Flea Market & Père Lachaise

7 mai

Most museums and main sights in Paris are closed on Mondays, so I went to some flea markets!  It was not a super touristy area which was a nice break.  When I got to the area, I felt like I was the only white person there.  The flea markets were incredible though.  They were like upscale department stores, but in individual stalls.  There were shops with beads, furniture, stamps, jewelry, art, fabric, vintage records, books, postcards and so many other things.  I bought a pretty bracelet that had a pressed flower in it.  I also bought some vintage postcards and a vintage Edith Piaf record.  

Then I went to the Père Lachaise cemetary which is probably one of my favorite things that I've seen so far in Paris.  It is this ginormous cemetary that covers acres and acres.  Most of the graves are extremely old.  The graves were for the most part large and ornate.  They were like houses or chapels for a family's graves or for an individual person.  Lots of famous French people are buried here as well as Chopin and Oscar Wilde.  It is super easy to get lost in this cemetary since it is so large.  There are street signs on all the pathways so that you can follow a map around to where you want to go.  I love that I am in Paris for more than just a few days so that I can see things like this incredible cemetary that are off the beaten tourist path.  

A family initials.  There would be parents and siblings buried with a family gravestone like this.  

It all went on forever and ever.

I loved this cemetery because of the incredible juxtaposition.  While there, I was surrounded on all sides by death and sadness, but yet I felt peaceful.  The trees were beautiful, it was a bright sunny day, I was surrounded by flowers, and the birds were chirping.  It was such an interesting meeting of life and death that presented the idea of hope in death through such beauty.

This memorial to the dead was touching.  It shows two people entering death, but comforting oen another.  

Je t'aime

Chopin's grave

Graves of Moliere and La Fontaine

The Crematory

Oscar Wilde's grave with all the lipstick 

Edith Piaf

Memorial to Holocaust victims

On the holocaust memorial: One could bruise their body but never their spirits

That evening, we went to FHE with the Young Single Adults and then some friends and I went and sat on the Seine until all the lights on the bridges turned on.  Paris is beautiful at night!