Paris

Well, this is my first blog entry ever written, so I hope to be equally thorough and entertaining as Naber’s have been. Also, we both apologize for the lapse of time between blog entries. The lack of internet in Paris set us back a bit, but we’ll be up to date soon enough, so fret not. Before I do talk about Paris itself, however, there are a few things that need mentioning. First is the actual travel between Asia and Europe. We took a midnight flight from Bangkok to Paris, with a layover in Zurich. This involves about 13 and a half hours of flight time, then add in the layover and travel to and from the airports. Note that it was 90 degrees at takeoff, and 25 degrees and snowing at Zurich, quite the scenery change. We arrived in Paris around 11 in the morning, to sunshine and a brisk 40 degrees. Catching the local RER train to the metro trains, we made our way to Elisa’s place. The second thing I wanted to mention before Paris itself is Elisa. Elisa, for those of you who don’t know her, is a good friend of mine from high school, who has recently moved to Paris for her job in the consulting field. She kindly put us up in her cozy one bedroom apartment, conveniently furnished with a pull-out couch. She also provided us with bread and cheese upon our arrival, a much needed refreshment after close to 24 hours of travel. As for the rest of her biography, consult her directly. So thank you, Elisa, for the hospitality. It was much appreciated by myself and Nick.

Anyways, Paris... the first thing is that I am no longer part of the majority, which was a bit sad. I had gotten used to Asians everywhere. And finding Nick in a crowd was like playing Where’s Waldo?, only easier. I also enjoyed feeling tall, and Nick as well. But in Paris, I was just average again, and Nick short. The immediate feel of European culture was like being back at home after Asia. When we had originally planned out our itinerary for this trip, we didn’t think too hard about the dates of travel for each city. Coincidentally, we landed in Paris the morning of February 14th, or the famed Valentine’s Day. Silly holiday, really, but I won’t go into the reasons here. After a snack at Elisa’s apartment, we strolled through her neighborhood and then on over to the Eiffel Tower, less than 15 minutes away. After taking the obligatory pictures, we were presented with a minor challenge. Tucked away in the streets of Paris was a small wine store in which Matt had purchased a bottle of wine for Nick. With Elisa’s working knowledge of the city, a metro hop and a bunch of walking through random streets, we eventually wound up in a small wine shop, where Nick was presented with a bottle of Chateau Griscours Margaux 1982. Quite a nice gesture, given the occasion. The buildings in Paris are quite the sight. Beautiful buildings line almost every street in the city, almost to a point where it’s too perfect. As I’m not an architecture buff, I find it difficult to describe to you the type of buildings, whether they’re Renaissance, Gothic, etc., so words such as beautiful, gorgeous, amazing, and all other synonyms will have to suffice. But I digress. Following our mini treasure hunt for the bottle of wine, we returned to Elisa’s apartment for a breather before a Valentine’s Day dinner. Europe, as those of you who’ve been will know, eats late dinners. Around 8, with Elisa as my dinner date, or maybe it was vice versa, we headed for a restaurant right on the same block as Elisa’s apartment. For purposes of my self-esteem, we’ll call Naber a third wheel for the night. Plus, he already got a nice bottle of wine that day. This restaurant should easily seat 100+ guests. Well, there were about 5 people in there eating when we showed up. Elisa asked for a table for 3, and the seating hostesses and maître ds looked at each other questioning if there was room for us, in the empty restaurant. We eventually were seated, and enjoyed a wonderful dinner accompanied by a drink or two. Even by the time we left, which was close to 9:30, the restaurant was just about to begin its busy hour. Full and exhausted from travel, we called it a night.

Paris, day 2. After about 12 hours of sleep, we decided it would be in our best interest to get up, shower, and see the city. Elisa had a prior engagement with a friend from Northwestern to see some tennis, so we were left to figure out our own day. Breakfast, or perhaps I should call it lunch, as it was close to noon, was a French baguette. They are quite amazing, at a whopping 85 cents, and about two and a half feet long. We set off towards the all-famous Notre Dame, and after 20 minutes of walking, were greeted by the magnificent sight of the cathedral, set on a small island between the split of the river. We walked through it, taking pictures, and continued past Sainte Chapelle, known for its display of stained glass windows. Crossing the river, we walked through the Palais Royal, the area where the Louvre is located, which again, the architectural beauty leaves the tourist awe-struck. We walked on through the Jardin des Tuileries, which is a bit dull given that it’s the winter, and onwards to Place de la Concorde, where a 3300 year old Egyptian obelisk stands. I’ll pause here briefly to talk about people in Paris: They all smoke. A lot. Picture your high class woman, dressed in a large fur coat, a Longchamp (or some other really expensive designer purse) bag hanging from her shoulder, her accessory small dog trotting alongside, walking down the street, but then add a long, thin cigarette between her fingers, taking small puffs at a time to portray her classiness, and there you have your stereotypical upper-class wealthy French woman. But then maybe it’s not so much a stereotype since it seems to apply to a majority. After the Place de la Concorde, we dropped by La Madeleine, a church inside a Greek building with Corinthian columns. Then we headed for Champs Elysees, the avenue for shopping and dining. Before we could make it through the avenue and to Arc de Triomphe, however, Elisa had finished up with her afternoon of champagne and tennis, and we headed back to grab dinner. Dinner was spent in an area called Marais, where we went to a Middle Eastern place for falafel and schwarma. Dinner was capped off by some great gelato with night views of Notre Dame and the Pantheon.

