Parislog 9
March 16



Yesterday, Wednesday, I walked over 7 miles. Aye, aye, aye. My dogs are howling today. I started out with the intention of finding college t-shirts for a friend so I headed to the Beaux-Arts first. This is a place that I have occasionally had dreams of attending so I asked where to find the catalog. It turns out that as a full-time student you have to young or no go Charlie. They do have adult school though. I grabbed a bunch of free stuff of the wall to read later and stuffed my pockets.

The entry courtyard is quite something to behold. It seems to have a bunch of architectural odds and ends propped up on the walls. I guess it makes sense for studying. The place has a very hodge-podge sensibility because it has been built over 3 centuries. In the literature that I brought home, I found that there was a separate location for the decorative arts. I wonder if there is also a section somewhere for fashion design. How fun would that be, to say that I had attended the Beaux-Arts for fashion. Snob. Snob.

I went also to the “Forum Les Halles” area, which I remember from last time being rather seedy and today is no different. Above ground the buildings look like rejects from a Xanadu type set and there are garden trellises all around but of course bare at this time of year. All the "chomeurs"(unemployed) of the seedy sort are hanging out on the steps and being loud. And Les Halles is a big shopping center but underground so you find these escalators then go down into no man's land. You come out at the bottom on the first of the inner levels of glass-covered walkways that are in a square around a central sunken courtyard. Around he square are the various stores. It is not an overly welcoming place and seems to have that sense of struggle to its existence.

I knew about this part from my previous visit but had forgotten that there was an underground extension to this site that stretches off like a maze from one side of the bottom most square. This part is swarming with the younger set. Good shopping but horrible atmosphere. I exited from the furthest end to which I had started and came out into a surreal experience. There was a very long escalator surrounded by this modern structure heading up into the sky and at the top was a portion in view of a centuries old church and other ancient Parisian buildings.

I got back to my stroll about town and headed over to a touristy area that I suspected might have the t-shirts that I was seeking. A lot of the serious tourist shops are on the Seine naturally and bingo, I found what I was looking for, Université of Sorbonne.


Then I headed back in the direction of home that took me past the actual Sorbonne. As I was approaching, I heard a lot of activity, people, sirens, hollering. Then I started to realize that it wasn't just thick with tourists and city crowds but an actual purposeful grouping. I had thoughtlessly just walked into the student manifestations against a new rule of De Villepin that affects young people's work rights. There were people blocking St. Michel blvd and sitting in the middle of the road playing guitars and drums etc. The riot police were everywhere because as with all groups like this there are the crazy people who like to use it as an excuse to become violent and they have been doing so. When I went by there were no problems yet and the riot cops were even smiling with the tourists taking pictures of them, like me. Duh.

Today I went to my bank to see what was up with my bankcard and checks and the gentleman with whom I dealt wasn't there and so I had to try to speak with another person who knew even less English than I knew French. I finally figured out that my card was there at the teller but that the pin number had been mailed to my US address. Sigh! Hopefully it will actually be in the forwarded mail of my US contact. I didn't know how well forwarding might, or might not work, to a foreign country, so I forwarded my mail to a state side friend. Let's hope it worked. I hope they didn't mail my checks there. Maybe the bank guy who speaks a little English will be there tomorrow.