…You know where. But more specifically, Paris.
Possibly the most terrifying thing about being in a non-primarily-English speaking country is when someone knocks on the bathroom door. “Just a minute!” or “there’s someone in here!” are not the first things you think to Google translate when you cross a border; and it’s not as if you have much time to ask Siri while you’re wiping and someone is pounding endlessly on the door. Not that that’s ever happened to me. Except that it actually happens all the time and I say something in English and usually that works except today they kept pounding and I kept answering and then when I was finished and opened the door there was no one there so maybe it was a ghost?
But. A few things have happened before this incident, so let me catch you up. I took an “eight hour” bus from Amsterdam to Paris, which turned out to be a ten hour bus. It wasn’t horrible – I’ve perfected the art of sleeping on busses/trains/planes/go-karts so I was able to pass the time reasonably well. It helped that I hadn’t really slept the night before. But I when I arrived in London I was a weird combination of tired and wired, and I’m not just saying that because those words rhyme.
After checking into my hostel it was about 10pm, so naturally I decided to go to the bar downstairs for a drink. I thought it would relax me a bit – I honestly wasn’t planning on even meeting anybody, because I already knew that the bar was an “real bar” – that is, not just for the people staying in the hostel, but for anyone.
I ordered my beer and sat down at one of the only empty seats at a table across from a guy. IMPORTANT NOTE: I hadn’t showered in 24 hours, was still wearing the clothes from the ten hour bus ride, no makeup, and glasses. But yeah so this guy started talking to me and I couldn’t understand a goddamn word he said because it was all in French. He seemed nice though, and we even though it took us about 5x longer than normal to have a conversation, (because his English was nearly as bad as my French) we started talking. We eventually figured out that we both new Spanish better than we knew each other’s language, so we ended up communicating in a very strange combination of English, French, Spanish, Google Translate, and Google Image Search (because some things really don’t translate, as it turns out.) He bought me a drink, and then another, and by my fourth we were making out in the booth.
I ended up going to his place, which in retrospect sounds like a terrible idea, but it was actually quite a good time; he even walked me all the way home at 4am when I didn’t want to stay there.
I feel like European men are conditioned to be totally different than American men; they seem to be much more emotional and romantic, and it feels almost as disingenuous as how unemotional and detached American men force themselves to be. It’s the opposite end of the spectrum but also kind of the same thing, and I’m FASCINATED.
Moving on. I didn’t sleep as much as I had hoped that first night, so I got a late start and just barely made free breakfast in the morning. But don’t worry guys, I filled my plate for three and couldn’t even finish everything so I got my money’s worth. I filled my day with landmarks; I walked (about an hour and a half) to see the Eiffel Tower, walked about 45 minutes to the Arc de Triomphe, and then actually took the metro to the Louvre, which was thankfully open until 10 that day.
I accidentally spent way too many hours in there, but I got to see the Mona Lisa which was super cool, and I enjoyed the hell out of all the statues. The museum just KEEPS GOING; I don’t understand. You think you’ve seen a whole wing and then you turn a corner and it turns out to be about eight times bigger than you thought. Other highlights were these cool-ass room things that had like, nobody in them, and were so huge and ornate and gorgeous that I literally gasped when I walked in. You could spend a week in there and not finish looking at everything, and it’s only one of SEVERAL giant art museums in the city. Nuts.
I actually cut my time at the Louvre short because I was getting pretty hangry; I’d only eaten half a baguette since breakfast and it was like, 7. So I decided to go to this cheap but apparently pretty legit French cuisine restaurant called Chartier. I had to wait in line for a bit, but I got seated way faster than most everyone because I just needed a teensy table for one. I ordered an appetizer (which may have been my favorite part of the meal – shrimp in creamy cocktail sauce on half an avocado), an entree, dessert, and a glass of wine (which was in a carafe and basically actually two glasses of wine) and it came out to be just under 20 euro. What. It was so nice to know I was having a “real French meal” without worrying how much it was going to cost me.
I walked home and crawled into bed without doing anything, even though I STILL hadn’t showered since the Netherlands. My pedometer told me I walked 33,999 steps, which was probably why my feet and shins and knees and hips and back were hurting. Fortunately, I still had enough energy to watch the Netflix masterpiece “A Christmas Prince” and post spoilers on Facebook so all my friends would unfollow me.
This morning I failed again at waking up and just barely made breakfast. Again. But I dashed out the door as soon as I scarfed down my food and went straight to the Catacombs – this time taking the metro instead of walking because my legs probably would have fallen off otherwise. This was an absolutely must-see for me, because I did a devised show that took place in the Paris Catacombs, and I had to see it for myself while I was here.
I had seen enough pictures to know to an extent what to expect, but I was most surprised that I wasn’t creeped out; I was merely humbled. There are so many bones. They are piled on top of each other, packed tightly into walls. Rows upon rows of femurs and skulls. Sometimes the skulls seem to be looking at you, as if to remind you that they once were a person just like you. So many people that lived and died in this city, and this is such a tiny percentage of them are here, not –
A middle-aged lady literally just yelled at me for typing because it’s “too loud.” She didn’t ask me nicely to stop or type more quietly; if she had I would have apologized and stopped. But no, she literally started banging on my bed and yelling at me. You’re in a shared room with boys who snore super loud and they gave you earplugs, chill the fuck out woman. Ah, the joys of hostel life.
-even close to the number of people who have lived and died in the city since. And they’re just bones now. It was beautiful in such an odd way; I liked that it wasn’t a guided tour so I could take my time and absorb what I was seeing.
As I emerged from the Catacombs, I found myself in the only sunshine I’ve seen yet in Paris. It lasted for approximately one hour, but I made sure to take a nice long walk to Notre Dame in that time. I took some touristy photos, fed some pigeons so they would climb on me, and spent a bit of time in my new favorite place, an amazing bookstore called “Shakespeare and Company.” It’s like a maze, but with books and personality and reading nooks everywhere and a cat. Also the books are in English so that’s a plus for monolingual Genevieve.
I escaped the cold and rain that started up again in a little restaurant where I had a cheap lunch, and then made up for it with some expensive ice cream down the street. I only got it because it’s famous and it was totally worth it.
I took the metro like a pro to this famous street called “Rue des Martyrs” which was mostly just a regular street and I don’t get the hype. And then I walked down a very large street completely filled with sex shops and strip clubs just to get a glimpse of the Moulin Rouge. The weather made me want to die so I ducked into a Starbucks to warm up, order a gingerbread latte, and scroll through my Facebook feed. Also this was where the bathroom ghost happened! But I knew I still had one more stop to make.
According to the internet, the ultimate Eiffel Tower viewing spot is this place called Trocadero. I got there about 20 minutes to the hour which was perfect: every hour on the hour it sparkles for five minutes. I took a bajillion pics, found a sweet-ass seat where people probably sit In the summer but wouldn’t dream of in the winter, and waited for sparkles. It was incredible.
And then, because I had nowhere to be and I can do whatever I want, I opened the bottle of grocery store wine I had been carrying around all day in preparation for this occasion, poured it into a Starbucks cup I had stolen in preparation for this occasion, and drank my wine and read my book in front of the Eiffel Tower for the next hour. (I had appropriately started “The Little Paris Bookshop” which wasn’t even on purpose.) It was cold but I didn’t care.
The Eiffel Tower looks especially Eiffel Tower-y at night.
I left after the next round of sparkles. The wine made me emotional and I had trouble dealing with all the beauty and happiness and aliveness I was feeling. I got myself home, finally showered, and…here we are.