Day 1, Friday
2:15am, my alarm clock goes off. My bag packed already, its time for
Paris! There are 8 of us on this excursion, and only 2 of us speak
French. 1 fluently. Megan’s going to be doing a lot of translating. And
my translator app too, but I certainly won’t be using it
mid-conversation.
Not all of us are as ready to go as me. We have a missing passport, a
number of missing people, and another “I need to go back for something”
that I didn’t catch and didn’t bother to ask again. Fingers crossed
everyone makes it to the airport, on time, with everything they need.
Its a foggy night, nice and cool. My glasses are covered though, so
I’m blindly following the others to the train station. No one was hit!
Its amazing how much the city slows down in the early morning. We saw
not a single person the entire way to the station, and even in Kings
Cross itself we only saw 4 people. The others beat the train to the
station, thankfully. (There’s only 1 each hour!)
We board the train, and ride in a half-awake stupor the entire time,
laughing at jokes and stories that aren’t really funny and dozing off
for seconds or minutes at a time. I really could have used more than an
hour or two of sleep last night.
We arrive at our stop, and make our way to the shuttle to get to the
airport. Nothing really exciting happened here, at least nothing I was
conscious of.
The airport. A bustle of people all trying to not miss their flight. I
forget to take my liquids out of my bag. I was too busy wondering why
everyone is allowed to keep their shoes on for European flights. My bag
gets flagged. I wonder what’s with my traveling that I get stopped,
flagged, or selected for a random full check each time?
It’s my shampoo this time. Maybe they can’t see through the black
bottle. Maybe its a weird consistency. Maybe they picked it at random?
I’m free to pass through border control, and get on my flight. Hurray
for another stamp! I still think they should be more colorful, or have a
symbol on it or something. It just says the airport’s name with a box.
The flight is 55 minutes. It feels more like 5, since there is 21.4
minutes of ascent and 21.4 minutes of decent. That would leave 12.2
minutes at cruising height, assuming my numbers are correct (They
aren’t).
Nous arrivons à France! (We arrive in France!) Everyone else realizes
that they have no idea how to communicate here, and the questions
begin. “How do we talk to border control? Where’s the exit? How do I buy
a drink?” I’m so exhausted I can’t remember, and I keep quiet while
Megan answers most of them.
We approach the border guard, one at a time. The moment of truth. I
say, “Bonjour,” and I immediately realize how strong my American
mid-west dialect is (as well as how American I look in my plaid button
up t-shirts) when he responds with “You can go through,” in English. So
much for knowing some French. It probably didn’t help that I was right
after the others who knew no French at all.
I’m pretty overwhelmed by the strain of trying (and usually being
unable) to understand the speech and text around me. I only had an hour
of sleep after all. Fortunately, the major signs in the airport are in
both French and English. We find the Great Britain ticket attendant
person (the one who sells the train tickets to Paris), and we each get a
ticket. Maybe we can do this!
We find the train, and we hop on. I promptly fall asleep, but not
before I notice that this train is in far worse shape than in London.
Probably because there’s no cameras on this train. I doze for a while. I
want to see as much of Paris as possible, so I fight it off. Look at
all those suburbs… Reminds me of Los Angeles. The Los Angeles of Europe.
We arrive at our hostel. Our rooms aren’t ready yet, so we leave our
bags in the locked luggage room and look around. Some of us walk in the
bike lane and get yelled at by Parisian cyclists. (Not me, promise!)
We find a cafe, and can’t decide what to get. The cashier mistakes
our silence for being completely unable to speak French, and she isn’t
terribly happy about it. Megan helps the others order. I order all by
myself. They don’t take cards, so we all have to use our 20s, and she
nearly runs out of change. I apologize for not having any smaller bills.
“Désole…” She seems happy that at least two of our group can speak
French. We’re off to a good start!
We return to the hostel and get checked into our room. They don’t
have any towels left because its a holiday of some sort this weekend.
The toilet asks us to not flush toilet paper down the toilet. Must have
old piping. We all collapse in our rooms, and wake up about 4 hours
later, at 2pm. (Europeans would say 14:00)
We decide to take the subway to le Tour Eiffel. The ticket machine
doesn’t take cash. I’ll have to keep that in mind, but for now I have
enough coins for a ticket.
