Oh La Lauren

Jeudi

As soon as I saw a blue sky and clouds outside of my window in the morning, I knew I had to do something to take advantage of the weather.

I thought I should go somewhere scenic, as you can tell from the photos above.

So I chose Père Lachaise cemetary.

The night before, I had made a list of about 30 famous people who are burried there that I wanted to see. So I hopped on the métro to meet up with Christina and her friend, and we explored. We had no hand-held map because we entered the cemetary on the lazy side—the uphill side. So we took a photo of the large map sign and consulted it every time we wanted to find someone else.

The cemetary didn’t feel at all like a cemetary. It wasn’t creepy in the least—I felt like it was living art. Except really it is dying art. The crows cawing in the background sounded just right, not haunting. It must have been the sunny autumn day that mitigated all of these effects.

In a cemetary that has no rhyme or reason to its layout, we figured out the strategy for finding specific graves. Forget about the map—the trick is to follow where the people are.

The first group of admirers were at the grave of Oscar Wilde, which was certainly one of the most unique graves we saw all day. It was covered in kisses. It just felt like the happiest grave I’d ever seen. My friends and I were especially excited to be in front of something that had been filmed in the film Paris, Je T’aime (New York version coming out soon, n’est-ce pas?)

But even the graves of people we’d never heard of were ornate. There were small mausoleums with decorated doors, stained glass, and gothic spires. There were grey slate or marble graves of with Chinese characters etched in gold and red.

We proceeded to see the graves of Proust, Edith Piaf, Molière, La Fontaine, Denon, Gay-Lussac, the famous Haussman, Apollinaire, Delacrox, Balzac…

Christina noted how some of the graves are in poor conditioned, yet it didn’t seem wrong for them to be so. When you walk past a a grave covered in moss, or a small mausoleum whose door had caved in, you don’t feel the need to have them cleaned or repaired. They seem just right how they are—aged in time, as nature demands.

Chopin’s grave was absolutely overwhlemed by flowers. It was very royal looking, with a white marble carving in the base and then a white marble statue sitting on top.

We then stumbled upon the grave of Héloise and and Abélard, which we were sad to see was under construction. It was very majestic though, monument sized. I didn’t know much about their story, but knew that you were supposed to throw notes inside their grave that pertain to love—whether you’re in love or want to be. Christina, Ashley and I followed the tradition and tossed love notes within the construction site.

Finally, we followed people to the grave of Jim Morrison. It was small and tucked in between a couple of others. It was blocked by traffic barriers because it has been defaced and vandalized a couple times, unfortunately for the graves surrounding it. Really, I’m telling you, it was nothing special. My friends and I admitted we don’t know much more about Jim Morrison than the fact that he was lead singer of the Doors and died very young.

The cemetary was totally worth the trek out to the 20th.

Then yesterday evening Biki, Gabe and I just went to hang out at a bar near Maubert Mutualité. There is nothing better than drinking beer with new friends: laughing until Gabe cries, and having someone to be vertically challenged with. I booked my tix to go to Madrid with them—and I’m so excited to step into a totally new culture!