The SPECTACLE

Spectacle is French for obscure theater experience that could be anything from a hardcore rock concert to a one man comedy routine to the Philharominc Orchestra. Yesterday was Lucas's birthday (the youngest of the Piani clan) and he was turning 13. So naturally, an outing to a "Spectacle" had been planned. We were meant to leave around 730 and we did. We arrived at this theater and had drinks which is still a strange thing for me. Anyway, the Spectacle started around 830 and it was an orchestral quartet, but they played everything from normal orchestra music to jimi hendrix. It was really cool actually the sounds they got from the violins, cellos, basses and violas they were playing. They also goofed around and made jokes and stuff, so it was pretty funny. We got home around 11 and started to cook dinner, which is a classic French move. We finished dinner, exchanged gifts, had cake and did all the other little birthday things that one does when it's someone's birthday. The birthday celebratory dinner, itself, was very similar to an American one. Also, France one their uber-important rugby match against Ireland, so spirits in general were high. It was a really nice, and fun night, and I have to say I felt like I understood the conversation pretty decently and that I was "one of the guys."

Catacombs

So I researched it a bit, and it turns out there are tons of "Catophiliacs" who are obsessed with the catacombs here. Apparently there are a bunch of unofficial ways into the catacombs and there are people who spend there days exploring and stuff. There's a 60 euro fine and there are special police who patrol the underground tunnels. Anyway, it sounds like a really crazy group of people. I can't imagine what type of person wants o spend his or her time patrolling the tunnels, but I totally understand wanting to go exploring, and i must say I'm really tempted to check it out. For more info... where else, wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catacombs_of_Paris

Arrete! C'est ici l'empire de la mort.

So, I've been in Paris for a couple of weeks now, and if you ever been in Paris, doing anything right, then you know that you're constantly inspired to write. Anyway, I guess I'll just jump right into it.
Yesterday I went with a couple of friends to the "Official" Catacombs of Paris. There's a really small entrance in the 14th that leads to a narrow spiral staircase. At the bottom there are tons of boring and equally narrow tunnels. But then, we came to a an entrance to another tunnel and read the inscription above. It said, "Arrete. C'est ici, l'empire de la mort." Which is French for, "Stop. It is here, the empire of the dead." Naturally we continued, finding ourselves surrounded by stacks of skeleton bones as tall as I am. There are a inscriptions written on the walls related to death, all of which were awesome, but I only wrote one down. The French is as follows: "Ou est elle la mort? Toujours future ou passee. A peine est-elle presente, que deja elle n'est plus." Which means, "Where is she the death? Always in the future or the past. She is barely present, and then she is already no more." (I've included the French, because chances are I'm messing up the translations slightly).
Anyway, there were a lot of sayings like these which were really cool.