive Dance” (above), “Dance Contest” (below), and “Dance Tunnel” (last photo).

He chose two French guys (grey sweater, left, & backpack guy, being carried, right) to dance. They started to whirl around crazily when shirtless dude, foreground, charged into the circle. He’d been pretty obnoxious before, yelling out things like “On est chaud!” and generally being a douche. But Grey Sweater used Shirtless Douche to his advantage — he picked him up and whirled around with him in his arms! What was Backpack Guy to do? Luckily, Scarlet Shirt came to his rescue and picked him up! Everybody cheered! Then the circle collapsed as we all charged in to dance, too! DANCE PARTY!

Dan Deacon: “Okay so now, I know this sounds crazy, but can we make a path going from that tree to that tree? Just like a path? Do get what I’m saying? [jumps down to arrange it himself] You and you, make a triangle with your hands, like this, and you and you, do the same thing. Okay, you and you go through it and then make a bridge when you get to the end! Okay? Everybody get it? If you speak English and also French, please explain to the people around you how to make a dance tunnel! We are going to go through those trees, to the red port-a-potties, around the trash cans, behind the white tent, and then back to the middle! You can do it! I believe in you! Go, go, go!!!”

Sign: Jeux de ballon strictement interdits = Ball games strictly prohibited

Upper left: boys playing a hardcore game of soccer. You better watch out, les gars, or else these tough guys might get you…

“I swear to God, if you play ball games ONE MORE TIME, we’re going to take off our little hats and do a dance number!!“