Paris - schmaris
It’s the place where most girl’s fantasies take flight, in fact deep down I always thought I was a Paris girl. Sure I’d heard of people who hadn’t like Paris, but those were the non-romantics, the non-believers in falling in love with a city. I actually had heard that u are either a Paris or a New York person.. Which I found rather interesting, seeing as I adored New York, I thought I’d be one of the lucky ones who would love both…
All in all I had planned to spend 5 days in Paris, quite a long time for a stay in one place, but there was lots to see the Eiffel Tower, Moulin Rouge, Notre Dame, The Louvre, The Musee de Orsay, The Champs Elysees, Catacombs, Latin quarter and the basilica which overlooks all of Paris.. So with that in mind I boarded the Euro star at some ungodly hour in the morning at Kinds Cross St Pancras and my Paris adventure began. As we made our way through Francis towards the city that beats at its core, I noticed the snow drifts all over the place. The French countryside dotted with little French looking homes and villages where painted with snow and I started to feel a smidge of excitement, perhaps it will be snowing in good ole Pari?
We arrive after a quick 2 hour journey and I hop off expecting customs clearance or immigration gates to go through. Nothing, I just walk straight out onto the street and see the cab line. With my massive back pack I decide the best bet is cab, I’m useless at directions the best of time so I get out my diary and start memorising where the hostel Ooops (
Before long we are winding through the streets and I get a glance of what Paris is like, bustling with incredibly chic women strutting through the streets, people of call backgrounds and races looking completely at home in this bewitching capital instead of feeling like a fish our of water like I am. Suddenly the driver erupts into what can only be a very long string of swear words, gesturing towards the driver in front of him. He stops the cab and jumps out and so does the other driver. They scream at each other in a pageantry display of French egotism and pride, they puff their chests our like peacocks and gesture wildly. I start to get anxious when I look at the meter, its going up at least a euro a minute and I start to get worried that this littler interaction will cost me dearly. Just then when I am about to give up all hope and am considering getting out and finding another cab, the yelling match stops and my driver is back in my car. He turns to me and says ‘ I will take some of zee money off for u wee?’ and I nod and say merci.. Least I can say that right.. And then he says ‘ ahhh but perhaps no.. u pay me for zee entertainment wee?’…. ah noo I say and he chuckles away to himself.. We finally get to my hostel without any further I breathe a sigh of relief.. Thank god.. I check in, drop off my bags and decide right, now is the time to explore Paris…. Eiffel tower here I come…
I dress warmly, by warmly I mean four layers.. I look like a Michelin man. Never mind, I am in the most romantic city in the world, romance will find its way through my thermals, jumpers and Michelin man jacket I am determined! So with my winter boots on I trek out, I am greeted by a cascade of stinging rain.. Grumbling to myself I put up my umbrella and begin my trek, first stop food then to Eiffel tower… I slip and slide my way along the street and my toes start to feel damp and I realise my wonderful boots are leaking… dammmit.. The bitter bitter cold, leaves my face feeling dry and tender, my ears hurt, my lips feel dry and cracked and my stomach grumbles. I can’t handle not having food for a long period of time as my family knows well, before I start to get emotional and moody. I had already reached that point, I wandered around the streets til I found a restaurant and went inside, they ignored me, I stood wet, cold and hungry with drowned rat hair (despite the umbrella - just a point, umbrellas are useless in sideways rain which likes to put in an appearance in Paris and London on occasion) and clearly I’m a tourist, so I wait and wait and then go stuff it and decide to sit down and look at the menu, I choose what I want and then waiters just ignore me, they stream past me, serving others and everyone else but me. I start to get teary, then the manager comes over and has a go at me rambling in French and gesturing at the table and I go to get up and leave and then he yells as me some more and gestures for me to sit down.. So I stay put and yet I continue to be ignored.. 5 mins passes and I leave in tears.. Hungry and frustrated I let the ugly thought sneak into my head.. ‘ I think I hate this place’…
