J'adore Paris

As my Paris traveling partner Kevin might say, "Paris doesn't suck"

Well my time in Paris is up. Or almost up. I am spending my last remaining hours sitting at a café writing and people watching. Doesn’t that sound romantic?

Okay that's a lie.

It’s not a café; it’s the lobby of my hotel. Okay and so across the street is a McDonalds.  So it’s not as romantic.

But let's imagine it the first way.

This post may get long, so I am going to break it into sections so you can read what interests you. The categories are as follows:

·      Things I have learned

·      First impressions/experiences

·      The food

·      The sites

Things I’ve learned:

One of my goals while traveling is to learn about different people and cultures. I want to see what makes us different and what makes us the same. I am trying to keep track of what I learn. These aren’t going to be deep life philosophies as much as general observations about the world. Here’s what I’ve learned/seen so far.

• ·     The “OH MY GOSH” noise you make when you almost drop your iPhone but miraculously catch it is the same in any language.
• ·      Crepes are better than pancakes.
• ·      A 80 or 90 year old woman can have a beer and cigarette for breakfast and you can’t judge her for it.
• ·      French people aren’t rude. Nearly everyone was friendly, willing to translate and accommodate the fact we can’t speak French.
• ·      I am really grateful I can speak English for several reasons: It’s so hard to learn but it’s so useful. Most people here could speak “just a little bit” of English.
• ·      There aren’t fat people here. At least not by American standards. (I’ll explain this more in the “food” section.
• ·      If you rock climb in France, they take your word for it that you know how to not injure yourself instead of making you pass tests and sign waivers.
• ·      When you aren’t looking for a baguette or crepes, they are everywhere. When you want either, the closest store is a mile away.

First Impressions:

As I was flying into France over the country side I was struck by just how much it looked like Kansas. It was patchwork-quilt-like farms peppered with barns, and towns of varying sizes. As we got lower to the ground I could see more differences but farms are farms no matter where you go.

After getting out of the airport and into the city, I was mesmerized by city. It was awesome. I spent the entire walk to the hotel looking up at the buildings. I actually spent most of the trip doing this. Thus, I tripped, a lot. I am actually surprised I didn’t get hurt.

Almost immediately one of the wheels on my 50 lbs suitcase more or less gave up. This meant I was basically dragging my suitcase until I got too tired and Kevin kindly stepped in.

After getting settled we walked around Montmartre, where we were staying. Some of it was full of tourist trap shops selling almost anything you could dream of buying. Some of it was so quaint and beautifully Parisian, I felt like I was in a part of Epcot.

The food:

Finding different places to eat was always a fun experience. Holding to Kevin and my favorite food group, we ate a lot of Chinese food. French Chinese food is pretty similar to American Chinese food but less fried and probably less MSG-y. It was a good stand by if we couldn’t find anything else to eat.

For breakfast we tended to stop a different restaurants where we got the classic French breakfast: a big piece of bread with butter or jam, a croissant, orange juice and a “hot drink.” Normal adults order coffee; I always got hot chocolate.

We also almost always ended up in the McDonalds across the street so Kevin could get coffee and no matter how busy it was, I noticed that everyone in there was relatively skinny. The mostly overweight people I saw the entire time I was here I would describe as “portly.” I’m sure there are cultural reasons why this is the case (smaller serving sizes, more activity, etc…) but it was interesting to see.

Lunch tended to be our big meal of the day, since prices were better. Some of my favorite meals include the croque-monsieur, duck, chocolate/Nutella crepes, mulled wine, a picnic by the Eiffel Tower and our fancy meal on the last night. The escargot was quite good as well.

Croque-monsiuer is a French staple. Typically, it’s a fancy grilled cheese with ham. At one restaurant (where we ate OUTSIDE while it was actively SNOWING!! brrr) it actually came with Salmon and berries. It was fantastic. Maybe my favorite meal of the entire trip. At the same restaurant, we ate escargot. It was tasty. It reminded me of muscles mainly.

I was in the middle of chewing at that exact moment. 

Snails 

Croque-Monsieur and salad.  

Kevin and I often stopped in little cafes for a break during the day and ordered mulled wine. I’d never had it before and it was fabulous.

Mulled Wine. Kevin's Pic

On one of the few sunny, warmish days we walked by the Eiffel tower and had a cheese, bread and fruit picnic. That was quite wonderful.

Our last night, we had a fancy steak dinner complete with drinks and cheese plate appetizers. Even though we didn’t get home until midnight because of it, it was still enjoyable. 

The Sights:

Since we spent about 8 days in Paris, we were able to see nearly all the touristy things we wanted without killing ourselves every day.

We ended up doing several things that Nomadic Matt recommended.

We followed his first day walking from The l'Arc de Triomphe. to Notre Dame, stopping everywhere in between like the Pantheon, the Latin Quarter and many other places.

We saw almost everything and since you probably know about almost all of these sites, I won’t bother to explain them to you; I just have a few reactions to them: 

Sacre Coeur: Beautiful church in Montmatre with an awesome view of the whole city. Definitely worth a visit. Be ware of scam artists.  I went to Ash Wednesday Mass here in French. I spent the whole time wondering if it really counted as church since I didn’t understand almost anything.

Sacre Coeur 

Louvre: Awesome art. Duh.  The building is a work of art in and of itself. The Mona Lisa is underwhelming but still worth seeing. Parts of it smelled like a huge fart. Seriously. It smelled really bad in some parts.

Lover’s Lock Bridge: A newer attraction where couples write their name on a lock, lock it to the bridge and throw the key into the Seine. It’s cute and funny to see people who used bike locks and gigantic master locks tongue-in-cheek.

Musee D’Orsay: I really enjoyed seeing Monet’s impressionism. No picture or replica can properly convey just how thick and textured his paintings are. I just wanted to touch them!
They don't let you take pictures there, so they don't want you to have your camera on you. But they make you check your bags and don't want you to leave your camera in your bag. It's an impossible situation

Versailles: Definitely my favorite attraction. But it was more for what Versailles had been than what it is today. We bought the passport that let you go to the Palace, Gardens (which are free during the week anyway), the Grand Trianon, le Petite Trianon and Marie Antoinette’s cottage.

Under chandeliers 

In reality, the gardens of Versailles were a tad gloomy. It’s February and they’re doing construction, so it was understandable but still somewhat disappointing. I had fun imagining the conversations of scandal, treason, war, love and lust that had once take place in those very gardens.

Inside the Palace was breathtaking. There were so many rooms I didn’t bother taking pictures of because the pictures couldn’t do them justice. I could spend days and days there and still be unable to take it all in.

Again, you have to kind of imagine it in all its grandeur. Because in reality it was packed with maybe 1,000 Asian tourists.**

** This is not an exaggeration. Seriously.  

If you ever need a “go to Versailles” buddy, I’m your girl. I already know I have to go back and see it in the summer. Even though it will be busier, it will be worth it.

Eiffel Tower: We went 3 separate times: Once for the picnic, once to go up and once to see it at night. If you can only go once, GO AT NIGHT. It was a least X100 better at night. It’s great during the day, but it’s stunning at night.

Catacombs: A really neat experience seeing thousands of bones. I definitely recommend going unless you are claustrophobic, don’t like walking 83 steps underground or don’t like human remains.  

All in all, going to Paris in February has its pros and cons. Everything is cheaper and less crowded but it’s not as pretty. It was rainy and overcast the entire time we were there. It’s definitely manageable; we just had to use our few hours of sunlight well. (For the record, weather.com was never accurate about what the weather was going to be like.)

I'll be sure to post more pictures on Facebook in the coming days!