IC London...I See France

16 April 2007

From Nord to Feffy (Paris, Part One)

This weekend was the school-organized trip to Dublin, and though I very much wanted to go to Ireland, I opted out in favor of Paris with Meg and her parents. I was beside myself with the gorgeous weather (70s and 80s, plentiful sunshine), the chunnel (so much easier than travelling RyanAir at the crack of dawn), real food and an actual hotel (see that - without the "s"!).

Meg and I attempted to cram as much French into our vocabulary as possible on the Eurostar over, but didn't get much further than "Bonjour," "Merci (beaucoup)," or my favorite meaning "It's raining, right?" (which I can't spell and since it didn't rain, proved useless). The ride was enjoyable, mostly because it wasn't too long and wasn't a budget airline, though the chunnel was actually only 20 minutes of the trip. We arrived in Gare de Nord at almost 2 Paris-time, waited in an extremely long line for taxis, and went to our hotel. My favorite part of our hotel, to be honest, was the concierge. His name was Edmond and, not only was he a wealth of information, but he was funny and tried to teach us French.

We were about a 5 minute walk from the Louvre, which we made our first stop. The courtyard was beautiful, full of pyramids and fountains (with ducks!). Inside the Louvre, we saw the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, and Nike of Samothrace as well as tons of other important pieces of art. From there we walked through the Jardin des Tuileries, which was in full bloom and had a distant view of the Eiffel Tower - amazing. We saw the courtyard where the guillotine was set up during the revolution and both Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI were beheaded (which I found out later on a river tour) and where there were some more highly-decorated fountains and an obelisk. Seeing the Arc de Triomphe in the distance, we figured walking couldn't be that hard, but after about a half an hour it was still looming in the distance, and what seemed like 3 or 4 miles later (and probably was, looking at the map) we arrived! Too tired to climb up to the top, we made due with admiring it from the ground and took a taxi back to the hotel for a nap before dinner.

Dinner turned out to be a French restaurant recommended to (and reserved for) us by Edmond, Le Petit Machon. He scolded us for being American and eating dinner much too early, but sent us on our way at 7:30. For the first part of the meal, we had a waiter named Christopher who scolded Meg and I for drinking Coke (later, on his urging, we split a half bottle of rose wine) and watched us toil over a French-English dictionary for nearly 15 minutes before explaining the meals to us. It seems like I'm complaining, but honestly, it was one of the most fun meals I've had in a while; the language barrier definitely helped this. Meg and her mom settled on a meal of scallops and her father and I both ordered Monkfish. They came out in small, dressed-up servings and were absolutely delicious. Somehow, we also got plates of scalloped potatoes, which were again delicious and a pleasant little surprise. A new waiter arrived to clear our plates and offer us dessert because Christopher abandoned us. We stared at the menus, deciding to guess at the food rather than translating as it proved nearly useless. We were sort of on the right track, but luckily, the new waiter came and explained it all to us in a language we understand (including a little charades when he couldn't remember the word for "pear" - I won that one!). We all got something different and French, but I took the biggest leap and tried a goat cheese and cherry dessert. It ended up tasting a lot like yogurt and wasn't half bad (considering I don't like yogurt), but I felt very French and was proud of myself for trying something new.

After dinner, Christopher (he returned!) called us a taxi to take us to the Eiffel Tower and advised Meg and I to "Stop Coca-Cola." Funny guy, that one. We pulled up right in front of the brightly-lit Eiffel Tower, and I immediately began snapping pictures, perhaps a few too many. But I couldn't help myself because she's gorgeous, especially at night. We stood in line for tickets to the top and, to cure my boredom, I began calling her Feffy because clearly we're close friends now and Eiffel Tower is just a bit too formal. She started sparkling (leading to more pictures) and I decided that she was getting pretty for someone special. Then her searchlight went on and I decided she was getting pretty to find a man, which naturally led me to...Big Ben! Oh, Feffy and Ben. They're gonna be perfect for each other. Anyways, soon my boredom was cured because we got tickets and, many long lines and elevator rides later, we were at the top! Paris is really beautiful at night, but unfortunately none of my pictures captured that - just a bunch of blurry, far away lights. It's all about the experience. We left the sparkling Tower behind at midnight, exhausted and more than ready for bed because, as with all other memorable jam-packed weekends, we had two very busy days ahead of us.

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