Doing as much as possible -

My friends and I realized that we only have a few weeks left in Paris. In order to not think about this, and to forget about finals, and to make the most of the last of our time here, we've been trying to explore as many new places as possible. I made a list of everything I NEED to see before leaving.

Yesterday after class, we took the metro way across town to Belleville. I only knew Belleville from the movie (The Triplets of-), and so didn't really have any other ideas about it. It was funny though because when we got out of the metro, it was like we were in a different city. Belleville is kind of dirty, and cheap, and local. Not a tourist to be found. Groups of people hanging out in cafes after work. Belleville is also known as the second China town (the first is at Place d'Italie), and we did see some Chinese restaurants and stores. We walked up the hill to the Parc Belleville, from which we had a beautiful view of the city. It was a funny little park, just lots of kids and random people walking around. I would have liked it more except that the air was full of knats and it felt like I was breathing them in. But Belleville was cool - Edith Piaf was born on the street there (supposedly there is a plaque commemorating the exact location on the pavement where she was born, but we couldn't find it), and the whole quarter had a very local feel to it. It was interesting to see a different part of Paris.

Today, we started at Parc de la Villette for lunch. This park is also across town, way up at the eastern corner. Villette was recently built up as a park/recreation/theater/music/science center. There's a museum and theaters and a bunch of other stuff.. we didn't see it all. But we did bring some baguettes and cheese and had a picnic lunch on the grass. It was quite Parisian. (We also had some wine that we had found at the grocery store - in juice boxes!!). After lunch we wandered around some of the garden paths and walked down the canal that leads to Bastille and eventually the Seine river.

At Bastille, we saw a part of the huge march/manifestation that is the epitome of Paris. Since today was Labor Day (May 1st), everyone has the day off and marches in the streets. There were tons of people in the streets between Bastille going all the way to Saint-Germain.

We also went on a walk of "Hemingway's Paris." In Saint-Michel, behind the Pantheon, past all the tourist attractions and souvenir shops, we found Rue Mouffetard. My guide book says that Hemingway used to love this street because it has markets and restaurants and cafes - a very cute little street. It was very alive today too, because everyone was out celebrating Labor Day. Then we walked onto Rue du Cardinal-Lemoine - the location of Hemingway's first apartment! His old building has a plaque on it, and I tried to decide which window looking out to the street was his. We walked along his old street for a while, and then curved over towards the Luxembourg Gardens. My guide book says that Hemingway's last house was on a street branching off from the gardens. It was a cool old building, with a fancy gate and sphinxes too. As my book said, "my how the fallen have become mighty."

We finished off the day with gelato on the small island (Ile-Saint-Louis, my favorite!) and then sunset on the river bank. By this point we were pretty tired from exploring so much, so we decided to head home to rest up for tomorrow's big adventure: Versailles!

You can see all my pictures here:

Neighborhood explorations: Villette and Hemingway