On day 3, I came down with a cold, most likely the result of a combination of the lack of sleep between Bangkok and Paris and the drastic weather change. To make things worse, there was no sun today. Cloudy, dreary, and cold. I tried to fight the cold, and we picked off where we left yesterday at Champs Elysees. Since I’m traveling with Naber, it’ll be no surprise to any of you that we stopped by the showrooms for the three major French auto companies; Citroen, Peugeot, and Renault. We made it up to Arc de Triomphe, then headed back towards the Eiffel Tower, hoping to stop by Palais de Tokyo, a free art museum. To our disappointment, it was closed, so we contented ourselves by having coffee at a café, then climbing the 670 steps up to the second level platform of the Eiffel Tower for some city views (and exercise I suppose). For dinner, we went to a place called La Marina, where we enjoyed French cuisine and beer. Since we decided we loved stairs on this particular day, we climbed up to the Sacre Coeur basilica to enjoy a night view of the city before calling it a day.

Day 4 was one of those travel days on which everything kind of doesn’t work out. I guess we’ve been lucky up to this point where everything has worked out, so a day like this was long overdue. I’m still battling a cold, which seems to have set itself out to make me live in complete misery. The day started off innocently enough, as we met up with Elisa for lunch after sleeping in. She works in Place Vendome, which is ridiculously nice. It’s a large plaza that houses a Cartier and several other similar caliber stores of watches and jewelry. We got lunch at a sandwich place, courtesy of Monitor Group. Well, half of lunch, at least. Thank you Elisa, for the other half. Per Elisa’s suggestion, after she went back to work, we went to Laduree, a famous store for macaroons. And it didn’t disappoint. That would be the last pleasant experience for the day. We had reserved this day for the museums, as it was another cold and dreary day, only to find that the Louvre is closed on Tuesdays. What kind of place chooses Tuesdays to be closed? No worries, right? Just go to another museum. Well, the Pompidou, the museum of contemporary art, happens to be closed every Tuesday as well. So we thought we’d just go to Versailles, a huge palace just 20-25 minutes outside Paris. We caught a train around 3:30 to Versailles, which closes at 5:30. This train happened to stop two stops before Versailles, where we were supposed to catch another train. Well, at this particular station, an announcement came over the loudspeakers, and of course neither of us understood a word, but noticed that every person got off the platform. Asking someone who worked there how we would get to Versailles, she directed us to another platform, and after almost half an hour of waiting, we got on another train, only to end up at the wrong Versailles station. We hustled across the town to get to the palace at 4:55, and were denied admission tickets which are supposed to stop selling at 5. Wonderful day. We had to settle for walking around the palace and through part of the gardens. Vast only begins to describe the acreage of the gardens. Again, save your visit to the gardens for spring, where everything would be much greener. One can easily spend 3 hours in the gardens alone. After the gardens, we got back to Paris, and I was drained from my cold. Got dinner on St. Germain Blvd. Food was delicious once again, so it was rather unfortunate that I could only taste part of it, compliments of the common cold. Turned in for the night with hopes of shaking the cold.

Day 5 was a day trip outside of Paris to the town of Blois (pronounced ‘blue-a’ really fast). Or you could be like me, and call it ‘Blah’ to make things easier. About 2 hours with stops by train, Blois is in the Loire Valley, where chateaus are scattered throughout and along the river. After sandwiches for lunch, we walked around the town, which was quaint and made up of very old but beautiful buildings, and toured the chateau there, defined by a large outdoor spiral staircase. Before I go on, I will mention a little bit about food and drink in Paris. Food is generally just delicious all over the place. But beware of the prices of drinks, and I’m not talking just alcohol. Coke and other sodas cost as much as 4 euro. I didn’t pay much attention to the price the first time we went to a café for lunch, and ended up with a great sandwich for 4.60, and a Coke for 4.10. Doesn’t seem quite right. Oh, and don’t even think the word “refill.” It doesn’t exist. But everything is bottled, and the novelty seems cool enough, for a few days. Anyhow, after Blois, we came back to Paris to actually explore the Pompidou, which in my book, is overrated. Instead, I enjoyed seeing Hotel de Ville. More or less, it’s similar to the Rockefeller Center in New York, complete with a public skating rink, only much more beautiful. We dined in another random restaurant with great food, and headed on over to the Eiffel Tower to get a couple pictures at night before calling it a day.

Day 6 was short, consisting of a morning trip to the Louvre before mentally preparing ourselves for 19 collective hours on the train for Lisbon. The building of the Louvre itself is amazing, and I suppose the art is too, if you’re into that sort of thing. We practically ran through the place, stopping, of course, to see the Mona Lisa. For those who haven’t seen it, if you’re expected this huge beautiful painting of the woman, be prepared to be let down. However, the full wall-sized painting across from the Mona Lisa is much cooler. And for those art history buffs that write a 100-page thesis on a piece such as the Mona Lisa, what the hell do you write about for so long? Get back to me on that one. Anyhow, we caught a metro over to Rue Mouffetard to get a crepe before leaving Paris, another must while in France. It should be a given at this point when I say that it was rather delicious, like everything else we’ve eaten in the city. France is always a must see and must do if an extended trip to Europe is made. However, note that French people are a little cold, and don’t always expect great service. People don’t seem to smile much in this city, which is odd, given that it’s supposed to be this romantic place. We overextended our stay a bit here, which worked out given that I had to recover from a cold and we had to get over jet lag as well. However, we remedied our extended stay by cutting out Avignon from our itinerary and adding on Lisbon. More about that from Naber later! For everyone that knows me, you should know I don’t do anything short when it comes to writing, so I’m not going to apologize for the length of this entry. I do hope you enjoyed it though, and I hope to write about a few more cities on the trip. Most of you should know that pictures are up on my Facebook profile, but if you don’t, feel free to take a look.