Paris: Parte Un

If I'm going to be honest, I'd rather be writing fiction on Storium right now.

That doesn't change the fact that I still have a lot to recount, and there are still a vast number of things that I need to say before this blog is done.

It's been a week since Sarah and I flew into Vancouver, but there's still quite a way to go before this chapter of my life is done being written about.  There are a lot of experiences still to be relayed, reflected upon, and understood.

Though that last one may have to be optional :D

I know I've said this a lot over the tales of our doings in Europe, but we did not have nearly enough time in Paris -- even if we did arrive on the last day of the Tour de France.

Every step in this picture has rubble and broken glass.

And before I get to all the fun stuff we did, let me just get one thing in the open right now.  All our lives we are told that Paris is a lovely, must-see place to put on your bucket list nobody who's been there ever mentions how dirty it is.  As a born and raised BC girl, I've had it drilled into my head since before I was school aged that it was my civic responsibility to put things in trash/recycle bins in order to keep my city and environment clean.  The places we traveled to may not have had the abundance of trash barrels on the street that we're used to, but there still wasn't a lot of litter to be seen.  Even Poland, which might be considered pretty backwards compared to the rest of the EU, and Radom -- which is considered pretty backward compared to most other cities in Poland -- were cleaner than Paris.

I understand that every city has its vagrant population and corners that will always smell like stale urine (like a great many places along the Seine), but the litter is unbelievable.

But moving on...

Preparing to enter the Chunnel on a bus...on a train.

When we tried to arrange accommodation in Paris, we discovered that the cheap hostels were generally quite terrifying and tended to have horrific reviews.  Cheap hotels, on the other hand, cost the same as the more expensive hostels but had the added benefit of private rooms with locks and a shower we didn't have to share with anyone else.  Let's not forget actually having a real bed that the two of us could share comfortably.  In a month of traveling we'd missed that a great deal since we left Southampton.  The inflatable mattress we had in Edinburgh was great for snuggling, but there's only so much air time you can handle in the middle of the night when your partner is heavier than you.

The view along the Seine

The Hotel Tamaris was actually really lovely, and the staff were pretty nice.  It was also dead easy to get to from the bus station, considering it was a straight shot down the M1 (almost to the end of the line) then one block away from our stop.  We didn't really do much when we got there.  We were so tired from spending nearly a whole day on the bus -- including a couple hours on a train going through the Chunnel -- and were dead tired by the time we got to the hotel.  It was muggy when we arrived, and the metro was already warm when we got on but the crowds as we passed through central Paris made it impossible to breathe.  We were just happy for a place to sit with a cool towel and some quiet.

The first full day was spent walking, and walking, and walking.  We got on the metro by our hotel (Porte de Vincennes) and disembarked at Louvre-Rivoli to begin the day with a sunlit walk along the Seine.  We couldn't have asked for more perfect weather after the rain that greeted us once we were snug in the hotel room.  There are the usual merchant's booths you would expect to see along such a famous river -- along with a few you wouldn't -- and someone even had the ingenious idea of creating a fake beach for die-hard sunbathers to enjoy along one of the lower walks.  We crossed and began exploring the lovely Cité -- which is the oldest part of Paris -- when the sound of bells guided us to this magnificent cathedral near the heart of the island.  Unless you wish to climb the bell tower or go to the treasury museum, entry is free.  Don't be daunted by the long line-ups either: it moves faster than you think.  If you go at the right times, priests give you a guided tour in your own tongue but silence is otherwise preferred.

Les vielles cloches de la Notre Dame.

Further meanderings along the Seine eventually took us outside the Louvre, but since we arrived just as the museum was closing (6 PM) we didn't go inside to look.  Instead we followed the courtyard through some circle built to commemorate one of Napoleon's successful campaigns in Austria and into the gardens of the Tuilleries.  Disgust again took root as I looked into the fountain and noted the ducks and fish swimming among plastic bags, discarded boards, and other refuse -- but beyond that the gardens are actually quite pretty.  Even the noise from the street carnival didn't really detract from the ambiance.  By this time we were starting to get hungry and thought perhaps we could wander toward the Champs-Elysee to see what was available.  We learned 2 things:

1.  When it looks close on a map, it's only close if you haven't already been walking for hours.
2.  Almost nothing on the Champs-Elysee is cheap.

Fountain at the Place de la Concorde.

We found a McDonald's just as it was getting dark and were grateful for the fact that we had the presence of mind to carry packets of kleenex in our pockets: it saved a few women from the lack of toilet paper.  I wish to all gods that are or were that we had stayed to grab a proper meal.  We got a little nibble at a nearby sandwich shop because it wasn't as crowded, but it wasn't enough and listening to Sarah when we got back to the hotel was enough to make me regret the decision.  I'll get to that in a moment.  The Arc de Triomphe is situated at the end of the Champs, and cuts a fine figure at dusk.  At first we thought the little pin-pricks at the top were statues until they moved.  Yes, for a small fee you can take pictures from the top of the arc and there's an interpretive centre below street level.  For a busy tourist area like Paris, this museum actually closes at a reasonable time.

We went from there to the Eiffel Tower in surprisingly short order considering the day we'd already had.  As we approached, Sarah was kind enough to take a picture for someone who was looking at the tower, but what we didn't realize until he started talking to us is that he was really a hustler posing as a tourist in an effort to get the attention of nice people like us.  He actually spoke decent English, but the kind that indicated a few missing teeth.  He kept offering to take us to after-parties, and to pay for us to go to the top of the tower -- and would NOT take no for an answer every time we declined.  Even other hustlers trying to hawk souvenirs kept coming to check on us the more persistent this man became, especially one man selling statuettes who came around more frequently the more visibly nervous Sarah became.  When we tried to beg off by saying that we needed to get back to our hotel and sleep he tried to follow us with the promise of "satisfaction."

The promise of robbery and murder in our sleep is probably closer to the truth.  There are scam artists everywhere in Paris, but even the ones that refuse to listen when you tell them to go away did not make me feel as gut-wrenchingly threatened as he did.

We began to walk back to the metro stop on the Champs when we ran into a lovely young couple from the Netherlands who were trying to make their way to the tower and got a lot of useful advice for applying to work there as English teachers.  Maybe one day we'll have to take them up on it.  As we slowly trudged back, we didn't think anything else could possibly go wrong with our night.  We were sorely mistaken.



Traveler be warned: if you plan on enjoying the nightlife, the metro shuts down at 1 AM.

To be continued...