Thick. (That's "Sick" with a Headcold)

dear erik,

well, i'm sick.  not terribly sick - basically it's just a bad cold, but i'm still not too psyched about it. 

i felt it coming on on saturday night, when i suddenly had a super-scratchy throat and a headache.  woke up with it yesterday and tried to power through, but today it's just not happening.  i'm cranky about it because today was the day i was going to go to rouen to see where joan of arc was tried, the place she was executed, the church they built for her there (and, if there was time, flaubert's house :o)

i will say, however, that megan is excellent at taking care of sick people.  i chose my traveling companion wisely.  she's been making me pots of hot water with lemon, and has been going out periodically to achieve meals for us.  she's about to go out and find us some soup and some bread to make croque monsieur(s?) with.  in all honesty i can say that aside from the pressure in my head and the noseblowing/sore throat/tiredness it's shaping up to be a very nice day of hanging out in paris!

yesterday we attempted the catacombs again only to find that they've been closed indefinitely due to a 'ventilation' issue.  the girl that was standing at the entryway didn't have much information, which was funny, given that her entire job is to stand there all day and tell people they can't come in.  you would think they would give her some information about it, but i guess that's not how they roll over at the catacombs.

i would have liked to see them, but i'll catch them next time around.  as for rouen, i have a mild hope that i can go when we come back after strasbourg (we decided to come back to paris on the 6th, because it's an event called 'nuit blanche'.  they do it once a year and it sounds like basically the city stays open all night, and lots of the museums are open and free, and people come out and do art installations in the street.  it sounded like a once-in-a-lifetime thing, so we thought it was worth the return train trip.) but i'm not holding my breath.  (that i'll have the energy to go to rouen, in case you had forgotten the beginning of that sentence after the ten minute aside.)

in an additional quirk, blogspot (the website that runs this blog) has graciously decided that since i'm writing in paris, i must be french, and has therefore changed all the links on my site to french, despite the prominent "English" selection in the "what language do you want this in" section.  hopefully no major issues will arise that i need to get information about.  by the end of the trip, those people over at blogspot are gonna think i'm really good at languages...

so - yesterday when we couldn't get into the catacombs we went to montparnasse cemetery.  lots of famous writers and celebs are buried there, but we didn't feel like following a map, so mostly we just wandered around. we did see jean seberg's grave, on the joan-of-arc-theme. the place itself is very lovely (and crowded!) and we had a beautiful day, so we did get a little fix of 'parisienne death' despite the catacombs being closed.  after that we walked back towards notre dame and went to the shakespeare and co. bookstore, which is a famous little bookstore named after an older famous little bookstore. 

sent out a 'hallo' to mom in the universe and did some nice browsing. 

i think that about covers things up to this point.  i think i'm gonna sit back and contemplate how my body can continue to create mounds of phlegm, despite the fact that i blow my nose every five seconds.  it's like magic.  i'm convinced that the phlegm has devoured my brain and taken over its real estate.  there's just not enough room to store it all otherwise, and it would help explain why i can't seem to think in complete sentences...

sending love from glamorous paree.