After four days on the coast south of Barcelona for training (rough life), I headed directly to Paris for my last trip with Heidi before she heads to business school this fall. (Sad!) Heidi’s been in Paris since last September so is officially a local at this point and I had never spent any time in Paris although I’d been through it many times for other trips. I got in late on Thursday night, too late to take the train into town, and took a cab to Heidi’s apartment in the city center. Heidi had been in the US that week for a work conference and was only getting back to Paris at 7am on Friday. Luckily, she’d been able to hand off a key when we met the previous weekend in Germany. Between the two of us, we’d been in six countries in the last six days so we were lucky to get things coordinated!I got to the apartment around 1am and thankfully had been given excellent instructions from Heidi on how to navigate to her apartment…which involved getting to an address cab drivers don’t immediately know, a couple code-locked gates, five flights of skinny steps up to the top floor in the corner building of the second courtyard, and a funny key which you have to turn a full 360° (but was it clockwise or counterclockwise?). Whew! I made it without a problem though and crashed until about 8am when Heidi got back from the US. Needless to say, she was now exhausted! We hot-bunked (I got out of bed and she got in) and I took off for a day of solo super touristy Paris sight-seeing since she’d done it all multiple times before and also needed to catch up on some sleep.
I had heard from many (non-French) people that Paris was their favorite city and I can tell why after being there for only a few days. Not only is the city beautiful with statues, sculptures, lovely old bridges, and, of course, the Eiffel Tower, but it’s literally covered in world-renowned museums and art galleries. The fact that the food is also excellent doesn’t hurt either (although I probably value good food more highly than the average person!). I started the day by walking along the Seine past the Pont Neuf Bridge, the Louvre, Place de la Concorde, Avenue des Champs-Élysées, and on to the Eiffel Tower. My first view of the Eiffel Tower was rather disappointing to be honest. It just looked like a big, not particularly beautiful monument at first glance from afar but the closer I walked the more impressive it became. By the time I was standing at its feet, I was in awe. It is such an impressive architectural feat to begin with and the fact that it is so enormous just makes it all the more overwhelming. I was also overwhelmed by the number of tourists and school groups and I was there on a Friday morning which should have been relatively quiet (compared to the weekend)! I had planned on making the trip to the top but looked at the long, winding, chaotic lines and decided that I didn’t need the city view. (Heidi told me later that there were better views from other places in the city because they included the Eiffel Tower in the view so I felt like I had made a good decision to avoid the tourist craziness and long lines.)
As I made my way back along the river I got stopped by a little man who was asking for directions (he clearly doesn’t know my track record with directions!) who asked if one of the churches within eyesight was Notre Dame. I told him, no, Notre Dame was actually a bit further down the river and showed him on a map both where he was and where he was trying to go. He said, “You are not French?!” (He had spoken to me in French to begin with.) I told him, “No. I am American.” His eyes lit up, he pointed back at himself and he said, “I am American too! I am South American!” I asked him which country and he told me Peru. I told him I was from the USA. He said, “We are from very close! We are neighbors!” I was thinking that Peru was probably about as far as Paris from San Francisco but, yes, we were continental neighbors. This guy was super cute and so excited to find another “American.” I was also happy for once to be the one giving and not asking for directions!
I spent some time walking the gorgeous grounds outside the Louvre in the Jardin des Tuileries (Tuileries Garden) and it was an absolutely perfect day. It seemed like every Parisian who had been able to escape from work was out in the sunshine enjoying the day. I am very wary of European prices (for everything!) at this point and got desperate for lunch while hanging out at the park so was expecting very bad, very expensive food at one of the little stands outside the Louvre. I got in line and started checking out the ham and cheese baguettes, the small quiches, the savory pastries and foccacias, and the beautiful sweet tarts and chocolate croissants. I got tempted by an apricot pastry plus a quiche Lorraine and probably took a grand total of five minutes to eat them both – they were amazing! Even better, they were cheap too at four Euros total! The quiche was perfect with a flaky crust, firm texture, and flavorful vegetables which were cooked just right. The apricot pastry was also amazing – not too sweet and with perfectly tart apricots. There’s clearly a reason why the French are known for their cuisine. I had just grabbed the equivalent of street food and was in heaven!
I met Heidi later that afternoon and we walked around some local neighborhoods which were vibrant with lots of people sitting outside in cafes enjoying their cappuccinos, pastries, and…cigarettes. I saw more smokers in Paris that weekend than I have seen in any other European country! There was a book written a few years ago by Mireille Guiliano called French Women Don’t Get Fat which attempts to explain how French women eat cheese, pastries, and bread, in addition to drinking copious amounts of wine, and are still able to stay slim. (Caveat: I haven’t actually read the book, only heard about it!) Heidi’s take after being in Paris for nearly a year is that Europeans in general eat smaller portions than Americans (true from my standpoint as well), the French do not snack at all between meals (is this even possible?!), and that cigarettes are consciously used as a way to suppress appetite and stay thin. The first two are probably a good call but that last one is a pretty brutal sacrifice!
