Note: this was originally published to Fisch and Chips on October 24, 2013. I have made several edits since, mostly to correct grammar and to preserve anonymity of my travel buddies (whom I haven't heard from in a while and would prefer to get permission from to identify). The post originally had some videos, but I've been unable to re-upload them here. I've modified the post so that their absence isn't noticeable.
Yep, that’s me wearing a beret in front of the Eiffel Tower. How did this come to be? Well, it was the tail end of my awesome weekend trip to Paris these past few days!
To start with, the trip into Paris itself on Saturday was quite fun. My travel partner, T, and I met up at the Victoria Coach Station to take the awesomely-named Megabus all the way into France. I don’t remember most of the first half of the trip on account of being asleep (did I mention that I woke up sometime before 6am that morning? The lessons of the King’s Cross fiasco are still with me), but when I woke up, the scenery had changed…dramatically, to say the least.
This was taken from the upper front window of the Megabus. In case you can’t quite interpret what this shows, let me spell it out: the Megabus was loaded onto a train, which then went through the English Channel Tunnel, meaning that in a strange turn of events, I was traveling in a bus called the Megabus in a train traveling underwater, a method of transportation that sounds like it came out of a science fiction movie. When the train finally exited the tunnel (and the Megabus exited the train), I finally found myself in France!
As you can tell from these pictures, rural France is beautiful. Very beautiful. For the second leg of the journey, I spent a fair amount of time taking pictures of the scenery and reading King Richard II for my Shakespeare class. However, about two hours was taken up watching Natural Born Killers with T. After all, what movie screams “Welcome to France!” like a movie about young love, mass murder, and the corruption of American culture?
Anyway, we arrived in Paris without incident and soon sought out our additional traveling companions and hosts. After learning to navigate the Metro (the Parisian equivalent of the Tube), we got to wander around the streets of Paris at night (which, to my pleasant surprise, was much warmer than London, which is why you won’t see too many photos of me wearing my parka). I was already somewhat smitten, as the whole place had a lively vibe to it and was brightly lit (hey, it’s the City of Lights!). The Seine River was gorgeous and reminded me of the River Thames.
It was on the bridge from whence I took this photo where we met up with two of our traveling companions for the weekend, M and S, a pair of fellow Bearcats that T had introduced me to last month. Almost immediately, we then located our hosts for the weekend, A and B, who had rented the apartment where we were staying. We traveled back to the apartment, grabbing some wine along the way, and settled right in, drinking late into the evening and enjoying pleasant conversation. And when I say “late into the evening,” I mean that we finally went to bed at 2am. For dinner, I had a baguette purchased at a nearby grocery store.
That baguette was quite possibly one of the best loaves of bread I have ever had. As I would find out over the next two days, the French truly excel at making bread (along with cheese, crepes, French fries, and donuts).
On Sunday, we awoke…at noon and had a delicious breakfast at a nearby Indian restaurant…at 3pm.
At this point, I was a tad nervous, as I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to get any sightseeing in. Fortunately, my fears were unfounded, as I got to see Notre Dame de Paris and the Eiffel Tower, both in the span of a few hours!
As the first photo in this sequence shows, I had already seen Notre Dame late at night as soon as I arrived in Paris (right after getting off the Metro station, to be exact). However, as we approached it, nothing could prepare me for its fantastic exterior and marvelous interior. As luck would have it, we chose one of the best possible times to visit: during a Sunday Mass.
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| a prominent statue of Joan of Arc |
As you can see, Notre Dame is drop-dead gorgeous on the inside. The atmosphere of the Sunday Mass enhanced the experience to a level I cannot even begin to describe. It is quite possibly the most beautiful building I have ever seen. If you were to tell me that God lives here, I would believe you…and I’m Jewish! I’ve seen Westminster Abbey, Bath Abbey, St. Giles’ Cathedral, and St. Bartholomew’s, but none of them can hold a prayer candle to Notre Dame.
Notre Dame has got it going on...
(I swear, one day, I will write the rest of this song.)
Seriously, I’m practically obsessed with this building!
(One last weird little observation before I move on: I was rather fascinated by Notre Dame’s confession booths. Instead of looking like little wooden booths, they resembled small offices with transparent windows and the confessions in process looked more like business meetings or therapy sessions more than anything. According to M, this wasn’t the case last year, so I guess this may be the influence of the new pope.)
However, that wasn’t the only major Parisian landmark for today, as we also sought out the Eiffel Tower, which glows wonderfully at night. Aglow with the Eiffel Tower’s beauty, we sat under a nearby tree for a night of jolly carousing (here, “jolly carousing” is a phrase that means “drinking out of bottle after bottle of wine while politely shaking off souvenir, wine, and cigarette salesmen, all the while having a wonderful time).
All in all, this night had been most glorious…but it took a somewhat unpleasant turn near the end. As our group discussed where we were going to go, we decided to split up, with me heading back to the apartment early (unlike everyone else, I had eaten a fair amount and was full). As the group was leaving the Metro, one of our group accidentally blocked the door for a second. As I communicated with people through the door, five police officers, all with holstered pistols, approached us, opened the door, and told me to get off the train.
