The Summer Diaries is a series of photo journal/diary entries from my 2018 Summer trip in Europe and South East Asia. Click here to read the previous entry.
On the train I coloured in mandalas and ate nuts and lolly strips. We got to our Parisian Air BnB in the afternoon, located on Île Saint-Louis in the fourth arrondissement. The girl who owned it was lovely, a blonde French girl who lived there alone. The told us about F'Nac, a free music festival that was happening that night just a five minute walk away at the Hotel de Ville. She had sat by the Seine with her friends drinking bottles of wine, listening to the music from afar the night before. After a walk around the island, involving an ice cream in the shape of a rose, and cats sitting outside of bakeries, we approached the booming music.
We were still by the river when we started to see the mass aproaching the concert, and those who preferred to stand by the railings two blocks away. We were in Paris, I needed to be closer than that. Riot police fenced off a two block radius but we eventually found the stage. A feminist rapper wearing a striped green and white jacket, and all white. Her name was Aloise Sauvage. Her act finished and as we wait by the stage, we watch the huge screens displaying photos of who had/was performing at the festival. Suddenly very familiar faces appeared, Angus and Julia Stone. I had been in love with their music from age twelve and I couldn't believe it. I had searched up the lineup before we left the apartment earlier in the day, and Angus and Julia Stone were not there. I am in desbelief when Ibeyi, a sister duo follow Aloise and they immediately got the audience into a groove, everybody starts to dance. Cindy and I were not expecting anything like this, and in the shock of it all followed by the shock of simply being in Paris took over, hence only having one photo of their performance.
At last, the lights come up once again and a violinist begins to play against a screen set in space. When I saw Angus and Julia in front of me, I was in awe. This was all too surreal. They performed some of their old and their new, and I danced and sang along. I cannot get over the perfect timing of the entire thing; the day I get to Paris, the girl from the Air BnB recommends the festival, we get there and find out a favourite band is playing. It was so beautiful, and incredibly fortunate. They closed with Chateau, Angus asked the crowd to flash their phone flashes towards the stage, and confetti fell from the sky.
The following day we walked to the Notre Dame and admired the architecture. Buskers would play by the bridges over the Seine and street performers on rollerblades dressed in suits did their tricks.
We were trying to eat cheaply, and I was able to fill my craving for pesto pasta over many lunchtimes in the apartment. In the afternoon we visited the Père Lachaise Cemetery, the largest cemetery in Paris and apparently the first garden cemetery. Buried inside are over 800 000 graves (maybe up to one million) including Edith Piaf's, Oscar Wilde, and Jim Morrison. The first grave that we really took notice of what the fenced off tower, within it a stone couple on top of a tomb. Their romance is one of the best known of the Middle Ages, with large significance on their love letters. In 1817 their bones were buried in the tomb where lovers now leave their own letters. It was unsettling to be in a cemetery that was essentially a tourist attraction.
Visiting Jim's grave was something that I was longing to do while in Paris. Morrison astonishes me and it was unearthly to be at his grave. We only found it because there were groups of people all saying "Jim Morrison" in their varied accents looking at maps on their phones. There was sort of a line at his grave. It was decorated with bells, magazines, framed photographs and flowers and was fenced off at least a meter from the grave because people had written on it too much, leaving his parents to clean it. On the fence were locks, wrist bands, hair ties and flowers tied by fans. I played Ghost Song while I stood by his grave and eventually had to move so others could take selfies with it. I didn't really understand, it felt a little disrespectful.
Oscar Wilde's grave was radical in its design and significance and had a very different crowd of people sitting by it compared to those at Morrison's grave. It was much less colourful, with pebbles rather than bells and letters rather than wrist bands sitting at the edge of the glass surrounding that was decorated with lipstick marks from international lovers.
That night we had a very French three course meal looking at the Seine drinking rose. The sun of a European Summer is totally disorientating. It's bright and sunny at 10 pm, the days were endless. The following day we went to the Louvre. It was full of so, so many artworks. It would take days to see it in its entirety. I laughed when we found the Mona Lisa, smirking from the depths of a crowd. That room was the busiest of the museum, and ironically the more striking artworks were on the other sides of the walls.
Of course the next stop was to be the Eiffel Tower. One side was surrounded by construction fencing and it looked a lot more magical from further away, across the river. A man was playing an accordion and though I'm sure he wasn't, I still imagine him to be dressed in the striped shirt, beret and all.
Then came shopping day. It began in expensive vintage stores that were jam packed, and continued through rainbow streets. I didn't buy anything until we returned to the street that we were staying in. On the way to lunch (crepes) couldn't stop from going into a crystal shop that was full of fossils, raw crystals and refined jewellery. I bought a little shining chalcopyrite and an agate slice with quartz in the middle. That afternoon we walked to the Pantheon. Foucalt's Pendulum dangled from the magnificent dome and beautiful statues stood around watching entering tourists. Marie Curie is one of many in the mausoleum underground. I bought a yellow poster of a Doors concert ad. Cindy and I sat by the Seine and drank rose that night, and listened to the roaring crows who cheered for their country in the World Cup Semi Finals. We followed the sound to find people sprinting and cheering, young men standing on top of bus stops jumping and screaming. Coloured smoke bomb exploded from crowds. Everything was red, white and blue.
The next day was our last in Paris. On our way to the Natural History Museum we explored vintage stalls of magazines, books, posters and vinyls. I bought 'Replay' by Crosby, Stills and Nash and Joan Baez/5. At the museum we accidentally went to a T-Rex exhibition. The gallery of evolution and endangered/extinct gallery were weird. Hundreds of stuffed animals lined up. It was ironic to see taxidermied animals in the extinct gallery.
Paris was everything it seems to be in the photos. It was dreamy, and never boring. We woke up early the next morning, headed to Cabrils, Spain just twelve days into a forty-five day long trip feeling like we had been there for weeks.
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