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Too bad about the French

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Mark and I went to Paris last weekend, and it was great. Paris is really a magnificent city, the food is excellent and the people are nice. Too bad they’re so… French.

On our way there everything went smoothly, we even saw the little village that IIIVX apparently rules over in his free time. We arrived, and got to our hotel-room. After enjoying the excellent view, we decided to hit the town for some fun.

Now that ‘fun’ part is not so difficult once you’ve hit the town, but actually hitting it is tricky. Subways go to all places, every different hallway is a sortie, and the ticketing system is quite odd. Part of it works just like in London (insert your ticket, pray it comes out on the other side and the port will open), the other part doesn’t work at all (jump over the ports, or simply walk through because it has been permanently opened). With all the illogical hallways and directions, you want to make very clear that you are indeed going the right way. We travelled the wrong way once.

We were staying near La Defense, which is an impressive business-arondissement (district) with some of the highest buildings in the city. Seen from the Eiffeltower, it stands out tall so you cannot miss it. Because we were tired of the day, we decided to catch a movie in the large cinema there. It was one of the few places that had original versions of movies. We went to see The Devil Wears Prada, a movie I’d recommend to anyone: even if you’re not at all into fashion, like me, you’ll love this movie. And Meryl Streep rocks as (almost) always (it’s just Out of Africa that sucks).

On day two we did some of the actual sight-seeing: we went to the Montmartre and saw the Sacre Coeur, after that we went to the museum of Montmartre, then we went to the Louvre. To be honest, the paintings in the Louvre were just too many. I recognised some, and I could find some symbolism in others, but after the millionth painting of baby Jesus and Mary Magdalen, every non-art-connaisseur is probably thinking the same thing as me: oh no, not another one. The Egyptian part of the museum was not what I had expected it to be (the British musea are much more interesting when it comes to that). And the Mona Lisa… it was very pretty indeed, but we never got to look at it from close by (too many people crowding in front of it), and I was surprised to find it was so small. Sometimes I still expect too much, I guess.

Of course, we had to encounter a Windows error. They never fail to show up.

On our way, we met a strange guy, and then another one (this one is playing with sock puppets), and then another one.

Also, we got ripped off, and a second time, and then again.

The literal high-point of our trip was most definitely the Eiffeltower. We had decided to go all the way up to the top, no matter how long that would take us. We stood in line for 45 minutes and then we were able to go up to the 2nd floor. We were amazed at the altitude and the beautiful view of Paris one has there. Then, we stood in line for another 30 minutes in order to get to the top. Our feet were falling off by that time and our backs were killing us, but the view was well worth it. We were standing right underneath the lamps that shine a lightbeam over Paris, and the city lights were spectacular.

After that we figured we’d go back to La Defense and find some food there. That was a bad thing to do, because all restaurants and food courts were closed. Finally, we found one place open: a MacDonalds clone called Happy Cheese or some such thing. Disappointed, we went back to the hotelroom. On Sunday we were so tired that we decided home was definitely the way to go. And then it hit me again: going on vacation serves the mere purpose of realising how good things are at home. That, and perhaps boasting to friends and family.

When we were home, we went to the greek restaurant on the corner to make up for the lousy dinner we had in Paris. No more asking for ‘une croque-monsieur s’il-vous-plait’, I can just say I want good meat. No more listening to prices in the category ‘dix-neuf euro et quatre-vingt-dix-neuf cents’, no, it’s ‘negentien negen-en-negentig’. Kill the French! Yay home!

That said, I envy their phallic symbol.