It doesn’t feel like we’re really in Paris until we get out of the
underground station and see the Eiffel Tower. There it was, just sitting
there. (What was I expecting it to do though, dance around?) We make
our way past the street vendors selling “selfie sticks” and miniature
Eiffel Towers.
We meander through town a while, and find a few other monuments.
Eventually we stop to eat at a cafe/restaurant. The waitress is pretty
happy talking to Megan. She’s also super helpful to everyone else who’s
trying to order in French. Hilarity ensues as new French speaking skills
get tried, with phrases like “Me sad because of cheese,” “I am ham,”
and “Ongion soup, please” being the highlights.
That evening, we go up the Eiffel Tower. Climbing all 603 stairs to
level 1. Then 603 more stairs to level 2. The view was great, though!
We stand in line to get to the top of the tower by lift. I meet some
nice Canadians behind us, from Ontario. We talk a lot and take pictures a
lot and wait a lot.
I’m pushed up against the glass door in the lift up. I sure hope
there isn’t a problem and the door opens. It sure is a long way down. I
find the easiest handhold to grab, just in case.
We make it to the top without incident. By this time, the sun has set and the tower is lit up. The city sure sparkles at night.
We head back down in groups. Luc isn’t in one of them. We must have
left him at the top of the tower. After about 30 minutes of searching,
we finally see him stepping off the stairs at the bottom. Found him!
We laugh about how he was forgotten at the top of the tower and head
back to the hostel. Megan remembers the lack of towels and stops to get
one from a touristy store, and Luc, Jake, and I wait outside. An
attractive young French woman approaches us and sounds exceptionally
flustered, asking us for help. She’s talking too fast for me to make out
what she’s asking and she quickly walks off, assumably to find someone
who speaks fluent French. I wish I could have helped her. Maybe next
time.
Day 2, Saturday
Off to a late start today. We don’t collectively have enough coin to
pay for our tickets for the day. I didn’t realize neither of my cards
would work. The machines only support cards with the chip in them. Megan
goes through the open-air market nearby and buys some bananas so that
she could get coins for all of us. They were definitely the best bananas
I’ve ever eaten.
There were two groups today that wanted to go to different places, so
we decided to split into two groups. I really wanted to avoid the mass
of people that would be at the Louvre as well as be with the fluent
French speaker.
My group arrives at our station, and find ourselves in a two-hour
line to get into the Catacombs. I really don’t like waiting in line.
Being with the others and talking the whole time makes it bearable,
though, and I get lots of pictures. We each take turns going to grab
something to eat. I get a portable pizza and some sort of pastry with
chocolate in it.
There are hundreds of thousands of bones in the catacombs, all
sitting in nice, organized piles with trails leading through them. Its
pretty morbid. They only let 200 people in at a time, and it’s a really
long walk, so there were a few times when I didn’t see or hear anyone
around me, and it was fairly peaceful.
When I got out of the catacombs, there was only one person behind me.
We then waited another hour and a half after I got out before we
decided we should let the other group know we were running late, as we
had decided we would meet the other group at 3 o’clock. It was pushing
2:45.
I was part of the group that went to meet them, and we found them at
the Arc de Triumph much more easily than we expected. We then met up
with the rest and we went on our merry way.
We then went to Notre Dame
Luxembourg Park (where we saw the super-mini Statue of Liberty)
the Lock Bridge
and walked along the river. I loved walking along the bank. We were
the only tourists around (that I could tell—it looked like all locals to
me), it was a beautiful evening, and everyone was so happy and content.
It felt like something out of a storybook. Everyone was enjoying
everyone elses’ company, playing games and eating together. After dark,
we stopped by the Eiffel Tower again, and walked across another monument
to get to an underground station. We stopped to see the Arc de Triomphe at night, and went back to the hostel.
Day 3
We split again, as some wanted to take a train to Versailles, and
others (myself included), wanted to stay in the city, see some more
sights, and have a more relaxed day. We hopped on a subway and took it
all the way to the end, getting off at Dauphine station.
One of the things I had wanted to see was the University of Paris.
Ironically, about a block from the stop we got off at was the Dauphine
branch of the University of Paris. We discovered that most places don’t
open until 10am outside of the more touristy areas. We stop by a
wonderful patisserie (pastry shop) and I have the most amazing,
delicious, fantastic croissant I’ve ever had. As Luc so well put it, “I
can’t ever eat a Pillsbury croissant ever again.”
