Paris!

So it’s been a while since I’ve blogged…again. I don’t really have time to do it much. I’m incredibly busy/tired here. I don’t even have time to look through the pictures I’ve taken. I’m planning on doing it on the way home. Even when I get home I’ll be really busy so it might be Thanksgiving break before I get the pictures all done. Anyway…Paris.

The trip started of well. Sally dropped me off right at the train station so I wouldn’t have to walk with my luggage. I take Chelsfield to Waterloo East and from Waterloo East take the Eurostar through the ‘chunnel’ to Paris. The ‘chunnel’ was only 20 minutes of darkness. The other 2 hours were just fields in England and France. For whatever reason I was expecting to be underwater a lot longer than that.

We get off of our train in Paris excited to be there and are immediately aggravated with Paris. We have to use the bathroom but before we can do that we have to get our money changed into Euros so we can PAY to use the (horribly disgusting, incredibly smelly) bathroom. So we walk around for 5 minutes in a huge train station with thousands of people. You’d think there would be PLENTY of ATM’s for these people to get money out of and spend in Paris. No. We only find 1 and we wait 20-30 minutes to use it. We get our Euros, experience the bathroom (that only foreshadowed the rest of the Paris Metro experience), and then try to get on the tube (they call it the Metro) so we can get to our hotel. We immediately discover how confusing Paris’ public transportation is. In London the tube is made of several different lines that are all different (and easily distinguishable) colors. Each line is represented by this easy to read color and a full name, such as the District Line (green) or the Circle Line (yellow). This must be too easy for the French. They decide to have about 10 lines and just number them. So you can take the 4 to the 6 and ride the 6 all the way to the Eiffel Tower (just making those numbers up, don’t remember which number line when to the tower). These numbers seem ok except the colors they use to draw the lines all look the same! There were at least 2 shades of pink, 2 shades of purple, and 2shades of every other color. The fact that all the signs in the stations were 25 years old, dirty, and faded didn’t help anything either. In London on the tube map they only put the underground system on it. Not the elevated Trains or bus systems. In Paris they put the other stuff on the Map just to make it harder to read. They call their trains RER (something in French express routes). They letter these A, B, and C. They also color these using the same colors as the metro lines and put them right beside them on the map. So they’ll be 2 yellow lines going parallel in the same direction and you can’t tell them apart. If the metro was only confusing that would be fine. It only took a little while to get used to, but you can’t get used to the SMELL!
Imagine a homeless man who hasn’t bathed in 3 weeks is walking 5 feet in front of you while urinating on himself. This is what 95% of the Metro smelled like at all times. Besides the trains, stops, and platforms smelling horrible, the people did too. Paris is an artsy city and artsy people can be a little weird, but they still can bathe! In London’s underground no one talks on the tube and they usually don’t smell bad. Wish I could say the same about the Metro. The people on it were loud, obnoxious, and always smelled…
Bottom line- the Metro is HORRIBLE! (although really cheap).

Anyway, we finally figure out how to get to our hotel. We get there with only 1 mistake (just getting off 1 stop early to change lines) but all is well. We’re a block and a half from the Arc de Triomphe and our hotel is really nice for being only $50 USD a night (per person). The only odd thing was the lift only held 2 people. And by 2 people I mean 2 skinny people. It was the smallest elevator I’ve ever seen in my life.

That night we ate dinner at a café on the Champs Elysse on the way to the Louvre. The food was cheaper than London and WAY better! We went the Louvre that night for free and saw a good bit there. We walked back to our hotel later that night and were really tired from traveling/walking miles/ and the Louvre so we went to bed early that night. Next day we went to Notre Dame, the Concierge, St. Chappele, the Centre Pompidou, and stumble upon a Gay Pride Parade…We’re leaving Notre Dame and we see this big banner (in French) going across a big street and it’s closed and there are tons of people and loud music. We say ‘hey lets go check this out’. Shortly into the walk we think ‘wow there really are a lot of gay people in Paris’. Next thing we know a huge almost 18 wheeler size truck is driving by with huge speakers in the back blasting loud dance music. About 20 guys are dancing all on the truck with their shirts off and blowing whistles. Hundreds of people are walking behind them dancing and blowing whistles too. We think ‘this is odd…’ Then we see the huge rainbow flags on the trucks and it all comes together. This truck was followed by many more even gayer trucks. We observed for a couple minutes laughed, and left. That night we walked up the Eiffel tower (as high as you were allowed to walk. Then we took the elevator). It was awesome. The views of the city were awesome. Paris is a lot prettier than London in many regards. London is really pretty and has a lot of pretty areas, but they also have some not so pretty industrial looking areas. Everything we could see in Paris just looked nice and pretty. Too bad it was dirty and smelly….

The next day we met up with a friend of mine from LSU, Melanie Little, and we ate lunch with her and her friends. After lunch we went to the Pantheon and ate dinner. This was our last night so we had to take night pictures of the Eiffel Tower. This would have been fine, except for the fact it was raining. So after dinner we go to the Eiffel Tower about 8pm and try to wait out the rain. 4 Hours later we succeeded. It quit raining and cleared up well enough to take some pictures. We stayed out till 2am taking pictures (since we didn’t start till midnight).

On our last day we met back up for lunch with Melanie and her friends and then went on a riverboat cruise of the Sienne river. The cruise was really good and the weather was perfect. The cruise was just a little late in the afternoon…we had to run back from the cruise to our hotel to get my back and then run to the train station to catch our train. We made it in time…but as close as I’d like to cut it.

Overall Paris was great- really beautiful, really historic, and a lot cheaper than London. However, the horrible smells of the Metro, the French language (which I don’t speak), and the constant presence of PDA from couples of young and old EVERYWHERE left me ready to go back to London! I’ll go back to Paris one day- just not without a woman and a slight knowledge of the French language.