Paris

Bonjour!

My summer “euro-tour” ended in style with a trip to the French capital. Didn’t see Johnny Depp but managed to meet some other interesting folks while I crashed at a hostel just 10 minutes walking distance from the Effiel Tower. Paris is easily the closet european city to resemble New York City in my opinion… just way more cleaner and relaxed.

I couldn’t believe how massive in size the city is. You could spend a month here and still not experience everthing! The Musée de Louvre is so frigging big you’d have to spend a entire week just to sneak a peek at everything in it’s collection. Besides the fact that they have a lot of stolen goods, like the famous Venus de Milo among others, it’s an impressive collection from what I was able to see.

After getting shotty directions from the airport I ended up walking from the Pompidou all the way down to commerce street (where my accomodation was) on my first day in. That’s about two miles folks. But I noticed how everything of primary interest runs along the Seine river, including the Louvre, Notre-Dame, Invaldies, the Effiel Tower, Musée d’Orsay and Jardin des Tuileries. The boulevards are super wide and every building has some type of ornate detail fashioned upon it. And you can see art nouveau & baroque influnces everywhere.

You would think after 8+ years of being taught French I would have some decent command of the lanaguage, but nope, nada, no way Jose…my french is totally garbagé. Yet somehow I managed not to get treated as the “ugly American” and everyone aside from an impatient waiter seemed to be really helpful and friendly towards me, even weirdos on the street. It did help that I sincerely tried to start convo’s in french.

(In fact, for a few days, I was still saying things in French even when I got back to London as I was still in the mindset of using those phrases.)

Paris is not cheap though, with a 12oz/33cl can of coke costing around €2.00 ($2.50) as my hostel mate Erin decried it as criminal. And Parisians smoke way too much for my taste. Plus the metro subway system is all kinds of jacked up as it works like a maze sometimes just trying to get to the otherside of the platform; very annoying. Other than that, those were my only grievances on what is otherwise a magnificient city.

Since I didn’t know anyone I just walked around a lot, attended some of the famous sites (I passed on going to the top of the Eiffel Tower) and went to a few museums. So much to see and do here. And the food is really great, but my wallet said no to the posh stuff most of the time.

I didn’t know what to expect prior to my arrivial, especially since I knew absolutely no-one out here, and I have to admit I was a bit nervous at first. But I felt so weirdly comfortably while I traversed the city and each day I was here I was more and more impressed with the city. I heard many mixed things about “the French” beforehand and all I can say, even if only after a paltry 5 day visit, is that there’s a little bit of truth in each of those rumors, but most of it is hogwash far and wide. At the root of it all the french just love themselves and aren’t ashamed to show it. And that’s a sentiment I can respect.

some highlights include:
001. seeing the Effiel Tower from inside a subway car
002. Abbesses Metro
003. The Birdman
004. Vintage Postcards
005. French Advertising
006. Inside the Musée D’Orsay
007. Terrible tourist pictures
008. Familar Names
009. Creperies
010. Jacques Chirac cartoon

more pictures from Paris:
set 1 • set 2 • set 3 • set 4 • set 5
set 6 • set 7 • set 8 • set 9 • set 10
set 11 • set 12 • set 13 • set 14
(click on any of the above image sets to advance to the next picture.)

some videos from Paris:
video 1 — Eiffel Tower sparkling 1 (4.5 MB)
video 2 — Eiffel Tower sparkling 2 (2.9 MB)
video 3 — Metro Station Band (7.4 MB)
video 4 — Street Performer (3.4 MB)

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