I should probably note at this point that so far, every French person I had talked to in Paris had defied conventional stereotypes by being incredibly warm and friendly (the fact that I made an effort to speak French probably helps). Sadly, these cops immediately began enforcing obnoxious stereotypes by demanding my ID card (which is also a vital debit card, I should mention) and writing me a ticket with a 199-euro fine for obstructing the Metro services. Keep in mind that I had not blocked the door, my friend had blocked the door completely by accident, and I had no idea what was going on (I don’t know Jacques about French or French legal proceedings). My gracious and justice-minded hostess A became quite incensed and argued with the cops (in French) the whole time, trying to explain the situation (according to her, she said things along the lines of “How can you justify doing this to someone who doesn’t speak French and can’t defend himself? You’re just a bully.” When he responded, “It’s his own fault he doesn’t speak French; he’s in Paris,” she reminded him that France’s economy would do horribly if it wasn’t for tourist Euros coming from people like me). After a tense five minutes, the police finally gave me back my card, along with the ticket--which I am unable to pay, as I lack a French address and cannot be billed by the government (I believe one of the nicer cops went so far as to admit that the transcript of this ticket would be forwarded to the Department of Garbage). I know that this sort of thing probably happens all the time and I objectively know that there are much bigger injustices than this in the world, but the whole situation was quite…unsavory.
After that…incident, we stopped by the Latin Quarter, grabbed some crepes, and hit the sack for the night. Police harassment aside, it turned out to be an awesome day!
On Monday, we once again woke up late, though we were out the door by noon. For breakfast, we grabbed some delicious crepes, which we ate while walking around Paris. After breakfast, we continued to roam the streets of Paris, deciding what exactly to do. On the way, we passed a few souvenir shops, where I picked up this charming little hat.
By this point, we had all decided what we were going to do. In keeping with the tradition of the Monument and the Nelson Monument, it was time for me to scale the tallest building available…the Eiffel Tower!
Yep, the Eiffel Tower has climbable stairs that allow one to reach the top. This was one of the highlights of the trip (get it? High-lights…please drive home safely), as I got to see numerous places in Paris that I had wanted to visit. Most notable was the Arc de Triomphe, pictured here next to my beard:
I also got an aerial shot of the Louvre, which you can see if you look really hard at the right side of the picture.
The sun was setting as we left the Eiffel Tower, and it was against this backdrop, wearing my beret, where the photo at the beginning of this post came from.
And what better way to top off a wonderful weekend in Paris than to visit Sacré Coeur, a beautiful church on a hill that overlooks a good deal of Paris?
Finally, on Tuesday morning, T and I headed back to London via the Megabus (where there was a bit more bureaucracy at the border than I would have liked). Now, I’m back in London for the week. Though traveling isn’t completely out of the question, I think I’ll take it easy for the rest of the week, tackling homework assignments and the like.
Modern reflections:
This was quite the adventure! I spent a lot of time worrying about seeing enough of Paris before and during this journey, but I clearly had little to fear. Since this experience, I'd like to think I've gotten less neurotic about planning out travel. As is frequently the case in my travels, a lot of the enjoyment is thanks to the fantastic company I was with there (whom I should really get back in touch with these days).
One weird thing I didn't mention is that the streets of Paris constantly smells like urine. I don't know if its due to the city's aging sewers or the constant public urination (I saw a lot of locals and tourists alike relieving themselves in Metro stations and bushes near the Eiffel Tower), but there's a faint scent that you gradually get used to. As someone who now lives in a place that constantly smells like manure, I'm a bit less squeamish about this sort of thing these days.
My run-in with the Parisian metro police remains my most harrowing experience with law enforcement to this date, and it is the one reason I'm hesitant to return to Paris--I still don't know Jacques about modern French law and am unsure if I can get in trouble for unpayable tickets. I'm hoping I can shake that concern; there's more there I'd like to see, especially the Catacombs of Paris.
I still have that beret somewhere,
though I haven't worn it in years and don't remember where it is. I'd
sure like to break it out the next time I go on some international
travels. It also got some compliments from the weed dealer who
solicited us at Sacré Coeur. That weed dealer was definitely the nicest
person we met in Paris (which is saying something, as almost everyone
was really polite); he gave us some safety warnings about local thieves,
asked us how our night was going, and said to contact him if we needed
anything (while making rolling motions with his hands).
Writing about Notre Dame feels bittersweet now; her roof caught fire in 2019, and she's closed to the public as of October 2023. She remains one of the most awe-inspiring buildings I've documented; she's not as large or intricate as some of the castles and cathedrals I've seen, but she has just the right mix of location, appearance, complexity, history, and fame to inspire books about fictional bell-ringers, movies about fictional bell-ringers, and a half-hearted Fountains of Wayne parody (I really should try finishing that "Stacy's Mom" parody I started in this post). If I return to Paris, I'll definitely want to visit again!
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