The accommodations I had in Paris were surprisingly good. I had visions of The Happiness Hotel from The Great Muppet Caper in my head before I got there, and I fully anticipated the hotel to have rats for bellboys and an array of dogs, bears, chickens and things occupying the rooms beside me. Nathan, you would have appreciated the sounds of jackhammers and car horns blaring just outside my hotel window. In fact, such sounds were a regular feature throughout the city. Despite the common perceptions, I found Paris to be a fairly clean city, that is, depending on what part of the city I was in. But for a city its size and age, it's pretty well kept and has a lot of character.
I found myself most at home in the Latin Quarter, which is located just near Notre Dame. This section of town is made up of narrow, winding streets that are lined with restaurants with a variety of ethnic flavours. This is where you'll find a large number of the city's cafes, which are more than eager to take your money. I felt that in Paris, money was like water. Whereas in London I could get a pint for 2.50 pounds, in Paris I was needing to cash traveler’s cheques in order to get a drop of ale.
Paris is another city where you are required to do an enormous amount of walking. I did find some downtime to relax a little in the Jardin de Luxembourg, which is this calm oasis in the midst of the madness that is Paris, and to watch people go by the Fountain St. Michelle at €4.00 a cafe. I hit a number of the Paris standards, including the Louvre, where I developed a general distaste for Italian Renaissance art; Notre Dame; les Champs Elysees; the Picasso Museum; and the Eiffel Tower. I also went on a tour of the Mouffetard District, where Ernest Hemingway and his first wife and child lived during the early 1920s (and where I met one of the only Canadians on the trip), and attended a festival of international film shorts where a few Canadian films were featured.
Ah, I should also mention the Basilica of Sacre Coeur, which still makes me sick just thinking about it. Located on a hill in the Montmartre District, Sacre Coeur has not been excused from the perpetual decay that the district itself seems to be suffering from. As you hike up the urine soaked steps to the Basilica, and likewise take in a lungful of amonia, you are hounded and harassed by swill merchants trying to sell cheap knockoffs and tacky souvenirs. When I eventually got to the top of the Basilica at the top of the hill, I fully anticipated it to be closed to tourists because of Sunday Mass. But no. Instead, imagine an endless tide of tourists in their bucket hats and camera bags shuffling through the church around the aisles in the midst of choral hymns and scripture readings. Not being Catholic myself, I still felt that this display was an absolute disgrace. It took all I could to not go Jesus Christ on their ass.
Paris was a bittersweet experience. It's the kind of city that you can't help but love, yet can't help to hate at the same time. I think a lot of it has to do with the feeling that the city creates within you. I woke up this morning with a hangover and the taste of stale beer on my breath. That should give you an inclination. There is something about Paris that will stick with me for some time, for better or for worse. As Hemingway himself wrote: "If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of you life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast."
Next: Why people in Brussels are uglier than anyone else in Europe.
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