I took three years of French in high school, and while I have never been able to use it practically unlike could have been the case if I had decided to take Spanish instead, those three years gave me a love of this country. I’m thankful for that.
I was fortunate to have three great teachers for those three years, but Betsy Taylor for French III Honors takes the cake. Yes, we learned a lot, but we also had a lot of fun. Once she was telling us a story about one of her visits while commenting on the desensitization to visuals of the human body here, and how she was mortified one night when something resembling what we would consider pornography came across her television. I believe she was staying with a French family, and she was immensely worried about the sounds and what they would think about her for watching it.
“That’s what the mute button is for,” I blurted out.
I have no idea why I said that, and I have no idea why I’m sharing this story now. But I immediately thought of it the first time I turned on my television in my hotel in Paris, so here we are.
I mentioned that I was in Paris at the end of the last entry, but I didn’t really mention anything about the Eurostar, the train that carried me from London to the City of Lights. It felt like we zoomed impossibly fast from England, under the English Channel, and into France. I thought for sure we were traveling through some other tunnel, only realizing we were in a new country when T-Mobile texted me a welcome message.
Train travel is so legit. High-speed train travel is even more so.
We arrived at Gare du Nord — the train station of the north — and after a few minutes of watching others, I purchased a ticket for the Metro and headed towards my hotel. I must say, I did not fully appreciate at the time the ease of using the Underground in London and simply being able to tap my credit card at the gates. It wasn’t a huge inconvenience to have to purchase a physical ticket (they do have some options that aren’t this, to be clear… I admittedly didn’t take the time to learn them), but the London way was more enjoyable.
Making me aware that the hotel walls were thinner even than paper, I was startled awake to an argument in the hallway at around 1 a.m. that first night there, and let me tell you what, there is something incredibly disorienting about waking up to two foreign tongues — one French and one German — shouting at each other right outside of your door.
One of the things we did in Betsy T’s class was sing Les Champs-Élysées, and with that and the Arc de Triomphe being the closest landmark to my hotel, it was always going to be the first thing I did, and yes, I sang the song in my head the entire time.
My Saturday quickly went off the rails after that.
After casually meandering down the famed avenue having the time of my life, I decided to head back to the hotel and grab lunch somewhere on the way. I immediately learned that something I did not consider at all in advance of this adventure was the language barrier, embarrassingly struggling to order lunch at this delightful-looking burger joint that was off of any main street.
“She’s asking what you want to drink,” the guy next to me said after a couple of attempts by her followed by blank stares from me.
It completely rattled me. Paralyzed me.
I didn’t go to another restaurant the rest of my time in Paris.
The paralysis of fear and self-doubt has continued at my next stop.
As a visitor in their country, I feel like a dum-dum and a burden to my hosts not being able to communicate with them. Intellectually I know this has been an absolutely ginormous overreaction by me, but I am so terrified of a similar experience happening again that I have just settled for cooking myself or ordering delivery.
I know it’s absurd, and unless I want to go explore more of the British Isles, I’m going to have to get over it.
If you have any tips, I’d love to hear them.
I haven’t let this bring a complete halt to the trip or anything, just to my eating plans, and so I was delighted to time the two-mile walk to the Eiffel Tower on Sunday perfectly to the sunset time, and I captured what I think is my favorite photograph so far of the journey (pictured above). It really was magical watching that icon start to be bathed in that orange glow, and the experience only was intensified when the sparkling light show started right on cue at 6 p.m. as I wandered around the base of the tower.
Go during the day if you must, but make sure you go again at night. You won’t regret it.
On Monday, I jumped on the Metro and headed for the Louvre, and after being herded to a couple different entrances (this time it wasn’t the language barrier’s fault — their signs had English on them, so I’m not sure what was up) and taking longer than I would have anticipated with a pre-booked time of entry, I began a visit of several hours at this incredible museum.
There is obviously no way you can do all of it in one or even several visits, so I decided to focus on sculptures + the Mona Lisa.
I have to say, the latter was… underwhelming. I recognize its importance to art, but I was much more impressed by some of the pieces of sculptures. The same was true of my time at the museums in London, so I suppose it’s fair to say I’m whatever one calls a lover of sculpture.
That Michelangelo was able to create such an impressive work in the early 1500s is such a testament to human creativity and skill. I stood in awe of this and other creations, some of which were particularly striking in their incredible detail, down to the definition of the muscles in a Roman god’s thighs and abs. Without those details, the art would have still been impressive, but the careful attention certainly elevate them to another level.
I know I certainly did miss things in Paris, but the four nights felt like a much better amount of time compared to the 12 nights I ended up spending in London. I want to go back to Paris, and I’m not sure when I’ll feel that way again about London.
One good thing that came from my horror of a lunch on Saturday was a continued conversation from the guy that prevented me from going thirsty, as I told him where I was thinking of going next. He suggested to me that Dijon is probably nice but also pushed me to go towards Annecy instead.
And so here I am, with an amazing view over a lovely a canal in the Venice of the Alps. There’s a positive side to everything, huh?
Rails to Ride 