Paris Day 2

After a pretty interesting night, I got up early to try to do some internet stuff. The keyboard was totally freaky to me. I was having the hardest time trying to figure out where some of the most basic sign keys were and then some of the primary alphabet letters were in totally not normal places (the a, q, c, w, and others). I was having the hardest time. It really made me wish I had brought my laptop with me, instead of just thinking that the three of us could survive on one laptop.

I got myself ready and woke the boys up so that we could get breakfast before heading out. It was really offensive to have a Paris Hostel serve NesCafé for their coffee. It was disgusting! But the baguettes were delicious. After that, we followed my pre-planned directions on the Metro out to the Eiffel Tower where we could also catch our “hop-on-hop-off” bus. Once we had gotten on the RER A train, someone on the other platform yelled “DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH?” We thought it was someone having trouble with something, so we said yes. The woman ran over to us and handed Ray a piece of paper that said she needed help for herself and her baby, can we please give her money. Are you kidding me? Ray brushed her off and we made our way out of the Metro station and up to the street. We started to walk towards the Eiffel Tower, which was huge and impressive. As we did so, we were asked by several different guys if we would like to buy Eiffel Tower souvenirs. We declined and kept moving. Then more of those ladies started approaching us: “Do you speak English?” It was just absolutely nerve-wracking. I just ignored them, kept moving. Sometimes they would actually follow you! Incredible! Not even the military presence at the Tower seemed to phase them.

Sadly, we realized the full impact of the tourist draw to the Tower once we made it under the Tower. It was 9:45AM and the place was PACKED and the lines were long and there were tourist buses EVERYWHERE! The first chance up was to walk up the stairs at 9:30AM or take the elevator to the top at 10AM. We would have been standing in line for at least 3 hours. So I agreed that we call it a wash and head on to our bus tour, not, though, without stopping for some trinkets. The first place I stopped in I found my official Eiffel Tower pin. I went to the counter to buy it and the lady said the amount. I handed her the smallest bill I had on me and she looked at me disgusted and said “smaller”. I looked back in my wallet and gestured to her that there was nothing smaller. She actually leaned over the counter and looked into my wallet! Begrudgingly accepting that I had nothing smaller, she broke my bill, gave me my change and thrust my purchase at me. Unbelievable! We also ventured to another shop to ask about the post office. This guy was much more polite, but told us the post office was closed down and we’d have to go to a tobacco shop. I was devastated, because I heard there was a special stamp you could only get from the Eiffel Tower. Ah well.

The Tour itself was really impressive. I was always a bit indifferent to it, because the French seem to speak so ill of it. This giant phallic monument in the middle of their city, but I liked it quite a bit. I was even determined to go to the very top, despite my fear of heights. I don’t know why everyone treats me like having a fear is unfounded. We’ll see how I fare when I get up there. I was fine on the London Eye!

Next, Ray insisted we find this tobacconist and off we went on a wild goose chase to find this elusive shop with a giant T. While we looked Jim and I continued to shop for trinkets and souvenirs for family. Ray finally found his shop, but it was nothing impressive and it was at this time that we learned our credit card was being “blocked”, referring the merchant to instruct us to call! Oh goodness gracious. So my stress was growing, but we figured we’d try somewhere else before we confirmed it, because the shop guy was a little weird.

We finally worked our way back to the hop-on-hop-off bus stop and got on. As we waited for the tour to start, it was getting a bit chilly and the rain clouds were threatening. Off we went and here came the drizzles. The boys went downstairs, but I stayed upstairs, toughing it out to get a good picture. I didn’t have a jacket with me, since the day started out nice, so I was wet and freezing. We passed all sorts of awesome locations, but we decided to get off the bus at Notre Dame. I was cold, hungry, and wet and I just wanted to get inside where it was warm.

After some confusion over where the entrance was (there was a tour line for the roof), we made it into the church. The amount of people made everything overwhelming, but not in an awe-inspiring way. If I had known that you could light candles throughout the church, I wouldn’t have stopped at the large candle area in front of the Crucifixion. There were so many people. But I always light two candles in every church I go in for family. Not so much that I believe lighting the candle itself does anything, but its part of a ceremony that creates an emotional response and makes your prayer feel stronger.

Making our way in, it was rather beautiful. The stained glass windows were sharp and gorgeous. There was a statue of Saint Theresa de L’Enfant (one of the nuns I studied history on) and a statue of Joan of Arc. There was a service going on, so you got to watch part of it. I got separated from the boys in the sea of people, but I eventually met up with them again. The iconography really inspired me and reminded me how much I know about the artistic side of religion and what the various elements represent and what certain things are for. I loved it.

Once we had taken in all that we could and snapped some photos, we left to go find lunch. Our biggest mistake was going to place directly next to Notre Dame, but we were so hungry and these hot dog baguettes looked so very delicious. What would prove to be a trend with wait staff in France started here. We weren’t seated. We weren’t given menus. It was just hectic and we were very much ignored. We were so starving, though, that we didn’t dare leave. Before leaving the area, though, I was determined to find the Shakespeare & Co Bookshop, which is the oldest English bookshop in Paris. According to all reports, it is right across from Notre Dame. What all of these reports have neglected to mention was that it was ACROSS THE RIVER! We had to do some hunting and I was getting frustrated, but we made it. Inside I wanted to get my favorite French book, Madame Bovary, and I wanted to get my friend Rachel The Hunchback of Notre Dame (since I think its one of her favorite books… maybe it was Les Miserables… or at least Hugo is one of her favorite authors). Sadly, they had JUST sold out of both of these books!!!! My heart sunk, because this was so important to me. The bookshop stamps your book with their official shop stamp, so I wanted that special memento. I ended up buying a book copy of Jules and Jim with an introduction written by Francois Truffaut. I bought Rachel a Victor Hugo poetry book and Ray got himself The Stranger by Albert Camus.

