The last hour is always the worst. Car exhaust seeps into our air-conditioned nightmare as we float at snails pace through fresh morning traffic jam. It's the 16 hour Prague-Paris bus trip with breaks for toilet, smoking, and McMurder. Reminds me of plague stricken boats that float into harbour with a cargo of dead passengers and rats. Disneyland is close, but there's plenty of entertainment right here. Unfortunately, the man in front of me slept through breakfast at the last gas station, and now must seek nourishment elsewhere. His beady little eyes dart around swiftly, then with quick little fingers he forages into his very own nose, examining every new discovery carefully before consumption.

It's raining in Paris, my umbrella comes in handy. First metro stop I get off is Bastille. No French citizens sporting the decapitated heads of their monarchs to be seen this time. Instead, the square is crowded with cars, smog and commotion. I'm alone and lost in a big city. Back to the metro! I board several metro trains in succession, eventually the right one which takes me to Montmartre. I climb the hill and from the steps of the Sacre Couer ingest silver Paris in the rain.

LOUVRE
Eagerly I join a long and chaotic line. After an hour the cashier tells me (in cold blood) that I'm in the wrong line. I buy a museum card, a 5 day ticket to bored and bewildered herds of tourists, stumbling over art students, staying away from suspicious works of modern 'art,' and stubbornly ignoring Mona Lisa signs.

Musee Picasso
An absurdly happy feeling washes over me every time I see the crowd of rejected and disbelieving tourists yelling: "Open up!" "How can you do this to us?" The fortunate ones with pens cover the sign "Closed For Strike Reasons" with messages of anger or English gramatical corrections.

Jeu De Pommes
The Magritte show in Jeu de Pommes is excellent, and of course there are plenty of surreal tshirts, fridge magnets, and other flotsam for sale in the giftshop.

Musee Rodin
The statues both inside and out bring to mind lost antique masterpieces. I sketch them eagerly, only to discover that their beauty dissapears on paper. A big grey man sits down next to me, and calls me his "little girl" I politely decline his invitation for a drink in a near bar. He sits a few benches down, watching me, it's time to leave.

METRO:
There are several different ways to ride for free. Some people jump over the entrance gates, shadow closely behind the person in front of them, or catch the exit doors before they close. The last two options require the assistance of a legal ticket buying traveller.
Vast vistas of black metro floor, treks through dark underground steppes, panting up sweaty steps. Seeking connections, getting lost in the vast tunnels or in the metro map itself. Street musicians board trains to serenade passive passengers for change. Occasional old ladies tell captive audiences the story of their sad lives and get paid for it.

Eiffel
A hundred gold bracelet sellers running straight at me, and fortunately past me. I crawl up the stairs and then wait in a long and chaotic spiralling line. They stuff us in the elevator. When we extricate ourselves from the elevator upstairs, it's time for the view: there's Champs Elysees, there's That - everything is there! We can go now.

Pantheon
Lots of dead bodies in the basement. I ask the guard how to get upstairs for a view of Paris, eagerly watching her lips and immediately following her hand. "merci," "mercy," and in the end I give up my fruitless search.

Arc De Triomphe
Spiralling stairs. A nice view of the cars mauling around below, better then seeing them from below, as roadkill. One of the original sketches for the Arc De TRiumphe was an elephant with a trunk fountain squirting water.

Sacre Couer
my favorite place. In the evening the setting sun lights the Sacre couer up with pink light just like Monet's picture.
When it isn't raining at night, I buy a can of beer and sit on the stairs outside. Once I let myself get picked up. The next day we go for dinner of flacid french fries swimming in mayonaisse and kechup which he tries to romantically stuff in my mouth. When he eagerly speaks of capots, (I find out these are French condoms), I swiftly and politely leave the scene.

After several more days full of museums, metro and lines, it's time to return to Prague. The bus leaves in half an hour, so I pretend to read Figaro. At night a person tells us his back is bad, blows up a mattress and lies down on it in the aisle, we are to kick him if we need to visit the toilet. Unfortunately, I don't need to. After many hours of uneasy "sleep" we arrive in PRague. As usualy full of dust and smog, but still good to be home again.

FIN

Sacre Couer

Notre Dame

Notre Dame

Sacre Couer

Sacre Couer

Sacre Couer

St Eustache

St. Germaine de Pres