If you don't know (or didn't read my post about Paris in my Spain blog), I was always a little underwhelmed by Paris. Sure, I had fun, and the the Notre Dame is striking, and the food is good... but I never got the stars in my eyes like other people did when they talked about the City of Lights. Well, I might have to change my stance after this last trip.
So my roommates had planned a trip to Italy with a group of their friends before I ever came to live there, so it seemed to be that I would be in that big house all by myself for a week, with no company but the mice and Rodolfo. Taking any excuse to travel, I pulled out my Rolodex (I'm just kidding I don't have a Rolodex... I swear....) of people that at some point or another had offered me a place to stay if I ever came and visited (I don't care if it was a drunken offer, an offer out of forced courtesy, or a sneeze that sounded like an offer... if you think I'm not gonna take you all up on it some day, you've been warned!) And voila! Alexis (pronounced Ah-lex-ee, not the feminine American pronunciation) came and stayed with my family for 6 weeks about two years ago, and he made the rookie mistake of offering me a place to stay if I was ever in Europe. How I know Alexis is hard to say. All I know is that there are pictures of me, Alexis, and Saskia playing together when we were two years old. Apparently his grandmother and my Dutch grandparents share some great-great-great-uncle or something really removed like that. And apparently that's grounds enough for family. Anyway, lucky me, Alexis lives in Paris! Score! And he has a car! Double score! So, with some very last minute planning, I booked a train ticket the day before (3.5 hours Amsterdam-Paris... gotta love European travel) and off I went! The plan was for me to spend the first day in Paris, putz around, and then spend the rest of the week traveling to every other city around Paris that people don't go to. Because I'm obnoxious like that.
So. Day 1. I purposely did not want to go to the Notre Dame, or the Eiffel Tower, or the Champs Elysee, etc. So I did some research beforehand, I found some neighborhoods that are a little less-traveled, but nonetheless charmingly Parisian. Last time I was in Paris, I spent the day in the Marais district and the historical Jewish quarter. Highly recommended. This time, I decided to go to Grands Boulevards and Canal Saint-Martin. Grands Boulevards apparently had some really cool turn-of-the-century passages, which are like beautiful, Art Deco shopping malls full of quirky stores like a milliner that still made hats in the style of the 1890's, and a store full of rare postage stamps for the ardent collector.
It was a really cool neighborhood, but once again, I realized I was up too early. You know what, Europe? Sometimes, you just need to actually begin your day before 10:30, okay? And being alone and surrounded by stores selling dusty samurai swords and glassy-eyed baby dolls from the '20's was freaking me out, so I decided to hit Canal Saint-Martin early. Well... never quite made it there that day. I have a travel strategy called.... getting absolutely lost everywhere I go. In Venice, I got lost for approximately 6 hours until I followed some helpful graffiti to the Piazza. In Vienna, I took the train in the wrong direction, and instead of ending up in Stefansplatz, I got off, saw a river beach dotted with nude sunbathers, and realized something had gone wrong. Well nothing too dramatic happened this time, but I walked. A lot. And took the metro maybe.... 4 times? I didn't have a map or guidebook of Paris. It's not that I decided not to get one on purpose, I bought a travel book on Northern France! But then I kind of made it into a challenge for myself and refused to get one for Paris. Well due to that very stubbornness, I purposely disobeyed doctor's orders (damn ankle) and ran a teensy bit too much the day before I left for Paris. Therefore, my ankle resembled cantaloupe. So after a while, I stumbled into a random park. At that point, my ankle was screaming for mercy. So, after observing all the other Frenchies taking in the unseasonably warm sun on the grass, I plonked my derrière down right next to them.
Aaaaand... for some reason I decided to narrate this decision with play-by-play shots. Guess I knew my life was about to turn into a movie. So I'm kind of taking a risk talking about this openly on the internet, but I'm hoping he's too French... and therefore too cool for school... to read this blog. All of the sudden, a chic guy with skinny pants rolled above the ankles, Repetto oxfords, and hipster shades walked directly towards me, sat down next to me, and said "......." well I have no idea what he said because my French is laughable. So I managed a "Je ne parle pas français". Woo-hoo! That's what one semester of French will give you. Good thing he spoke English. Even better, he had an adorable accent, he sounded like Lumiere from Beauty and the Beast. When I told him where I was trying to go, he pointed at the street outside the park and said, "That's Canal Saint-Martin." Oh. Typical. He invited me to go out dancing with him that night, see the real Paris.... scenes from Taken raced through my head. I said I couldn't. We talked some more. He also does triathlons, travels every second he can, and has his own business. Did I want to get a drink now then? Oh, alright. Cut to charming hidden cafe in a courtyard filled with only Parisians that cannot be found in a guide book.
He's photo shy. So my head is still switching between scenes of Liam Neeson pistol-whipping gangsters to get his daughter back........ and then every other movie Hollywood has ever made about meeting a handsome frenchman in Paris. So we continued talking. He's already making plans to visit me in Holland. Damn, these Frenchman move fast. Then Alexis called me and said he was done with work, so I had to go meet him. Ah, well... we can't live in a movie forever, right? Oh, wait, I forgot one scene. He walked me to the street, gave me a kiss on each cheek, and then with all the cars and pedestrians around us watching, dipped me and gave me a Hollywood kiss. Artistic embellishment? Maybe. Maybe not. ;)
The rest of the day went quickly. Alexis and I met at L'Opera, got gelato, and went to look at the stores that I would have to sell organs in order to afford anything inside. Hey, no harm in looking!
Despite my stomach's protestations, the French refuse to have dinner before 8, so I had to revert back to my Spanish eating schedule. Gosh darn it, why can't the whole continent just pick one time and stick to it? In Holland they eat at 6:30! My body can't handle this unpredictability! So to burn time before dinner, he dragged me to the Eiffel Tower and the Champs-Elysee. Gah. So many people. But since we were already there, I wanted to get a replacement for my beloved Shu Uemera eyelash curler I left in America (girls? Am I right?), so I went into the Sephora on the Champs-Elysee. Big mistake. My nose was so assaulted by the melange of roserhubardtreebarkjasminesandalwood, my eyes could barely focus on the kilometers of aisles that separated me from the back of the store. Overwhelmed was putting it mildly. So I conceded defeat. Alexis' parents met up with us, and we went to a delicious souffle restaurant that only made... you guessed it... souffles. Which I was over the moon about.
Délicieux!
And that concludes my first day in Paris. Okay. Wow. This blog post was supposed to be about the whole trip. Okay. Well obviously, my mind has been changed about Paris. I'll write about Day 2-5, visiting the French countryside, another day. When my fingers un-cramp themselves.
