We went over to Notre Dame again where I assimilated into a group of Asian tourists. They quickly picked me out and kicked me out of the group however.
The hunchback of Notre Dame!
And a protest of some sort! From what I could tell, they represented a trade union called CGT. There were magistrates among the crowd.
And then we saw a small church near the protest, where I noticed an unfortunate pigeon that was tragically entrapped by the netting that looked to be used for construction purposes. Kinda baffling as to how something like this happens:
We continued to walk around to see the sights and beautiful architecture around us:
This is when I got into trouble. Carl did, too. I, unfortunately, did not check to see if my flash was on--which it was.
Carl and I both snapped a picture of this fellow who seemed to be finishing up his "work" on an advertisement in the subway... WE CAUGHT HIM IN THE ACT! He turned out to be a crazy french dude who became very upset with us having captured him in the act of, what is apparently, a very serious crime in France.
When he walked up to me, I initially thought that he was trying to have a conversation with me. I don't know why I thought this. It took about 30 seconds for me to realize that he was furious with me, and that both Carl and Wiseman had run off. And so I took off after Carl and Wiseman.
Crazy-graffiti-artist-man came after me.
He was a fairly well dressed, elderly fellow, who seemed to appear very normal, but he came after me and started yelling very loudly in French. Now, normally, back in the states, I'm usually able to talk my way out of these kinds of situations and charm the hostility out of people who find me offensive. But in this case, I was defenseless... I had no idea what he was shouting at me. I caught up to Carl and Wiseman and hid behind them as the crazy old man shouted. Luckily, another crazy Frenchman, a bit younger, came over and saved us... he started to yell at the crazy old man. I'd like to think that the young crazy guy was trying to tell the old man that I am in fact a stupid American girl who didn't know any better and that I should be left alone and pitied rather than scorned for being a trigger happy tour-on (tourist moron).
I am very thankful for the young crazy man who saved us. But, if you look, the crazy old man graffiti-ing the ad, had spent some time on the ad, and at some point, he was bound to have been caught. He was just lucky that it wasn't the police and just a stupid tourist with a trigger happy camera.
I hope I don't run into him again. I'm going to look for a disguise to wear.
We rode the subway for a while... and... instead of going to the Arc de Triomphe, we went to the complete opposite end of where the Arc de Triomphe is and saw this spectacular modern Arc:
It was an amazing piece of modern architecture. The elevators went up those metal rails into the openings in the ceiling. They looked like 1950's futuristic glass pods. It was so cold I didn't want to wait to take a picture... it was fucking froid.
The modern, nouveau Arc was very large and Wiseman was blown away:
Wiseman gives a thumbs up.
Wiseman et Carl:
Oh man, Jojo, you are too much! I wish I were there to see the old crazy guy chasing you!
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