Jamie requested today's title. But it actually works quite well. You see, we listened to the song above in French class last Thursday. At one point, Monsieur Salvador says what basically translates to "your skin is as soft as moss." To which everyone in the class said, "Ugh." Then I reminded them that we Americans say "soft as a baby's bottom," which, as I hear from Amy, is not as cute as it's made out to be. So argument settled.
Incidentally, my face is rather soft like moss. It must be the Embryolisse... Though wouldn't it be rather redundant of me to praise it? It's already endorsed by Gwyneth Paltrow and Anna Wintour; I doubt my say is going to send its stock up.
Anyway, I came out of hibernation mode today because the sun was shining and I had to run to the Metro because I slept in an hour late--whoops. :/ Fortunately, it kept me energized enough through French class and through the anxious wait in Shakespeare class to get out midterm papers back. Afterward, I decided to go on a little adventure.
But first: I resent what my Poetry class said about me last semester. They claim that I speak as if I consult a thesaurus every five words. And that was true in, like, sixth grade. One girl had the audacity to say, "I think you pick these words without even realizing what they mean." Okay, that's not cool, considering some poems in that class had French and Latin interspersed. I have my dumb moments, but I try to reserve them for real life; when I have access to the Internet and a spell-check, I don't make those stupid mistakes. Grrrrr.
Moving on.
I've finally been going through the guidebooks my mom bought me for Christmas. I particularly like the one by Rick Steves, who apparently had a TV show? (ACG--my new acronym, After Consulting Google: yes, he's pretty legit in the travel community.) He has a whole section written on the area where I eat my breakfast after class, so that's fun.
On his list of activities were the Paris Sewers. And I thought, Gross, like anyone else. But then it hit me--Valjean carried Marius down there! So I had to check it out. Rick Steves even thought about geeks like me and included that Victor Hugo's Les Misérables features the Sewers toward the end. I was definitely sold after reading that.
Yes, yes. I did actually give up money to travel underground and explore like a rat. In my defense, as a hardworking student, I was entitled to the reduced entrance fee of €3,50 instead of €4,60! Incroyable! (The commas, just so you know, are used like how we Americans use decimal points--periods, essentially. Except some places here seem more comfortable writing $5.30 now instead of $5,30, so what do I know. It's confusing. Paris is confusing.) But honestly, it was kind of fun. You know, smelly but fun.
Another way to think of it is if I can to sit through my dad making sulfur-infused boiled eggs (the polite way to describe what I usually call "farty eggs"), I could handle the Sewers. At least I'd be learning, well, something.
Okay, I know photos of a sewer sound disgusting and boring (doubly bad), but I promise I'll make them (semi-)interesting.
"Katie, why did you take a picture of a trash can?" Oh, because according to Rick Steves, the reason these things are plastic bags are because there were actually delinquents who would try to make the metal cans explode. Yeah. Crazy.
Beginning of the tour!
Was already creepy at this point. Without Jamie joking in the background, it was much easier to get scared. And speaking of getting scared...
Gah! What the hell is that?! Oh, it's just a mannequin. Except to me, that's like saying, "Oh, that's just a polar bear who's about to rip your face off." A mannequin may not pose a danger, but they are weird and creepy and unsettling: they definitely reside in the Uncanny Valley.
I know this looks extremely lame, but people like my dad (I'm assuming, given he works on these for a living) find them interesting. The following photos were taken for him. Well, except for the very next one...
Yeah, it wasn't enough to have fake humans: they have stuffed gophers(?) too. Why why why? Does this have ANYTHING to do with the Paris Sewers? I'm inclined to think not.
Why yes, that is what appears to be a lobster with a magnifying glass attached to its back. I'm sure someone will correct me, but that's what I saw.
This cart/wagon thing is what they used back in the day. Man, I am glad we live in our age of technology.
Seriously, I'm going to lodge a complaint with the city. Cut it out with the mannequins, capiche?
Honestly creepier than the Catacombs. Mostly because I was ALONE. OH MON DIEU.
It's actually very well-labeled down here. It seems silly, but it's cool when you go back up and you get to think, Oh, hey, I was just below this street.
Looks more Les Miz-esque.
I know I just said the street signs were helpful, but I can't help with the snark here: Because I know I always want to know what number I'm residing at when I'm trudging through the sewers.
And this is where it begins to smell...
