Ah Paris! – 17/11/2006-19/11/2006

My friend Miki decided she needed a vacation, so she booked a trip to Italy, France and Scotland for two weeks. Paris being cheaper airfares than my choices in Italy, I chose to meet her in Paris for the weekend, simultaneously ticking off #2 of 3 of the European cities Miquel told me I have to see. We met up Friday night at the hotel and she joined me for the blandest Indian food I have ever eaten for dinner late that night. I felt bad for laughing at her tales of lost luggage and not-really-astonishing bad customer service from Air France. The hotel was not very far from the Eiffel Tower, so we could see it looming overhead on the walk back to the hotel.

The next morning, I enjoyed a 5K run around the perimeter of the Tower and back, only getting slightly lost once. Large pointy thing looming in sky tends to help with navigation. The Tower is big. Really big. I’m not sure how big I expected it to be, but it was big. The day started warming up during my run, so I was excited to get out like a mad tourist and not be bundled up in wooly everything. The rest of the morning was a leisurely start.

First up, La Cathédrale de Notre Dame de Paris. And breakfast. It took us a little while to figure out how to get on the Metro, specifically because we could not buy tickets at Pasteur station. We walked to a bigger station and figured it out easily enough. Once we were on the metro, we had to change trains at one of the bigger stations. It had tunnel after tunnel leading to a moving walkway. The moving walkway had this rumbly stuff leading up to and away from it that was so much more fun than the regular moving walkway. We surfed. Nervously.

Once at Notre Dame, we took our breakfast outside of the café Esmerelda, overlooking the Seine and Notre Dame’s back garden. Most importantly, we enjoyed the bright, warm sun. After sun, we wandered the grounds and then the innards. Saturday mass was ongoing while we were there, so we ogled old things and stained glass with praying and chanting in the background.

After Notre Dame, we hopped back on the Metro and headed for the Catacombes. My map of the city wasn’t the most informative thing in the world and neither was the big map on display at the traffic junction, so we took a few wrong turns finding the entrance to the Catacombes. The entrance that was just across the street from the Metro Station we exited.

The Catacombes were really interesting and eerie. We wound down many stairs into the tunnels under the city. After mining the bedrock for its limestone, the city decided to empty the graveyards and entomb the remains there amongst the empty space. If I can read my roman numerals correctly, the first remains were brought there in 1786. I felt very very cold down there. Miki told me I was crazy, that it was nowhere near that cold. We followed the labyrinth of tunnels with piles of bones surrounding us. It has to be haunted. I don’t believe in ghosts, but I still believe it’s haunted.

Outside the tombs, we wandered through more catacombs. Looking up, we saw the aftermath of a few cave-ins. Limestone is a bit fragile for that. It was a long climb up twisty, claustrophobic spiral stairs back to daylight. Two thoughts floated through my head. Don’t stop and don’t anybody touch me. Yay claustrophobia.

After the catacombes, we continued our trend of zigzagging across the city with a zag north to Monmartre, home of Amelie. Our first impression of Monmartre was the promenade of sex shops. It reminded me of red lights in Amsterdam, though I was happy to not be heckled in Monmartre. At the corner of La Rue Epic stood the famous Moulin Rouge. After obligatory tourist duties, we turned there and followed the street up to the Café de les Deux Moulins, where we stopped for a snack. Crème Brulée de Amelie Poulain, of course.

We wandered more of Monmartre. Miki got hit on by one of the market owners. We stopped for dinner at a café called The Marmite, which led to an interesting discussion about the perplexing, foul smelling Australian “delicacy” over dinner. Thankfully, marmite was not on the menu.

After dinner, we headed for the Champs Elysées and the Arc de Triomphe. We did a tourist lap, stopping for another tourist moment to take Arc photos at the tiny space between lanes in the centre of the Champs Elysées. Miki and I made friends with two other tourists there, swapping cameras with a Chinese guy and an Ecuadorian (if that’s a word?) guy. The Ecuadorian guy liked us so much that he insisted we stay and be in his Arc picture with him. After Arc photos, we did something I have not done in all my time in Europe. We set foot in a McDonald’s. To take advantage of their loo, not to eat. The McD’s was massive. It still smelled bad, the usual more like chemicals than food smells, but being in Paris and the Champs Elysées, it had a café as well. Mc Pastries and Mc Expensive Coffee to go with the usual grease. We escaped quickly.

At the far other end of the Champs Elysées, we found a big traffic circle and more old buildings at Concorde something. We admired the fish people at the big fountain and took some more photos before deciding to call it a night. Our plan for the morning was to get up reasonably early to tour the Eiffel Tower before I had to head to the airport and home.

Sunday morning looked nothing like Saturday morning. Ok, it sort of did, except for the overcast, rain and wind. Great time to be wandering around atop tall buildings! I decided against a second morning run – not hugely interested in carrying around wet gear all day or being cold(er) all day for that. We headed for the Tower anyway. Only the lifts were open, so minimal stairs but plenty of overcrowded elevators for our enjoyment.

The Eiffel Tower was my first encounter with Japanese tourists in ages and I wasn’t totally ready for it. While queueing for tickets initially, I was nearly impaled by umbrellas six time. I envied Miki her stature. She was slightly out of range for most passes. We came, we queued, we conquered. The first lift was unnerving but big enough to not be too freaky. We queued again on the 2nd “floor” for the next round of lifts, deciding to conquer the top first and then wander the 2nd floor on the way back down.

Our turn came up. The lift went ding. A Japanese woman cried eeeee and what felt like forty people squealed in reply and stuffed themselves in and around us into the lift to the top. The lift flew to the top, not giving either Miki or me time to adjust to the changing height. We clung to each other as our fellow sardines chattered or shivered around us. The tower seemed to go up forever, but finally arrived at the top enclosure for us to unpack ourselves. The arrival area was enclosed, giving me a few moments to make peace with the height.

After a quick lap, we wandered up to the top deck, which was exposed, though fenced. We did a slower lap. Miki gave me her camera to take some photos from the edge, as she was not emotionally ready to be there just yet. After Miki got brave enough to venture out near the edge, I asked one of our fellow sardines to take our photo with the haze and city behind us.

After those photos, we wandered more, took more photos and then headed back with gravity. The first elevator was still scary though less sardiny. I was happier on the second floor than the top. Took more photos. Made peace with the height easier. We had entertained the idea of getting off at the 1st floor to wander around, but the lift to the base was too crowded for us to realise we had arrived there until the lift was departing again. More photos from the base, with gravity unable to play too many more tricks on us.

Sadly, it was time for me to go. The joy of Ryanair meant taking the bus to the plane to the train to get back to Edinburgh. On my journey home, I lost a karabiner thanks to the friendly security staff at the Beauvais airport calling it a weapon. I was annoyed and argued with them about consistency or lack thereof, but in the end they won. I was not prepared to check my backpack, break my camera, break my glasses, miss my flight, etc, to make my point.

For all of the negative stories of American tourists in Paris, my airport experience was my only problem. Everyone in Paris was very nice. I got to practice my appalling French. They humoured me. Some replied in English straight away. Others replied in French until I said, “Je ne parle pas français,” and then they switched to English. Once or twice, I didn’t need the translation. Not bad for 14 years out of practice, unless you count Belgium. Then it’s only a few months out of practice. Sadly or not, I never really got to use my favourite phrase from that trip, which was, “Je me suis perdue,” although we could have used it to find the Catacombes sooner.