Journey to the Centre of the Earth

Well someone or other convinced me to go into the tunnels under Paris with a friend whose map had been printed from the internet. We were warned that there could knee-deep water and possible forays off the map, not to mention the fact that you're not really supposed to do it and it's possible one may run into freaks down there.

We passed through a building site, a gypsy camp and through a glass strewn hole in a tunnel of disused railway tracks to gain entry.

Yes, it was wet, there were points of squeezing through gaps or finding caved in tunnels but mostly it felt safe. That is until we saw another light in the distance and one in our group picked up a rock, just in case. The light approached, our group silenced. Boys in front, girls behind. But it was another bunch of intrepid explorers so everything was fine.

We saw a rock formation



in a room filled with carvings some recited poetry







And old telephone cables



before coming out the other side.



Exciting as it was, I don't think I'll be doing that again. And the looks on the metro - when people saw sandstone caked in our hair, wet jeans and spattered clothes along with my general preference for being above ground mean I won't be going down again.

SLAM!

Last night we went to a slam poetry night at a bar in Belleville called Culture Rapide on the corner of rue Belleville and Julien Lacroix. Slam poetry is a competition where poets perform their piece and are given a score by the judges - in this case picked randomly from the audience - then a final follows and a winner is crowned.

My favourite poem of the night, perhaps because I understood it, began with "When I grow up I'll drink whisky, eat peanuts and smoke cigarettes".

Sadly we didn't see the finals due to the impending last Metro but the mojitos were cheap and tasty, the poetry performative and the locale was just what I'd heard about Belleville - cool in the way of an area only just shifting from immigrant to artist, we all know that bobo is not too far behind.

For more details about slam in Paris click here.