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Nous Savons Tres Peu De Francais…

Ah, Paris.  Now here is an experience I’ll never forget.  By the time our weekend here was over, Steve and I officially graduated from Backpackers Boot Camp.  We had a great time but it was quite a challenge at times.  I’ll get to that.

We woke up very early that Friday. I don’t mind staying up if I’m having a good time, but hate waking up if I didn’t get to bed until late.  Does that make sense?  To save money, Steve and I threw on our packs and hoofed it to the bus station.  It was actually a preview of coming attractions.  I tried to sleep on the plane but again it was just broken-dozing at best.  Upon arriving at the airport we were all psyched to grab our stuff and get into town.  I’ll admit that Paris wasn’t really my first pick as far as places to visit.  Tickets were cheap though, and here we were.  I was determined to have myself a good time.  

We hopped a train out of the airport, right into the heart of the city.  Walking through the station and up towards the street, I was immediately impressed with the sight of 3 French soldiers patrolling.  They were packing major heat too.  I’d seen that in a few key places around the city.  I think it’s good that the government went out of it’s way to do that.  We had grabbed a map and a list of hostels at the airport, so once we got topside on the street, it was time to navigate our way around town.  I was instantly hit by how ethnic Paris is.  It reminded me of NYC in that sense.  There seemed to be a very large North African population, and it definitely added a twist to walking around town.

After consulting a couple policemen, we finally solidified our plans.  We set out to find Woodstock Hostel which was north of the Seine, almost parallel to Notre Dame if you were to go straight south.  Along the way I spotted quite a number of places I really wanted to have dinner at.  See, I have this thing for kebabs…  We finally made it to our destination, and it was bit pricey.  But then again this is Paris.  It was a six bedroom (3 bunks) with about 3 other rooms on the floor.  One shower, one toilet.  Definitely some community living here.  We shared space that night with a Brazilian, Romanian, and another American.  We really hit it off with Lucian, from Romania.  He was a very personable, cool guy.  At once I loved the mixing of people from different parts of the world.  For a good conversation-addict such as myself, it led to some good ones.  As hostels go though, this one would prove to be our least favorite.  It wasn’t horrible, but not as good as the others we’d come by so far.  That night we hit a small restaurant a few blocks away with a menu featuring a line-up of delicious-looking Middle Eastern grub (they had pictures of just about everything offered).  I got my kebab, and it was killer.  That night we basically hung around and socialized a bit.  It was a good thing we took time to rest.  Because the next day would turn out to be some major exercise.

Upon waking up the next day in time for the free breakfast, we discovered it was just rolls.  Free rolls are good I guess, but it’s not much of a breakfast.  We decided to ditch this hostel, explore for a while, and land another one later that day.  We also eschewed the idea of public transportation for walking.  What better way to really get to see the city right?  This was true, but what a workout it would be.  With packs on backs, we set-off into the hustle-bustle of Paris on a Saturday morning.

We started by heading a little north to the Church of Sacre Core.  Feel the burn baby!  All those steps turned my legs to mush on the way up.  I did pause on the way to let a fella from Senegal barter with me over the price of these cool bracelets he makes.  I talked him down to half his original price, which I think was a good deal…  Even on this grey and cloudy day, the view of the city from on top of the hill where the church was, was worth it.  We went in and explored for a bit, but I knew right off the bat I wasn’t seeing the juiciest places.  Sure, the main sanctuary was gorgeous.  But this church was absolutely huge.  I could just imagine all these nooks and crannies, these hidden passageways both above and below us.  All that was closed off to the public of course.  It was killing me to walk by an old door, or a stairway heading down into the depths of the church, and be blocked by a cord and two posts.  I’ll be honest, if I didn’t have 30lbs on my back it would have been really tempting to get a little sneaky…

After this we meandered off towards Notre Dame.  We took our time, just taking in all the sights, sounds, smells.  In Paris, it seems like there’s a monument to something just about every few blocks.  We were purposely taking side streets, which made things more interesting, but a bit of a challenge to navigate as well.  Along the way we befriended a Canadian, and a gypsy woman who we just couldn’t seem to shake.  Eventually there was a part in the roads ahead of us, and we could tell it was the Seine.  This was a cool area to be in.  I mean, how historic of a place is this?  This area, on both shores of the river, has been at the center of some of the greatest happenings in history.  It felt like we had come to the heart of one of the greatest cities in the world.  Ahead of us you could see Notre Dame peaking out, and to our right we could see down the banks of the river for quite a ways.  It was an awesome spot to be, and the nerd in me was well pleased.

After a bit of a break to take it all in, we made our way to Notre Dame.  Before we went in, we went underground, to check out a museum full of the actual remains of some of the earliest structures in Paris.  Some of these were old Roman baths.  As I sat there staring at old brick stacked on brick, put there by hands long since gone, I realized that this was the closest I’ll probably ever get to a time machine.  Yes, that’s what passed through my head.  I would absolutely love to go back and see all this stuff the way it originally was.  But for now this would have to suffice.  I couldn’t help but wonder if the guy who put those bricks on top of each other ever thought that someone from 2010 would be admiring his work…

From the museum we hit the church.  Notre Dame really is amazing.  It just blows my mind that something like that could be built all those hundreds of years ago.  From the flying buttress’ outside to the two rose windows on the west end, it was beautiful.  After wandering around inside for a bit (and knowing there was way more to see than what was allowed), I took a seat in one of the back pews.  In my head I could picture the people that had come and gone in here over hundreds of years.  All the individual souls coming here to worship, each with their own story.  If you stopped long enough, and blocked out the hustle-bustle around you, you could get a real feel for the stories these walls could tell.

Once outside we encountered a group of young people bearing signs that happily read, “Free Hugs!”  How can you refuse something like that?  Both Steve and I got our freebies, and wandered off towards the Louvre.  At this point it had really become late in the day.  We had taken a good chunk of time just wandering around and taking in as much of the city as possible.  Well we’d got more of that…  When we made it to the Louvre we decided to hold off until tomorrow.  We wanted to take our time going through there, and at this point we’d be a little pressed  to do that before closing.  Grabbing a seat near the pyramid, we put together our game plan.  There were about 3 hostels down around the Latin Quarter so we decided to go that way.  There was a large marketplace area on the other side of the river, with all kinds of varied sights and smells.  When we hit the Latin Quarter we knew it right away.  These soft, blue lights traced a path above us all down the main streets of the neighborhood.

It made for a great walk, despite the nagging load on my back.  It was a very chill area.  The problem of fully booked hostels presented itself quite quickly.  One down, two down…  In our haste to get out and explore earlier that day it never occurred to us that hostels could become fully booked on that Saturday night.  The third hostel was outside of the Quarter, so we made it down there half-expecting the same results.  Yup, we got the same results.  3 hostels, fully booked.

At this point we backtracked a few blocks to mooch some free Wi-Fi off of McDonalds.  Yes, over here they do call a Quarter Pounder with cheese a Royal with cheese.  Now we had to regroup and figure out what to do.  It had been a great day, we had seen a huge chunk of the city.  How much did we want to pay though for a roof over our heads tonight?  We were stubborn fellas.  I thought back to an experience a friend of mine from back home had in Paris.  I brought it up to Steve.  We’d been hanging on the streets of this city all day, and we were going to do the same all night.  I’ll never complain about a lumpy mattress again…