Finally I find a patisserie, who smile at me and ask me what I want in English, I could cry with relief, I order a panni and a chocolate croissant and a hot chocolate and sit down… I survey my maps and finally start to feel more human and like I’m functioning properly…After cramming down some food, I make my way to the tower, and it’s a mission, I cant understand the ticketing system I go to the hostel over and over again, trekking back and forth to tell them our stop doesn’t have a ticket machine, turns out there are four exits to our stop and only one of them has a ticketing machine I’m just too silly to realise it…. Its only when I’m on the metro do I start to appreciate how grateful I am that the Trina and Kate are coming later… its not fun being a girl on your own in Paris, I start to feel just a little bit unsafe. Unsavoury men sitting next to me, and looking at me with eyes that scare me, eyes that leave you feeling violated after they’ve scanned you. I get chills just sitting there and breathe a sigh of relief to get off at the Eiffel tower stop.. Walking in to the tower, there is a teaming constant crowd of people despite the rain which seems to have gotten lighter with little bits of frozen rain landing on my jacket sleeves.. The whole city is shrouded in a thick fog, that won’t lift the entire time we are there, its like a cool mist that snakes around every building and obscures any views or panoramas from being too breathtaking. I get to the tower and I start to feel giddy, the magnitude of the infamous nature of the structure strikes me and I am blown away, it really is quite gorgeous.. But the lines to cue up to go up to the top are ridiculous, even on a cloudy, low visible day such as this.. I walk under the tower and walk up to the grassy area to take some pics and notice the ground is slowly getting white. I put down my umbrella and shake it and off comes a sheet of show. I am at the Eiffel tower and its snowing… its snowing… I couldn’t believe it, it was like a fairy tale, I took pictures but it was so light it just looks like pebbles or small hail stones.. I was beside myself and did a little dance. I copped a few weird looks but didn’t care. I went and got a hot chocolate and it warmed me from the inside out. But my toes had started feeling numb and I decided to head back to the hostel to get ready for dinner with Trina.
Trina and I met in the Latin quarter of Paris, right near Notre dame which is one of my favourite parts of the city, it a bit touristy, but least people are friendly and welcoming. We spotted a charming little Parisian restaurant which sold the all important escargot (snails) and frogs legs and we ordered both to try them out. I thought the frogs legs were a bit sinewy, bit too chewy and not that much meat on them and to be perfectly honest not the best value in my book. But the escargot , they were something else. Little parcels of pesto garlicky tasty parcels that where damn delicious. So delicious that on the next night we ordered more and I would have had more I we had stayed longer.. Absolutely delicious and a highlight of my trip.
The next few days saw me visit the louvre, arc de triumph, champes Elysees, Notre dame and catacombs. The louvre was unreal, very very unreal and I thought the Mona Lisa was in actual fact quite overrated. Hundreds of people were crammed in there fighting for a chance to get a good look at the old bird herself and to me she was a bit on the nose. I enjoyed the other pieces of artwork in there, including the Picasso selection, the selection of pre-Raphaelitism and other dreamy pieces of artwork. It was just beautiful inside.
The catacombs would have to be one of the most eeriest experiences to date, while visiting the tombs in Egypt where often daunting and oppressive, walking down to underneath the city of Paris and through a myriad of tunnels which are surrounded by piles and piles of bones and skulls was much more macabre. the air was moist and I could feel grime lining my skin as we walked through the tunnels. The stench of death, or death from long ago was overpowering and I began to feel a little bit claustrophobic and towards the end was rushing to get out of there. The daren’t touch any of the bones in there, apparently people sometimes took bones as souvenirs and I cant imagine anything more disturbing or disrespectful. Afterwards I wanted to take a shower and blow my nose, I could still smell death, bones, dirt and dampness for the rest of that day, haunting me like an unwanted ghoul.
