Oh, dem bones!

After a rather lazy start to the day, the entire gang, seen here:


met up for a tour of the catacombs. I wasn't exactly sure what to expect. But I'm pretty sure it was one of the least romantic things Tim and I have ever done. The catacombs were created because the cemetary in one area (ironically the area where we live), which was used for hundreds and hundreds of years, was making the residents around it ill. So, it was decided to move the bones of the dead into one area. The idea caught on and soon bones from all Parisian cemetaries began pouring in.


Today, you wait in line for 90 minutes in the freezing cold to decend a crazy spiraling staircase, walk for about 15 minutes through tunnels (think: the Seven Drawfs going to work) and walk through another 30 minutes or so of stacked bones.


The catacombs are huge. When you walk out, you're a mile away from where you started. The stacks are five feet tall (about as tall as me) and 80 feet deep. For miles.

Throughout the stacks are signs letting passersby know what cemetary evicted the bones. Some signs are more prophetic with sayings like, "We were once what you are, and you will someday be like us." Or, "Happiness is found in a man who knows he's going to die and lives everyday as if it were his last." Loosly translated,of course. They could be saying, "Don't forget to tip your waitstaff," for all I know, since my French is pretty rusty.



Anyway, it was interesting to see and I'm glad I went. Although, I did chuckle at the sign at the entrance warning people who have nervous dispositions that this might not be the activity for them. I also thought it was funny that they had a defribrillator at the top of the exit stairs (six flights of spiriling stairs straight up that are about one-and-a-half times taller than normal). There was also a guy there checking bags for stolen bones--and you can see he rescued a few today from sticky-fingered tourists!