Day of the Dead...from Jim Morrison to Napoleon

I woke up this morning after entering a small coma last night...12 beautiful hours of much needed sleep. One good thing about traveling by myself - I can make my own schedule! I clicked on the TV and looked for the only channel I could find in English - the BBC. Turns out this weekend is the 40th anniversary of Woodstock and BBC was interviewing young people to research the modern impact of the legendary music festival. Each person was saying they have never heard of it and all of this stupid stuff (these were americans by the way), and since I like to consider myself a bit of a hippie, it really pissed me off. Of course people from my generation know about woodstock - I spend my whole summer saving pennies to go scamper in fields listening to bands in various woodstock recreations. So today I had to do my part to pay my respects to rock music. Unfortunately, in Paris I don't have too many options. However the choice seemed quite obvious. I must find the grave of Jim Morrison.

Now I realize dad and brandon are saying “The Doors didn’t play at Woodstock, this makes no sense”…but it made sense to me! I took the metro and found the Cimetiere du Pere Lachaise. This is an enormous cemetary built into a hill that overlooks the city; there are endless wooded paths surrounded by erie grave sites. I guess I entered through a weird side entrance, because there was no man with a map like I was hoping. I wandered for over an hour hoping I would stumble into into Jim, but it was so sunny and hot I came close to just laying on top of one of the graves and calling it a day…but I must find Jim and complete my scavenger hunt!

FINALLY I found a pamplet that listed various landmarks (oh yeah Chopin, Oscar Wilde, and several other French celebrites I have never heard of were buried here too). After weaving and winding through the cobblestoned rows of graves I spot it! This one is obvious from the empty bottles of jackdaniels, cigarette butts, and Doors posters. Normally people might think this is littering or not honoring the dead, but actually it seemed pretty perfect.

After accomplishing my only task for the day, I hopped back on the metro and decided to check out some more mainstream tourist spots. I wandered through the Hotel des Invalides - a giant building that Louis XIV ordered be used as a hospital for wounded and homeless soldiers. This area had all of the French military history, Emmett would have been much more interested than I was. Behind Invalides shined the Dome Church – the tomb of Napolean. I explored this area for a couple hours, but after sweating my brains out I decided to post up on a bench in the shade and have an Orangina…or three.

At this point in the afternoon, air conditioning is in my best interest. I absolutely love Monet, so I decided to check out the Musee de l’Orangerire. This museum is much smaller than some of the others, but it house s the famous “Water Lilly series”. In two large oval shaped rooms hang eight GIANT panoramic canvases that illustrate the same pond of water lillies at various points in the day. These paintings were Monet’s gift to the French state and are the said to the pieces that sum up his entire lifetime of work.