Day 6

Fountain Across From Notre Dame 9:40 AM 6/26/10

We're at the same fountain that we had breakfast at yesterday morning. We just took showers again (two days in a row!) and we washed some of our clothes and now we need to find a place to dry them because the park that we hung out at yesterday is being set up for some kind of event. Notre Dame is having a service today so the streets are less crowded than usual.

Yesterday, we sat at the park almost all day. We took turns sneaking into a cafe to use the toilet and when Troy went, this ,an came up to me and warned me about this other man who he said had been stealing people's stuff. The stealer was wandering around, touching people's things and people all around me were packing up their things and leaving. The ,an growled at this family and they left quickly. I checked my stuff to see if the man warning be had taken anything and I gathered everything else closer to me, but there was no way I could carry both packs away. The man was pacing around and he looked crazy, talking to himself (and not on a bluetooth). He kept edging closer and I tried to not look worried, but keep an eye on him. Troy came back and sat down. I told him what happened. The guy left minutes later and I checked my stuff again just in case the crazy guy was a distraction for the real thief (maybe the guy warning people). I had everything, but Troy and I thought that it would have been a great ploy. We left the park a little after 5PM and headed to the internet cafe to catch up on our blog (talk about metafiction).

Then we went to the market, got some cash and headed back to Gare de Lyon to see about catching a train to Avignon. We bought a ticket for Saturday at 3:15PM, that meant one more night in Paris! We wallked down the Seine path and found a grassy area to set up our tent (I think Troy really wants to justify bringing it by using it atleast once). So we set it up and sat by the bike path, Troy playing music and me reading. People passed by, some smiled, some scowled, one woman asked to take our picture. She wanted a candid shot so we just kept doing what we were doing.

Then a guy came by and asked us if we spoke French, we said 'un petit,' he asked if we spoke Spanish, we said 'un poco,' then he asked if we spoke English, 'yes.' Turns out he is from San Diego. His name is Emmanuel. He told us that last night, he had slept where we had set up here and the police came by at 3AM and kicked him out, but that there were more tents and people just around the corner and no one bothered them there. We moved our stuff to this little Gypsy camp under a bridge. We set up and ended up talking to Emmauel until 1AM. He read our tarot cards and apparently I'm not going to succeed as a writer, but Troy's band will do well. We fell asleep, listening to the gypsy people and woke up at 8AM to one of them telling us it was time to go before the police came. Emmanuel had left us a note saying he'd be back by 7 AM for we were going to show him to the free showers, but it was 8 and he wasn't there yet so we left him a note and headed out.