Jan 1, 2001 It is ten till ten here in Paris. We are in the Hotel D'Albeee on Saint Michel in the Latin, or Student Quarter. I can hear people outside, crowds left over from the New Year's Eve celebration. We've seen so many museums and churches and buildings they all run together like pages you've flipped through too quickly. Today I am getting adjusted. In the beginning I felt disoriented and scared. I hate being somewhere I can't communicate or find my way around alone. I sort of panicked, got clingy. I think I am better now. We missed New Years Eve. Zachary got sick after a cup of sweet white wine. I had a sip. I hate alchahol, such a disgusting flavor, it ruins everything. Anyway, we spent New Years eating Haagen Das(ms?) and watching German MTV. Those Germans are sick. Jan 3, 2001 We are in St. Malo, a town five hours North of Paris. It is famous for pirates, or Corsairs, as they liked to be called (it was more noble somehow). This town is much smaller and deader than Paris. No Italians screaming and singing in the streets all night. Today we walked along the city walls. The town is surrounded by walls, built very very very long ago. The town is on an island, one side is the English Channel. Tonight we ate sea food at the hotel. They just brought us a huge plate full of things I had no idea how to eat, snails, shrimp, oysters. We never eat out anywhere nice, so I'm pretty clueless about seafood. You eat snails with a metal pick, you just shove it in and pull them out. The shrimp had eyes and heads, it was difficult to get myself to disconnect their poor heads from their bodies and tear them apart for the meat, but I manged. Jan 4, 2001 Today we saw Merlin's Forest. It was ancient, older than anything in America. Supposedly it is the oldest forest in Europe. All the Arthurian legends take place over here. We also saw Merlins' fountain, just a big rocky hole full of water. Devon called it Merlins toilet (she wasn't impressed). After we got back to Saint Malo Zachary and I sat out on a rock by the ocean. I was afraid the tide would come in, he was calm. He even got out a pipe for a long stay. I know nothing about oceans or tides so I thought it might sweep us away. Pretty ridiculous, I know. Jan 8, 2001 I am at a park on the Champs Elysees. We leave in 2 days or so. Zach is at the embassey talking about how to get a job with the foreign(ms?) service. I am wearing white socks with black pants and drawing on a park bench. I am so obviously American. I can always tell an American woman, even before she speaks, we all dress so badly compared to the Parisians. Paris women are gorgeous. They wear long black fur trimmed coats, sleek slitted skirts, tall black boots. I haven't yet written about Rachael. Rachael is a girl in our group who rubs me wrong in every possible way. She is all the things I am trying not to be. She wants to be an art teacher and talks incessantly about what she knows and can do. She reads us hideous poetry selections from her journal and expects us to clap. She isn't modest. She flaunts her spirituality like it's some kind of virtue. I'm judging, I know. C.S. Lewis said the things we hate about other people are really the things we hate about ourselves. I think he was right Jan 9, 2001 Back in Paris. Yesterday we went to the insane modern art museum at Pompadou. Among the exhibits was one particularly puzzling peice of 'art'. It consisted of two televisions next to each other. Both had a person, both were reading the same script, only at different times. Here is an excerpt... I like to sh** We like to sh** We all like to sh** I am a bad boy We are all bad boys... Today we saw Versaille, a place so huge elaborate and gold covered that it's hard to imagine that millions of people were starving to death while it was being built. Jan 10, 2001 We are in the plane over Canada. Only about 4 more hours to go. Yesterday we saw the Sorbonne, where Dr. Chancellor got his language education. I saw Zachary brighen at it immediately, but he doesn't audibly get excited like I do, he starts making quiet plans and thinking of possible scenarios. We tried to go to a cemetery on our last night in Paris, it was the only thing Zachary could think to do. French cemeteries are almost all above ground, mosoleums I think they are called. Some are huge and ornately decorated with crosses and statues. We couldn't get in though, the doors closed at six and there was a high wall all around it. They close at six to keep the satanists and goths out. We walked around the cemetery for a while. I asked Zach the last time he'd been to a cemetery for fun. It's been a long time, he said. That sounded like a Jessica related outing, but I didnt ask and he didn't tell. We took the metro to the Seine afterwards. Everyone could tell we were American, we were being such stereotypes. I was bright and too loud, Zach quiet and detached. I hate it, but he doesn't need the advice I want to give or the things I have to say sometimes. When we got to the Seine we sat under a bridge on the sidewalk. Zach smoked, I tore out chunks of the bridge to keep in my pocket.
