From there, we walked over to the Seine. I really love the Seine River and I don't know exactly why. It might be because it's so sparkly and pretty or just that it's refreshing to see something a little less city-ish in all of that hustle and bustle.
Over the Seine, we found ourselves on the back side of Ile de la Cité, the famous island in the Seine where the Notre Dame de Paris resides. I really hadn't put that down for another day so we just walked by it and took pictures of the back side.
We were headed for the French Deportation Memorial, a memorial to 200,000 people who were deported from Vichy, France during WWII. I really didn't have that much of an interest in this place before (let alone even knew it existed) but Rick Steves (the guy who writes tour books) made it sound interesting. Also, Reed and I took a history class on the Holocaust the semester before I came to France.
You first walk down a stairway into what seems kind of like a cement pit. Once down there, you're surrounded on 4 sides by very tall walls. The city has disappeared. The only thing that you can see is a little window near the ground, with bars on it and a pointy sculpture. According to Rick, this is to give you an experience like they had, being imprisoned.
After that, you walk into a little room at the back side of the pit. It has more barred off areas, like a prison. Each of the barred off areas has something behind it that you can look it. One part has a sample of the dirt from all of the concentration camps that those 200,000 were sent to. One of them had a very long corridor, lined with lights, 200,000 lights to be exact. You know the quote from Stalin, "When one dies, it is a tragedy; when one million die, it is a statistic." Well, I never realized how true it was until I saw those lights. They took those 200,000 deaths and spread them out so that each one was its own. To think that that many people died in that way, and just from France, is really a horrible realization. I actually don't even remember what was in the third barred-off compartment because I was mesmerized by all of the lights. I wish I had pictures from my camera to show you but it doesn't do very well in dark places. I found some pictures online but since I don't want to by plagiarizing, I'll just give you the link, and you can check it out if you want. I don't think it is quite as stunning in the picture but it will give you an idea just the same.
From there, we crossed over from Ile de la Cité to Ile St. Louis, the smaller island of the two in the Seine. It is supposed to be known for its architecture, restaurants, and ice cream parlors. I didn't really see anything too spectacular there, so I don't have any pictures.
After that, we went back towards the Hotel de Ville where we found the Centre Pompidou, a contemporary art museum built inside-out, highlighting the relationship between function and form, making it a true work of contemporary art itself.
We mostly went there because I knew that there were a lot of cheaper food places in that area. Reed had a sandwich and I had a crepe and a banana for lunch. Because he took longer eating, I went to get some money from an ATM. While I was doing that, a lady came up to me with a postcard and a cup. She asked me to read the postcard. Well, I remembered that my mom had told me, before the last time I went to France, that I shouldn't read postcards when asked. When she came up to me, I instinctively grabbed my purse tightly (which has come to be a kind of habit for me when traveling). I told her "No" many times, and in like a strong tone too. She just would not leave me alone, and the worst part was that I was at the ATM in the middle of trying to get money out. She only left me alone once I left, because she didn't follow me. I kept checking after I left to make sure that she hadn't secretly managed to steal something from me. In Paris, more than any other city that I've been in, there are people begging and soliciting from you everywhere you go.
After lunch, we intended to walk over to the Latin Quarter (the more student-y, university part of town). We had to walk back over the Ile de la Cité, so we took a few more pictures of Notre Dame, from the front this time.
That was when Reed told me that he wasn't feeling well. We stopped by the Seine to rest for him. It turned out that we had an excellent view of Notre Dame de Paris from there.
And even though he wasn't feeling well, I made him take a picture:
After a bit, he felt like maybe he could walk it off and it would go away, so we headed to the Jardin de Luxembourg (through the Latin Quarter). Since I'd been to Paris before, I knew that I really liked the Jardin de Luxembourg. It's basically a gigantic, beautiful, shady park where Parisians go to hang out. By the time we got there though, Reed really wasn't feeling good, so he hung out at the edge of the park while I ran around trying to find a bathroom for myself (which was of course all the way on the completely other side of the park). I did, however, manage to snap a few photos along the way.
After that, we went back to the hostel so that Reed could rest. Unfortunately, it didn't get any better. I won't go into any details, but it was not good.
Sadly for us (and perhaps for your entertainment), that was the end of our first day in Paris.
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