Finally France

OK, I am finally getting to tell you all about my visit to Paris a couple weeks ago. Overall it was quite interesting to be in Paris, the city much proclaimed by many. I have to say that I was not particularly impressed. I do not know why that is. Perhaps it had to do with the fact that I do not really speak the language, or because so many people told me that they did not really like Paris Or perhaps it is because I do not have as much of a connection with Paris as I do with, say, London, New York City and Berlin. The Once and Future Flatmate said that she was not surprised since the two of us ‘tend toward the Anglophilic side, and you can’t love both France and holly old England, can you?’ As true as that might be, it would have been nicer to have liked the city a little better. Oh well, you cannot like every city you meet, even if it is in Europe.

Other than that, Betsy and I are quite lazy when it comes to being tourists. We did all of the requisite Paris tourism things: Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Louvre, Champs Élysées, Arc de Triomphe, the Tuileries. I have to say that Notre Dame was quite cool, I had no idea that it was on a little island bit in the middle of the Seine. The river– surprise, surprise– was the highlight of the trip for me. We spent quite a while walking along the Seine, and it was quite nice.

One amusing thing is that in Place de la Bastille there is a restaurant named Indiana. Of course I took pictures of it. The pictures, by the way, are now uploaded and can be accessed by the link call ‘Paris’ to the left. I may or may not ever get around to annotating the pictures, but, if you ask me, most of them are pretty explanatory. Either you will recognise the landmark; or if it is a gardeny area (and by gardeny, I mean tan gravel – probably another reason why I was not too enchanted with Paris was the lack of a nice green garden to sit on, except at the Tower), it is probably the Tuileries; and if it is a body of water, it is the Seine. Another note about the pictures, if you bother looking at them, you can see that I was up to my usually trying to be artsy antics. Sorry in advance. I also seem to have been quite taken with the Tour d’Eiffel, despite that fact that it is really quite ugly.

There is not much else to tell about our weekend in Paris. As I said, we are sort of on the lazy side. Keep an eye out for the next post, whose subject will be the week before last, while I was on holiday while my mother was here.