I want to see the US Embassy, so we take the subway to the Franklin D. Roosevelt station and walk down the Champs-Élysées.
Its tucked behind a bunch of trees and mean looking police officers, so
I don’t take any pictures. Luc also discourages picture taking from his
experiences abroad.
We stop by the Louvre to take more pictures, but we
avoid the crowds, since its so crowded. (See what I did there?) We rode
the subway to the small Statue of Liberty (not to be confused with the
super-mini one in Luxembourg Park. Luc and I walked down to a bridge to
get the statue and the Eiffel Tower in the same picture. I didn’t
realize it was so far away, and I’m exhausted by the time we get back to
the statue.
We walked down a pretty island to get to the Eiffel Tower, as we
thought it was fitting to spend our last few hours napping in the sun
beneath the tower. We decide to get one last treat before we leave. I
successfully order an apricot marmalade crepe completely in French and
have the cashier respond entirely in French back. There was full
comprehension from both parties.
We head out to the airport, and I’m sad that I’m leaving. Its a
little bit funny to say that I’m sad to be going to London, but I
definitely wish I could have stayed in Paris longer.
After getting through security and border patrol, I decided I wanted
to finish my collection of one type of each coin. I was missing a 1 Euro
cent, and a 5 Euro cent, so I approach one of the cashers. I try to ask
for change for a 20 cent piece in French, but the cashier doesn’t
understand what I’m saying. I try to switch to English, but she doesn’t
know English well and still doesn’t understand. I eventually resort to
saying (in French) “This is 20. I would like 10, 5, 1 and 1 and 1 and 1
and 1, please.” Success, she understands!
As we get in line to board the plane, two of my companions realize
their phone is about to die. Their boarding passes are both on their
phone. Fortunately, I’m an Eagle Scout so I’m always prepared. I let
them use my mobile charger (which I haven’t needed to use yet,
thankfully). They were pretty funny looking, joined together by the
charger.
I already miss Paris, and I will definitely be making another trip back.
Matthew is a senior studying Computer Science
at the College of Saint
Scholastica. Not content with only working with computers, Matthew also
performs in the CSS Theater, studies business, finance, economics, the
physical sciences, and loves to go ballroom dancing. He is a voracious
reader. His hobby is to learn about as many
different fields, and about as many different topics, as he can. Matthew
also enjoys writing about himself in the third person. For more from
Matthew, visit him at matthewrandolph.com.
Matt- I really enjoy how you explain you're successes and struggles with the Language throughout the weekend. Its great you were able to hold you're own for the most part with french and understand the responses while in Paris. The last account for the language interaction I find really comical. It is the classic communication last resort to display a series of numbers to get across what the one you need. But its a cool progression from how you describe the immediate strain stepping off the plane to ordering at a cafe. It is always an interesting thing to travel in airports that have a different language. All the signs in France were in French (obviously) , but with English in small text underneath. And all of the intercom announcements were first in French, and then followed by English and Spanish. It made me curious to be more sensitive to American airports. Does the JFK airport in NYC translate all signs and announcements in French ,Spanish and other languages? I’m sure that it happens, I just have not been in a position to recognize it. So even time in the airport was a cultural experience. I agree with you that Paris was great! I also know that I will return to Paris in the future. And maybe I'll explore more of France outside of Paris. I just really really enjoyed my time there and cant wait to go back.
ReplyDeleteMatt- I really enjoy how you explain you're successes and struggles with the Language throughout the weekend. Its great you were able to hold you're own for the most part with french and understand the responses while in Paris. The last account for the language interaction I find really comical. It is the classic communication last resort to display a series of numbers to get across what the one you need. But its a cool progression from how you describe the immediate strain stepping off the plane to ordering at a cafe. It is always an interesting thing to travel in airports that have a different language. All the signs in France were in French (obviously) , but with English in small text underneath. And all of the intercom announcements were first in French, and then followed by English and Spanish. It made me curious to be more sensitive to American airports. Does the JFK airport in NYC translate all signs and announcements in French ,Spanish and other languages? I’m sure that it happens, I just have not been in a position to recognize it. So even time in the airport was a cultural experience. I agree with you that Paris was great! I also know that I will return to Paris in the future. And maybe I'll explore more of France outside of Paris. I just really really enjoyed my time there and cant wait to go back.
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