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After a day wandering the Parisien streets we decided to finish our brief Paris trip with a stop off at the Arc de Triomphe.

It dwarfs with its size.

After taking some cliché tourist photos (those things that everyone takes, but no one really looks at) we took the tunnel under the street to climb up in the in the middle and see it first hand. Capitalism had another plan since it seemed that it would cost 6 euros each just to wander around the base. Fulya decided that we should just enter through the exit. As we left we noticed that some officers had stationed themselves at the top of the stairway, but as we went up it just became apparent that paying would be ridiculous. The shape of the Arc created a wind tunnel of cold night air, so we stayed mostly in the other tunnel of the arc that was shielded from the wind.

A girl in a hooded jacket sitting off to the side makes momentary eye contact but then looks down at a journal or sketchbook. I assume she is making observations of the diverse crowd of people at the Arc.

After leaving we take the metro again. In a confusion of which stop to take I get out too soon and jump back in just as the doors close. I make it in but in the instant that I make it though and the doors close it they close on my camera bag trapping it in the door. The strap snaps as if it required no force at all. We pull and try to twist it through the opening in the door but it is tightly shut. Finally the door releases slightly and I pull the bag through. The front cover of my sketch book has been dented, folded. But thankfully nothing is wrong with my camera.

I sew the strap back together on the foggy car ride back to Rennes. We awkwardly sleep sitting up in the backseat for most of the ride back. Our driver is a balding Algerian dental assitant who wear metal rimmed glasses. I fear we frustrated him as we both slept in the back, where he was actually wanting to have more conversation.

La boheme plays over his stereo system. I can’t seem to escape this song, but I also can’t seem to track it down in French and not English to download.
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