Cimetière du Père-Lachaise

I love cemeteries, something I'm sure most people find creepy, to say the least.  But they are usually quiet, peaceful, filled with birds and flowers and trees, and sometimes with lovely views.  I like to read the carvings on the stones, read the names, read the dates.  I like to imagine the person interred there; their life, what it might have been like, what the world was like for them at the time of their experience, what might they have died from.  In one way, I like cemeteries because they are fascinating.  In another way, I think maybe its nice for the living to remember the dead, even if only that a stranger read a name and a set of dates, and imagines the rest.

Today we went to the Cimetière du Père-Lachaise, and I can't wait to go back.  I wish we could have spent all day there, but by the time we meandered through the gates it was already late afternoon, with the ever elusive Paris sun sliding further down the horizon.  I could have walked in there for hours.  We saw the grave of Chopin, and I was happy to see that there were at least 20 different sets of fresh flowers there for him, laid out by his fans within the past few days.  That so many people care enough for his music to spend their money on flowers for the grave of someone long gone, well, it was quite touching.  I was hoping to see the graves of Maria Callas, Georges Bizet, Oscar Wilde and Edith Piaf (and maybe Jim Morrison too, but just because everyone else goes there to see it) but they were all impossible to find.  Maps are sold across the street, but, in addition to the fact that I didn't feel like spending my money on a cemetery map, I also feel a little against purchased cemetery maps.  Its one thing to visit a cemetery, its another for someone to profit from your expedition.  Someone, I might add, who is NOT connected to the cemetery in anyway.  Obviously, the cemetery is famous because it is the final resting place of so many famous people, but I would have loved it even if it were full of "unknown" people.  The monuments, the statues, the view of the Eiffel Tower, everything was amazing.

While we tried to find our way back to the street, a man stopped us and asked where Jim Morrison's grave was.
 "Nous ne savons pas," I said, "Desolee."
He said something like, "Really? Its back the way you came." 
"Ah, oui?" I asked, suprised and disappointed that we hadn't seen it.
"Yes," he replied, telling us that it is very big and we must have passed it. 
I responded disappointedly, "Ah, no, nous n'avons vu pas," to which he smiled, cocked his head, and reiterated, "Oh you didn't see it?" 
"Non," I answered, "Bon chance!" 
As he walked away, Matt said to me, "'Nous n'avons pas vu', the 'pas' doesn't go at the end." 
"Oh really?" I said, repeating the corrected version to myself. 
"In fact," Matt said - something he's been saying quite often since he discovered that in French, one says 'en fait' to mean both 'in fact' and our more common word 'actually' - "You have to indicate that you haven't seen something, so it would be 'Nous ne l'avons pas vu.'" 
"Oh, yeah that makes sense." I responded, now repeated the final version of my sentence.  Meanwhile, the man was long gone.  And this is how we learn French.

Today I want to stay in France forever.