Unexpected finds are the best

So I got up and went for a run this morning along the Seine. It was a beautiful day and I loved it. It's really cool to use the Eiffel Tower as a reference point when running. SO neat.

I then met up with Aubrey to go to some more sites that aren't normally open to the public. We first went inside La Sorbonne, the University of Paris founded in the 13th century. It was absolutely gorgeous. Here's the courtyard:

Then we went to the Pantheon. This is an amazing building with tombs of a bunch of famous people in the crypt. Here are some pictures of the interior.

We saw the tombs of some really famous folks: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Emile Zola, and Voltaire. It was really neat to see all of those.

From here, we went over to the Institut de Curie - where Marie Curie and her husband Pierre did all of their experiments. That was pretty cool. Hopefully there's no more radiation in that building. Here's here laboratory:

Aubrey and I walked around in this area some more and then decided to go check out a bookstore called Shakespeare and Company, near Notre Dame. It's an all-english bookstore and it is very famous. I had gone there last time I was in Paris and really wanted to go back. The bookstore is on the bank of the Seine, facing Notre Dame. It's really old and tight, but has so many books. It's really charming. They have a random piano in it and some man who didn't work there was just sitting and playing it. They have a board you can write notes on and leave it. Here's what I wrote:

We both bought a book and checked out. As I was checking out, a really old man came up to me and said that they were having a tea party on the third floor and that everyone was invited. I walked outside and told Aubrey about it and we decided we'd go check it out. We figured it'd be a real leisurely event with tea and "biscuits" as the man called them sitting on a table. I thought we'd grab some and leave. So we walked up the back staircase to the third floor. We reached an apartment that said "George's house." We didn't know what to do. To knock or just walk away? So we knocked on the door and a British woman opened the door to a very small room - smaller than my dorm room last year. There was a table in the center with a mix-match set of tea cups and a plate of cookies. There were three or four other people in there already. The woman asked us our names and where we were from. She made fun of my Southern accent when I said North Caroliiiiina. Apparently, the man who had invited me to the tea party was 96 year-old George Whitman - the owner of the bookstore. Over the course of the next ten minutes, the lady gave us tea and more people walked in. It was the most random crowd. There was a man that had to have been 90 and his daughter, both from San Francisco. Next to them was a retired British journalist. Then there was an older Australian writer and an American man. Two Americans from Michigan walked in soon after.

Apparently, they hold this event every Sunday from 4-6pm. There were about 10 of us when everyone was in there. The woman in charge who was probably in her late 70s asked if anyone wanted to recite poetry. The old man recited two or three over the course of the two hours. He had a weird accent and I couldn't understand a word he said. His daughter who was probably in her 70s, was apparently an opera singer and she sang a song for us. It was the oddest but coolest thing I have been to since I've been here. The best part is that I just happened to stumble upon it. The lady asked Aubrey and I if we had any poetry that we could recite, but unfortunately we couldn't think of anything. The British man read some poetry that he had written. The woman in charge had written a poem that she had put to a rap and so she rapped it for us. SO hilarious. Then we got on the subject of rapping. I almost died when the older Australian woman said, "Did any of you see the movie with Em-AND-Em (Eminem)?" She was referring to the movie 8-Mile and she said "I just thought the way they rapped back in forth was wonderful. Rapping is basically poetry" - with which the woman in charge agreed. Man. Never thought I'd be sitting at a tea party and hear that.

All in all, we stayed for 2 hours and it really was a treat. I had such a good time and I'm so glad we decided to go to it. I might not go every week, but I would love to go back sometime.