Obligatory selfie with the Eifle Tower photo bombing. I've been to France before, but it's been almost ten years. France was the first real "foreign" country I'd ever been to. I'd been to Japan, but I had some of the language and knew something about the country. I was studying in England, and that common language really counts for a lot. All I knew about France was they had a tower and spoke French. While my friend Jeremy and I had fun at Disneyland and doing tourist stuff, I didn't leave Paris with favorable impressions. It was summer, so the crowds were what you imagine and the air was an like wearing a wet sweater in a sauna. People were short tempered, and everything just felt difficult and unpleasant. This trip was... Different.
I broke my France trips into two cities, Metz and Paris. The train from Luxembourg City to Paris was over a hundred Euros. No. Instead, for €15 I took the train to Metz, spent some time there, and took a bus (€17) to Paris.
I ask this question a lot, but what do you know about Metz? If your answer is any more in depth than, "I've heard there is a bus station there," you knew/know more than me.
Metz.
Is.
Gorgeous.
As is my often my strategy for a new place, I had low to no expectations and figured as long as I could walk, I'd amuse myself. Well. I could have spent days here. Beautiful city with theaters and museums and parks and just a fantastic collection of streets to explore. I stumbled into perfect, sunny weather where I probably would have been okay in just a sweater. And my impression of French people, I'll admit my prejudices, changed. While people had been snippy and rude when I was in Paris, everyone I encountered in Metz was pleasent and patient. My nonexistent French beyond hello, good bye, yes, no, please, and excuse me was met with amusement not animosity. Okay. Maybe I need to change my memories to the Parisians and not French in general.
It was a short visit, and before I knew it, time for Paris.
I don't know why, but I had a promotional coupon attached to my AirBnB account. When the room I booked canceled on me, I noticed the coupon. Instead of getting a free small room kind of far out, I got a full apartment near North Station for $13. Total. That's just fine. Yay for bodily functioning all over the place! I was burping, farting, and not wearing pants all over that place. Look, four weeks of shared bathrooms and living spaces... It was nice to pee with the door open.
Besides my usual aimless wanderings, I had two must-dos that I missed last time I was in Paris. The first one should only surprise you that I didn't make time for it last trip.
Yep! Catacombs!
I was going to make a meme showing the photo of the enterance that claimed the catacombs take 45 minutes and Beyoncé singing, "you must not know 'bout me." 45 minutes... Please. Here are three of my favorite cell phone pics. Obviously my real camera did better
Limiting myself to three. This is hard. Okay.
1.
I <3 u 2. 2.
Barrel of laughs?3.
Felt bad for all the lumbering giants who were, like, 5'4" OR EVEN TALLER! Pretty sure one Titan I saw was easy 5'11".
I haven't been posting a lot of pictures of me shoving food in my face. Let's fix that. I know this simple meal looks dull. Bread and water. Prison food with better portions. No. Wrong.
Now I understand why the place was crowded. €6 for lunch with tip. Lovely!
A few randoms to help you fall in love with Paris with me.
The other big Paris event was going to Versailles. I didn't care or even think to go until I flopped in "my" bed, and I use that adjective rather carelessly even with quotation marks, one night. Versailles. That's a thing people do. Now, I could have done the Metro out there but for whatever reason, I didn't want to. Instead, I bought a ticket in the Versailles Express, a bus that took me from the Eifle Tower to the palace and back. Would have been slightly cheaper to Metro it but...
It ended up being more of a private, giant taxi. I got to the bus early and got to spend all my stuff out to dry (it started just...just pouring). On the way back, I got to the bus about 15 minutes early AKA on time, and he left as soon as I showed up. We chatted a bit, but he was a rather aggressive driver driving a double decker (for me. Silly waste of petrol) and I kinda wandered away "to work" so he'd concentrate.
Versailles? Well. I've seen a lot of magically beautiful places now. The weather wasn't cooperative, and there were tourists than I was used to dealing with. All of them with their audio guides just going for it 'cause no one thinks to use their damned headphones.
Unfortunately, most of the time I was there, it was too rainy to get my camera out, but if you've ever seen a garden before, it looked like that. In the winter.
The best part of Versailles was the temporary exhibition they were running, "The King is Dead," which went over the process for dejng with dead royalty. The entire wing was staged as a royal funeral with mood lighting and music.
Autopsy tools.
Really, I can't say much about Versailles. Or maybe that just tells you how much I loved Paris this time that Versailles, one of the most beautiful places on the planet, couldn't hold me the way just walking the four miles from the Eifle Tower "home" did.
I find myself trying to do this little (well, not really little. Pretty damned long I guess) blog post/diary entry and thinking that I...I wouldn't mind coming back to Paris. In fact. Yeah. I'd like to visit Paris again. I think I'd like to visit France the same way I bumbled about Southern Germany.
"Yet knowing how way leads on to way/ I doubted if I should ever come back."
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