04/14/2010

April in Paris!


Today I’ve had that song going through my head constantly!! Can you believe it? The first time I’m in Paris and it’s April! How cool is that? Ok, so as I write this, I’m not actually in Paris yet… I’m currently on the train, having just come out of the Chunnel between England and France. A very odd experience as your ears pop constantly from the pressure.

I’m very excited about arriving in Paris! Although, to be honest, I’m also getting very excited about going home, also. 3 weeks on the road is a long time! And I miss James terribly. Due to the back to back meetings, I’ve had almost no time to call him on this trip, and thanks to AT&T being complete idiots, the text package I had bought to text him turned out to be bogus (that turned out to be an ugly fight… I was pissed! Still, they reimbursed me for the package and all the charges they tried to stick me with…). I’ll just be really really glad to see him…

So, I approach Paris with mixed emotions. I look so much forward to seeing it, but also hope it goes by quickly… C’est la vie and all =).

** hours later**

So, things didn’t work out so great upon my arrival into Paris, alas… First off, Craig and I got a bit lost in the Paris Underground system… this would be a little less daunting if there were less stairs to have navigate with luggage… after all, there are NO escalators in the Paris Underground… ack!

So, after we made what turned out to be a rather large circle around Paris on the Underground, we finally found our hotel… only to discover Microsoft’s booking agency had, for some unfathomable reason, canceled our reservation week’s before… er?!?

I really need to stop beginning sentences with “So…”…

-_-

Ok, (hey, it’s not “So”, right?), at this point, we have no hotel, I’m tired, Craig is on the phone, and I can SEE the Eiffel Tower right outside the hotel window… it’s right THERE! Just outside! Oh, sweet torture! And yet, our new hotel is way outside of town… so off we go… and I see the Eiffel Tower recede into the distance… sigh…

Ah well, thankfully, we did return to it. I was bound and determined to see it the first night!! What else do you do in Paris for the first time? And what was my first impression of it? It’s frickin’ HUGE!! For some reason, I just didn’t think it was that big! Really, I thought it was smaller than that… But no… it’s really really big!

As you approach the 4 legs of it, you are immediately assaulted by a gang of people trying to sell you souvenir trinkets, attempting to entertain you for coins, and begging (the ones begging are all dressed in peasant garb… dirty faces and all… no kidding). You can go up the Eiffel Tower from any of the 4 legs, and each has a line, although we noticed that one line was substantially shorter. “Why not take that one!?!” thought we…. Silly, silly tourists that we were…

I’ll tell you why… that line was the one with no elevator.

Yep, we had to walk all the way UP the Eiffel Tower… no small feat, let me tell you. You congratulate yourself for this virtue only until your legs start screaming in pain… Looking it up on Wikipedia, there are over 300 steps to the first level… and as much again to the 2nd level… over 600 steps, people!! That beat my record of 400+ for St. Stephen’s in London! Man, but I should have awesome legs after all this walking and stair climbing…

Anyway… The first level is occupied by a restaurant/café, observation decks, etc. Quite nice, really. You head up to the 2nd level and you have another café and store. Then there’s the lift (thank God there was a lift that our ticket actually covered for this part!!) all the way to the top.

Now, I’ve been rushing through all of this, but you have to keep in mind… there’s a line to get in. There’s an amazing line to get to the top… AND there’s an amazing line to get back down from the top… AND there’s a line to get from the 2nd level down to the ground level again… So if you intend to visit the Eiffel Tower, go ahead and devote an entire day to it… it’s certainly no afternoon fling… Oh, and dress warm! Damn it gets windy and chilly!

So, finally we reached the top! Wow! What an amazing view! You can see all of Paris in this vast panoramic display. It’s simply stunning! From here, you can see Notre Dame, the Louvre, Sacre Coure, and just about anything else that makes Paris famous. Definitely well worth the time and effort it takes to make the climb… sigh…

Afterwards, it was basically time to call it a day… but first, some impressions, thusfar:

• The French do not believe in disposable crap: utensils that would normally be made of plastic are made of bamboo. My yogurt came in ceramic containers (ceramic?? Is that even recyclable?). If my bottled water doesn’t come in glass containers, the plastic is often so thick you can knock someone out with it.

• Apparently ‘Do Not Disturb’, in French, means ‘Please, bug the living Shit out of me by knocking on my door every 15 minutes’. Thought you might like to know.