(31): The Scavenger Hunt

(31) is Saturday, 6 February 2010

A bunch of us had spent the last week organizing and compiling a list of items for a treasure hunt that was to (and did!) take place on Saturday. The rules were simple: 2 people to a team (except for my team of 3), 4 hours (4-8 PM) to take as many pictures of things on the list as possible, and we all meet at St. Michel fountain (where all the cool people meet all their cool friends) afterward to find dinner and exchange pictures, award points, and tell stories.

A few items from the list, just to give you a sense of what kind of crazy people I'm dealing with. This isn't all of them, and the pictures don't all match up.

--A picture of the Eiffel Tower taken from a moving metro train

--A candid picture of rival team members unaware you're photographing them

--A street sign from each arrondissement of Paris (bonus if you get them all)

--Most unfortunate name for a building, business, etc.*

--A picture of the Arc de Triomphe and a picture of the Great Mosque of Paris taken within 20 minutes of each other

--A French couple making out (see picture below featuring Liz MacLachlan)

We stayed mostly in the center of Paris (arrondissements 1-6). We picked up a few pictures having to do with Notre Dame, St. Michel Fountain, and side streets (as you might have guessed, half of the items on the list weren't location specific). After a while, we found ourselves wandering in the strangest vacuum of a district I've ever seen: we were in the center of Paris, and yet we couldn't find a bloody metro station to take us to our next destination. Finally, we found one, and Liz split off from me and Stephanie to change shoes at home and take pictures of a few arrondissement street signs while Stephanie and I got a few specific items (like the Eiffel Tower shot and a street named for a famous American... JFK boulevard is serendipitously near the metro required for the Tower train shot).

We finished and met up at St. Michel, where we found a surprisingly good prix fixe dinner for 14,50 euros; I had mussels, salmon, and apple tart. All quite good, especially for the price. The best part, though, was trading stories and debating who took the funniest picture**, the picture of the most attractive people in Paris, and other such things. Lizzie and Allie won by a few points, but we were all winners because-- in this chasse au tresor-- the real treasure was friendship.

Aww.

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Photo Tags

Top of the entry: Another off-list picture, but one I liked. It translates to "Welcome to France."

From top to bottom below...

--LizMac and a member of a street band playing in front of Notre Dame. I only wish I had captured the tuba player's impromptu, mime-ish dance that followed.

--Blown glass store that caught my eye. No scavenger hunt points, but big artsy points.

--LizMac and the Parisian couple. There you are, Liz. I hope you're satisfied.

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Footnotes

* I took the winning photo for that one. And, no, I'm not going to tell you what it is here. Shoot me an email or Facebook message or something if you're really curious.

** We won that as well, for another picture I have prudently kept off the internet.