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Paris, May-June 1999, Part 1
written by RS
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I had been to Paris once, 1991. In 1998 I thought about going there
but didn't go after all. Then in Autumn 1998 I had a big France craze, and
I became a fan of singer-songwriter Serge Gainsbourg. His albums were hard
to find in Finland so in 1999 I decided to go to Paris. I had four things
I wanted to do there: 1) Buy Gainsbourg's cd's. 2) See Gainsbourg's house.
3) See the place where Gainsbourg was buried. 4) Go to Disneyland.
Saturday 29. May 1999
I flew from Finland to Paris. It still wasn't very warm in Finland so it
was almost shocking to see that in Paris the temperature was 28 degrees
centigrate. I heard that all the big museums were out on strike. This of
course isn't a good thing because the museums are the reason for many people
to go to Paris.
My hotel was somewhere near Pigalle. Not a very nice area. There are a lot
of strip-tease places and such. Always when I went to my hotel, people were
shouting something like "Hello pretty boy, come see our girls".
I wouldn't go to places like that, I've heard that even if the entrance
is free they have their ways to get the customers pay lots of money. My
room was small and you could see inside through the window from another
room of the same hotel. In that room there were some high school students
who made an awful noise in the night. A few boys saw me through my window
and I think they thought I was a girl (because I have long hair). Then they
were outside my room all the time. When I came out of my room, they probably
thought I was the boyfriend of that girl and didn't realize that there wasn't
a girl.
I didn't do much on the first day, just walked a bit on Champs-Élysées
near the Triumphal Arch.
Place de la Concorde
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