A Taste of Paris

I need to come back to Paris, and I don’t mean the weekend I’ll be here next month. I mean I need to come back here, preferably with David, to see all of the things I haven’t seen and do all of the things I haven’t done. Like see the Mona Lisa, visit Versailles, climb the Arc de Triomph, see the top of the Eiffel Tower (hopefully happening in May), see the Jardins de Luxembourg, explore a bunch of interesting neighborhoods, and, well, a bunch of other things. 

That said, I have seen quite a bit since arriving on Monday. I’ve seen the Eiffel Tower at different times of the day, including evening when it sparkles 5 minutes per hour,  and from different angles. I’ve seen lots of places from the top deck of the Hop on Hop Off Bus — a great way to orient to a new city. I’ve crossed the Seine more times than I can count, by bus, on foot, and probably by subway. Yesterday I wandered through the Jardin de Tuileries to the Place de la Concorde, and walked from the Trocadero to the Eiffel Tower and back to my lodging. Today I explored the two islands in the middle of the Seine, Ile de la Cité and Ile St Louis (where Marie Curie once lived, as I learned while doing what geocachers call an adventure lab). 

I’ve eaten meals alone at restaurants, had a couple of pain au chocolates (which are surprisingly cheap here, about a Euro and a half), enjoyed pasta, tasted sorbet, and even had some delicious green peas in a pod. I’ve reaquainted myself with both Orangina and Orange Fanta, and introduced myself to Citrons Pressés (pressed lemons, or what I would call lemonade). I’ve been mistaken for Canadian, been asked questions in French I have no idea how to answer, been asked questions in French that I was able to answer, assisted other even more clueless Americans than I with language, and inadvertently butchered French in my feeble attempt to speak the language. Somehow, service people keep taking to me in English, often before I’ve opened my mouth. I sat with a nice Australian family on the boat last night and congratulated the daughter on earring her PhD in England. While walking around today a nice French woman who currently lives in Paris but is from a beach community on the North Sea commented to me, in French, that yesterday it rained but today is nice…..I was a bit slow to catch on so she asked if I spoke English then we had a quick conversation before we parted ways. Today at lunch I met a nice couple from near San Diego who are in Europe for the first time. Did I mention that I’ve walked over 40,000 steps?

I attended a geocaching event my first night here. Tonight Arnaud (who was the French member of our 14-person GeoWoodstock house last summer) and I are going to dinner. Arnaud has written a book about some of his caching adventures that will be available next month, and he’s promised me an autographed copy. 

Tomorrow I leave Paris by train to visit the German and Swiss members of the GeoWoodstock house, so I’m setting all of the European members of that house in their home countries (the others were all from North America). My German is very minimal — I can ask where the train station is but cannot understand the answer — but I’ll be spoiled by German speakers with excellent English skills. It’s fun and interesting to travel solo, but ever so much better to travel with friends, and I’m pleased that the rest of the trip, except for a couple of train rides, will be with friends from Europe, Canada and the US (oh, and one Australian).