New years eve is often overrated, filled too many expectations often lead to disappointment, which is what I’ve found for nearly every new years eve I’ve had so I didn’t hold my expectations high for new years in Paris. Just a few drinks by the tower with friends watching fireworks would be nice. We went out to dinner first and had our fill of escargot and wine then made our way to the tower with the rest of the tourists and thousands of Parisians. We each had bought little red berets to mark our ‘French’ new year and put them on and posed for pics under the tower. It was as we were walking toward the tour with our berets firmly upon our heads that I realised we were being followed by a group of men. Three men, they didn’t’ look French but clearly spoke French and were watching us. I quietly told the girls and we headed under the tower to merge with the rest of the crowd, they kept following us. We stopped and stood. They stopped and stood. My blood ran cold and I thought mum is going to kill me if I get hurt in Paris, it’s the one place she didn’t feel was safe for me. I’ve been to lots of places which are rumoured to be unsafe, Egypt, Cairo, new York, Naples and even London for one, but never have I felt more afraid for my life than in Paris that night. They looked as us the way a predator would stalk its prey. I caught the eye of one of the men and I felt a chill go through me, he looked at me the way a rapist looks at his victim. I knew their intent and so did the rest of the girls, we weren’t going to be victims tonight. So we kept walking in the crowd and they kept following after an hour and a half of them following us we agreed a plan. We would each take our berets off at the same time, put the hoods up on our jackets and run into the crowd and lose them.. So in perfect synchronisation we did and we lost them.. But it wasn’t long before we saw other packs of men wondering around looking for drunk western/English women to take advantage of. I wanted to wipe dirt on my face to get them not to look at me. Trina and I kept our heads down and avoided all eye contact and we found a position opposite the tour to wait out the fireworks. Our bums went numb, my fingers started to feel icy and my legs were feeling prickly with cold. To say it was cold is an understatement, it was bitter. It was bone achingly cold, I found out later it reached -9 that night. While we were waiting at the tower we saw a lot of girls being loud and drunk and silly, and I felt scared for them. There were a lot of predatory men out there that night and I was never more afraid for not only myself but fellow women out there. When the countdown began a light show began on the tower and we held our breath waiting for the fireworks. Then that was it, it was over. No fireworks this year, sometimes the French government decides not to do fireworks and it just so happens that this year 2008-09 would be one of them that doesn’t start with a bang. The crowd got restless and shitty and started letting off their own fireworks which was dangerous enough.. The ride home was an experience, the French men weren’t standoffish on grabbing and my butt was severely bruised by the end of the night but the people I felt most sorry for were the guys with their girlfriends. The French men specifically targeted the girls with boyfriends, grabbing them, doing inappropriate things to try and wind the men up and I felt so sorry for the girls they looked really unhappy, it was a really ugly side of Paris which I didn’t want to see or experience at all.
The next day to put a spring in our step with went to Paris Disneyland and I have never had so much fun before, I went on the tea cups ride, the space mountain ride, Indiana jones and pirates of the Caribbean ride and also saw all the crew of Disney characters, Donald duck is always my favourite and I picked up a beautiful xmas decoration from there with two big ears for Mickey so I’ll be glad to add that to my xmas tree when I finally go back home. I wasn’t expecting to be so good, I thought the real Disney land would be the only one I want to go to visit, but I had so much fun, it was like being a kid again and made me realise I will love the original one and must go there to visit.
After new years day the girls had half days before having to head back to London, we went to the basilica which overlooks the city, and it was stunningly white and gorgeous and we had a beautiful blue sky to appreciate it. It had snowed in the morning so snow littered the streets and there were some on the wheel at the Moulin rouge which made it look so very picturesque.
As much as I enjoyed the sights and attractions which Paris can lay claim to, it wasn’t a city that warmed the cockles of my heart, in fact it left me cold. The people were rude, I met a French couple who said they hate Parisians and avoid coming into Paris as much as possible as it gives French people a bad name. And I hope that’s true, because my first impressions of the city weren’t favourable. Perhaps the city has a different vibe in summer, but in winter it was cold and left my with a cold head and heart. I’m not sure I’ll go back, even in summer. It just wasn’t a place that captured my imagination, and while I was glad to go and see the sights I did, the next time someone says to me Paris, oh Paris I love Paris (the place not the girl) I’ll be thinking to myself, Paris schmaris..
