Jason and Matt went out and I decided to stay in for the night. Ever since we arrived in France I have had my left ear plugged up and I feel all congested. It sucks because it’s run me down which is why I opted to stay behind. It’s my attempt to try to rest and fight this crap off. I may need to go to a pharmacy to see if I can get a better decongestant. The ones I took that Jason had hasn‘t really done much to help. Sucks going away to enjoy myself just to come down with something to make the experience not as enjoyable as it should be. Paris is a massive city. Much larger than I had thought. I haven’t even been able to see the Eiffel Tower from where we are staying. We walked around the neighborhood we have lodged at and there was a bunch of stairs we walked up and at the top was a basilica and also a great outlook of the city. There was someone playing some music and I didn’t notice what it was at first until the end of the song because they were singing it in French. It was Purple Rain by Prince. I recorded a little of it to listen back to. While I’m thinking of it I just want to jot down some observations about Italy and France. One thing is there must not be any ordinances on picking up dog shit. You need to be careful not to step in it. Thankfully, I haven’t yet which is good. The other thing I noticed and I’ve noticed it in Ireland as well is that the t.v. isn’t censored. I just turned the t.v. on and was able to set the audio to English and the show I had it on they were swearing and there was even some nudity. I was not offended. I don’t really like censorship to be honest. I think it is a disservice to the people. If you shelter people too much they get soft. As they get soft it’s a gradual downward spiral towards things you aren’t supposed to say because it may be offensive. To be honest, I’ll take my freedom of speech over my right to bear arms. That’s if I had to make a choice. I think if you lose the freedom of speech well you might as well prepare for Orwell‘s 1984. Well, I suppose I should stop rambling for now and try to get some rest.
We were staying at an elaborate Best Western in the neighborhood of Montmartre. I’m being facetious when I state the Best Western was elaborate. It was nothing special by any means but at least a place to rest our heads. It also had the smallest elevator I’ve ever seen. The three of us couldn’t fit into it with our backpacks so I walked up the stairs to meet up with Jason and Matt. The elevator was padded almost like it was modeled after an insane asylum. Someone claustrophobic would probably go insane so maybe they were thinking ahead. I did eventually go in the elevator when we had gone out to explore the neighborhood during the day. Even without back packs the three of us were packed like sardines in the elevator. It was crazy how small it was. I was completely unaware of how big Paris was. For some reason I thought that the Eiffel Tower was the epicenter of the city and could be seen from all over the city but I couldn’t have been more wrong. After we did our day exploring was when I had really started to feel the effects of the sinus infection I was coming down with and I wasn’t up for a late night and I wanted to try to rest to get myself feeling better. Turns out I dodged a bit of a bullet as when Jason and Matt had come back later that night they had told me about an experience they had on the subway. There was a homeless man who had boarded on to the subway with crutches and he apparently reeked so bad of shit that people were literally getting off that particular cart on the next stop. Matt had named the guy Mr. Doodycakes when they were telling me the story that night. I’m glad I missed out on that although being a fly on the wall to see it would have been entertaining I think.
Basket of Thoughts 