I got in at 9:00 AM, which was 2:00 AM for me, but I felt fine because I got a quick nap on the plane. My friend Margaret wound up being on the same plane as me. She owns a shoe store and was flying in to go to the shoe show in Paris. I knew we were arriving at the same time, but I didn’t know we were on the same plane. Which we almost weren’t. With literally 35 seconds left before takeoff Margaret, her daughter, and her boyfriend came running down the aisle to their seats.
I was going to take the train to Christy’s, but since Margaret was taking a cab into the city anyways I just hopped a ride with her. Our cab driver was nice, but wouldn’t shut up. I kept on trying to look around and he kept on trying to tell me about how difficult it is for him to eat out because he keeps kosher. I was totally blown away by the motos. I mean I’d heard about how crazy they were, but seeing it first hand is very different. They ride motorcycles (and scooters) the way we ride bikes; weaving in and out of traffic, riding in between lanes, even riding in between moving lanes (in the middle of road, not against the parked cars). The cab driver said that there are ten deaths every day in Paris (or maybe in all of France), and two out of each ten are from moto accidents. I didn’t see anyone ragdoll, but I’m constantly expecting to see a body fly by like a bird, or like that cow in Twister.
Margaret couldn’t get into her rented apartment because it was too early, so we hung out at a cafe while we waited for Christy to meet us. She was 10 minutes late! We dropped my stuff off at her apartment, she gave me the tour, and then we headed off to Notre Dame.
While waiting in line I started to get really drowsy as jet-lag caught up to me, so I went across the street and ordered an espresso. In French. Hot damn! That perked me up, so I went back to wait in the slowest line ever. We didn’t know what was taking so long, but we figured it out when it was our turn and they sequestered us in the gift shop for 15 minutes before letting us up the stairs to the ramparts. Very crafty, but nobody bought any of their swag so the joke’s on them.
Unfortunately I was rather unimpressed with Notre Dame. It was a lot smaller than I expected, only a few of the gargoyles looked like they did in the movie, and none of them could talk. But the view was nice and I got some good pictures.
After Notre Dame we walked over to the Louvre. In order to get into it for free we had to take our student passes to this special office and get a special Louve pass. I was so tired I almost fell asleep in the chair while getting my pass and picture taken. Then we walked around the Louvre and eventually made our way to the Mona Lisa, which was really small and kind of underwhelming. We bummed around the Louve for a bit, casing the joint, and then headed out to dinner. We ate at an Italian restaurant that was pretty good. I started to nod off during dinner and kept getting poked by Christy. Afterwards we went home and I passed out from exhaustion.
The next day I stopped taking notes on everything I did, so it’s going to be a little nonlinear from now on.
I woke up rested, but with a slight headache which was probably from jet-lag and the massive amounts of caffeine I had the day before. It was sunnier out, and that makes a huge difference for how Paris looks. Maybe it was just me, but I thought it looked really depressing when it was cloudy.
We decided since it was sunny the Eiffel Tower would be a good place to go. Christy didn’t want to climb it but I made her. The climb was nice, but having the foresight not to wear boots that day would have been nice too. The view from the top was incredible and windy. They force you to take an elevator from the first stage to the top even though there are stairs, which I thought was pretty lame. I would have liked to be able to say I walked all the way to the top.
I think we did the Rodin museum afterwards. Maybe that was another day. Anyways, the Rodin museum was pretty awesome. I got to see The Thinker and we came upon it at just the right time of day so that it cast a shadow of itself on one of the nearby trees.
At some point we had crepes at Christy’s favorite place. I had a goat cheese crepe that was so good we went back again. We also had some amazing falafel that was much more authentic than it is in the States.
Close to the end we went to Montmartre, specifically Sacre Cur. It was really beautiful, I just wish I hadn’t ordered that 4 Euro water.
Now I’m beginning to run out of memories of Paris. I’m sure there was some other stuff we did but I can’t remember … oh, the architecture was absolutely fucking incredible. Our buildings (new or old) are just butt-ugly by comparison. We need to just tear them all down and start over with super-modern organic designs because Europe has the old buildings market covered.
My overall opinion of Paris is that it was awesome, but over-hyped. People paint it as this unbelievable utopia, and while it was great, it was no utopia. It was kind of a little like New York, but the buildings were shorter (so you can see the sky), and it wasn’t as dirty. I loved it, but I’d still say Berlin is better. Next up: Lisbon!
March 12, 2008, 2:08pm