As some of you, I like to jump on grates, scream, and pretend to fall to freak my friends out. Why? I don't know. It's a cruel thing to do to my friends and mother. But then I got my retribution here because this grate kept creaking ominously. And when someone would step down into the next level, you could just hear this great clunking noise. All of these frightening noises, and you see the actual sludge underneath that you'd be falling into. Um. Ew. Sorry, guys.
This is the part when I squealed in delight. I'm not proud of it, guys, but it happened.
Honestly, this is one of my favorite parts in the show, because if you see a good production with the Lazy Susan onstage and the great shadow and lighting crew working hard, it's so cool. I could do without Thenardier, because well, I hate him, but the scene is so cool visually.
Unfortunately, the movie (ooooohhhhh there's so many things I could say about the movie, but let's keep it short, here) became a little too realistic. They portrayed this place instead of going the artistic route. Okay, whatever. Movies can do that. But just because you can doesn't mean you should. Jeez, if I wanted to watch two people walk through what really actually looks like shit, well, even assuming that I wanted to see that, I would not have wanted to pay 12 freaking dollars for that. Jesus. I had popcorn that was perfectly good, and it remained untouched for the rest of the movie. Waahh.
Okay, visual proof:
From the 2013 production that the Willard family saw on what was supposed to be closing night. Doesn't this look cool?
And then we have the movie scenes, which even Eddie Redmayne's beautiful face cannot save. (I know, it's shocking, but yeah, his prettiness cannot make up for this.) I mean, for goodness sake, I actually walked through a Parisian Sewer--literally--and I didn't have to trudge through. Different circumstances and setting and time period--but whatever.
So they gave us a map of Valjean's actual route through the Sewers--it's one someone could walk if it weren't for all the DANGER signs--and then there's a picture of Bruneseau showing off his badass sewer knowledge.
Unfortunately not from Valjean and Marius as well, but these were actually found in the Sewers.
For this whole informational display, they had boxes and boxes of things, as well as tons of information tableaus. Now, as any person would, I thought the things on display were somehow related to the words above. Nope. So that it why, if you were me, you were scratching your head about why there was a giant metal ball on display just below the Les Miz stuff. I didn't include it because it's too goddamn confusing.
Actual art of Valjean carrying Marius through the Sewers! Ahhhhhhh!
My eggbert persona has taken over, and now I'm going to lecture you about Les Miz the novel, even though I have only read the abridged version. Admittedly, that "abridged" version was 400 pages (though that becomes less of an achievement when you consider the real novel is over 1,000 pages). In the novel, when Marius wakes up after being miraculously transported from the barricade, Valjean visits him and explains who he is without mentioning his valiant heroics. Marius, being a bourgeois baby, shuns Valjean but still is like, "Oh, I'm going to marry your daughter and keep her away from you, you mean old convict." Marius comes to find out the truth just like in the musical, but yeah. He's kind of a little bitch to Valjean in the novel.
Now, I was carrying two bags filled with books and folders and random crap: so can I say that I Valjean-ed this Sewer? Well, I am now!
"Sewers and men." What about the ladies? One of those mannequins would be a woman, if mannequins had souls.
So these are the life-size versions of those random balls I was talking about earlier. They're called les roules de curage, which sounds a lot more courageous than their real meaning, which is "cleaning balls." This is how they pick up all the extra grime that doesn't get sucked up by the machines. Ugh. There wasn't a sign that said "Do not touch," but I wasn't going to touch it after learning that fun fact.
Man, I totally need to come back down here with a fedora and a bullwhip, dressed in khaki, so I can run from this thing like Indiana Jones!
I feel bad for whoever had the special job of taking these balls apart. Blech.
Um, don't people realize that this is the No. 1 way to get anyone--mostly little kids, but sometimes even adults--to cross this threshold? That's not even a good barrier. They really tempted me here, but remembering the smell and the sludge, I didn't want to take my chances.
Here's a memorial for all those who died while working down here. (If Thenardier does too, screw him.)
Yes: the Sewer Museum had a gift shop. I'm not kidding. They had a wonderful selection of stuffed rats, as well as overpriced glasses and all those children's books that every child wants to read about "What is going on after I flush?"
I thought this was worthy of a picture, as "miasme" sounds like "miasma," and "jonquille" means "daffodil." So The Miasma and the Daffodil? What the hell kind of novel is this?
You've got to feel bad for this guy. How many people buy something? Actually, I asked if they had postcards of the pictures of Valjean and Marius climbing through the Sewers, but he said, alas, they did not. :( That would've been a gift Dad would've actually wanted for once.
Okay, there is more, but since I took way too many pictures of a Sewer, I need to split this up like a Horcrux. Toodles!
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