Then we made our way back to the bus stop, where the bus was waiting. Once again, I chose to suffer for the sake of documentation and I saw up top in the rain and cold with my camera to get pictures of all the sites. This time the trip took longer, because we were making our way to the Arc de Triomphe.

We had to get under the traffic that flows around the Arc. It is here that 12 different avenues converge and is one of the busiest “intersections” in Paris. We had to go through a tunnel underneath the circle and come out the other side. And there we were at the Arc. I went on ahead of the boys, taking a video of the Arc. As I finished the video and started taking some pictures of the large carvings on the front and back of the Arc, Ray called me over. He demanded I come over immediately and that he could not wait for me to finish taking pictures. Apparently a pigeon took it upon itself to poop on Ray. It was all over the shoulder of his shirt. Ray was horrified and quite offended and has fostered a new loathing for French Pigeons. I helped clean him up a bit and then went back to finish my pictures and seeing the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Time was up and we needed to make our way back to the hostel so that we could get ready for the cruise that night. Since the boys got so hooked on their internet when we got back, my caution to Ray was ignored. Too much time was spent on the computer, so there was no time to get dinner before the tour and cruise. Ray was not at all happy about this, but tough. That’s the way it is. We ask the restaurant at the bottom of the stairs how long they stay open and they said 10-11PM. We thought great and looked forward to coming back at the tour. We got off at the metro stop a little earlier than planned, so we decided to walk around a garden/park that was right next to the place where we were supposed to be waiting. I told Ray and Jim that this garden leads into the Louvre, and sure enough, we were surrounded by the borders of the building.

As we walked through the garden, Jim was struck by the erotic mythological statues that lined the walkway. So we had to take pictures of them all. I also saw an amazing site. Lined up with the giant pyramid straight down, through the fountain and an obelisk was the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, all the way to the Arc de Triomphe. AMAZING! I tried to capture the beauty of the symmetry in the picture, but I doubt I captured it appropriately.

When we had made our way around, we headed to the address on our confirmation ticket. Getting lost on a side street, someone other than myself looked at the paper and noticed a number in front of the street name. So we went there and saw a sign that said we need to go to their other office. When we checked in, we got on the bus that would take us to our cruise. Disappointingly, the bus had tinted windows. This confused me as we were going on a night time City of Lights tour. . . and the bus had tinted windows. I let it roll until I also discovered that the bus tour would be first, the cruise would be second, and we would be making special stops for other people who had booked additions to the standard bus and cruise package. This was starting to mean that we wouldn’t be back at a timely hour for any kind of dinner.

The City of Lights bus tour was alright. Sadly, it was the same tour guide information we had already heard earlier that day and essentially ALL the same stops we made. This made me sad and I could already feel Ray’s irritation. I think both boys dozed on the bus ride. We did get to see the Eiffel Tower all lit up and twinkling! Then they took us to the base of the tower and we got on our cruise boats to the River Seine, but not without being accosted by Eiffel Tower trinket sellers! We also almost didn’t make it on the boat together. That would have been pretty bad. There were TONS of people on the cruise, not just those people from our bus. This bugged me, as I had been lead to believe that this was run by the tour company, but it wasn’t. It was independent stuff that they just grouped together. There was a huge group of school kids (we guessed from Canada).

The cruise took us down the River Seine. We opted not to listen to the audio commentary, since it was so redundant. Everything was pretty. I had come prepared for cold (4 layers), but I was still really cold. Maybe in warmer temperatures the hour long cruise would have been nice at night. Maybe if the boys had been more into it, I would have had more fun. But Ray was really irritated with the evening and you can feel it. I was also really sore and my feet and knee were giving me lots of problems. (see videos from the river tour here.)

So when the cruise was done, both Ray and Jim bolted for the bus and left me behind in the sea of people. My jacket even got ripped as I tried to catch up with them. There was no need to rush at all. We were the first people back on the bus. At this point, it was already pretty late and I gave up trying to figure out what to do to eat. I didn’t want to hunt around. I wanted to go home and go to bed, because we had to get up early the next morning to make it to the Eiffel Tower before the crowds. Instead of our bus taking us back to our location, they made a stop on the Champs-Élysées for those who had purchased an inclusive dinner. We didn’t do this, because it was an extra 50euro per person for that particular thing. So we didn’t even get back to the bus stop until 10PM (an hour later than I had been told we would be back) and then we had to get on the metro back to our hotel. Ray was upset that I didn’t want to hunt down a place to eat, but I seriously just wanted to go to bed. The restaurant by our hotel decided to stop seating at 10PM this evening instead of 11PM, so I definitely just wanted to go to bed. We parted so that the boys could go find somewhere to eat and I scaled the French Stairs of Death to the hotel and battled the loud youth hostel-stayers in the other room. I finally just gave in and went to bed only to be woken up by the boys when they came home. It was a long night.