I dropped into one of the museums, Musée de l'Orangerie, which houses Monet’s Water Lilies among other famous pieces of art. I felt rather unsophisticated and uncultured though as I walked through the entire museum and was finished in a grand total of 30 minutes. There were people sitting on benches in the Monet area just staring silently at the paintings as I walked in, took a look around, and moved on within a few minutes. I guess I don’t have proper appreciation for art but I couldn’t stomach the thought of spending more time indoors when the weather outside was so great! I didn’t even attempt the Louvre given my short amount of time in Paris (and the great weather). That will have to wait for another trip in a different season.
I stopped by Notre Dame de Paris (Our Lady of Paris) later that afternoon and can also understand why this cathedral is so famous. It might very well be the most beautiful church I have ever seen! Construction began in 1163 and took 200 years to complete so it really is a historical and cultural treasure. There’s something special about it that I can’t quite put my finger on which makes it seem even more spectacular than the other great cathedrals of Europe. It was actually slated for demolition after being vandalized by the Huguenots in the 1500’s and damaged during the French Revolution but was saved by Victor Hugo’s writing of The Hunchback of Notre Dame which renewed interest in the cathedral and sparked a movement to preserve and protect it. We’re lucky that Hugo chose it as the setting for his novel! I had wanted to avoid the long line to go to the top of tower and, unfortunately, pushed it a bit too late. They cut off the line a half hour before closing time and I only missed it by a few people in line. As the French would say, c’est la vie! I’m just glad I got to visit the place at all!
We spent much of the rest of the weekend walking through the local neighborhoods, eating crepes and macarons (macaroons - amazing!), and shopping. Paris, as you probably know, is the “fashion capital of the world” and I would agree with this but with the caveat that it is the fashion capital of the world for petite French women. I’m not a big person and I felt like I could hardly find anything that would fit me! (I think maybe French women are smoking cigarettes while I’m out running…these clothes were definitely not made for athletes!) The good thing about this is that it prevented me from spending money because goodness knows I can compete with the best of them with respect to spending money on new clothes. (I did make up for my very unsuccessful shopping trip in Paris while back in the US for my brother Adam’s wedding last week, however. I found more clothes in Bozeman, MT which is definitely not the fashion capital of anything, maybe not even of Montana, than I did in Paris!)
The other thing about shopping in Paris and Europe in general is that it is so extraordinarily and maddeningly inefficient. When I’m shopping for a dress I want to go to the dress section of the store so I don’t have to wade through all the other shirts, pants, skirts, etc. In Europe, everything is organized by designer rather than by type of item which probably makes sense for those Europeans who are much more stylish than I am but requires that you go through every designer’s selection of clothing which is also completely unorganized and try to find whatever particular item you might be interested in. You can go from designer to designer in a mall department store and grab multiple items to try on together but then you have to actually purchase them at the specific designer’s or shop’s register. Given the way that I normally shop which is only a few times per year but in bulk, this could mean an hour or more of “checkout” navigating between registers. Ugh! On top of that, the prices are so outrageous that many of the items are actually locked to the racks so you have to get someone to remove each article of clothing before you can try it on (which must be done at the nearest dressing room with one of the sales associates nearby). The inefficiency of this process was enough to deter me from even attempting to shop at certain stores. I think I’ll stick with my online ordering…I may not be nearly as stylish as the Parisians but my takeaway from my Paris shopping trip is that style requires too much of a time commitment to pull off! (And yes, I am often the stereotypical American tourist running around in white sneakers.)
After the unsuccessful shopping trip, Heidi and I prioritized the US vs. UK World Cup match and found a good Irish bar for the occasion. We walked in and there were British and Canadian flags hung on the wall but definitely no American flags. Out of maybe 50 people in the bar, there were 5 US fans including us so it wasn’t exactly an even crowd! (It turns out that one of the US fans was extremely loud and started chanting, “USA! USA!” while banging on his table multiple times throughout the game so he probably counted as the equivalent of about 20 UK fans who were rather quiet.) I’m not a huge soccer fan but it is always fun to watch world athletic competitions. The US basically got beat up for 90 minutes but was lucky and escaped with a tie – it was a pretty stressful game given that the UK just kept shooting on goal but it was fun to cheer for a US team with some other Americans (even if that one was a bit obnoxious).
Heidi took me exploring in the Right Bank for dinner so that we could also see Basilique du Sacré-Cœur (Sacred Heart Basilica) which is located at the highest point in Paris in Montmartre (130 meters high). It was nice to run the many stairs up to the top after a very heavy dinner of escargot, onion soup, and a croque monsieur (I really needed a break from cheese after this weekend!) and the views of the Eiffel Tower were amazing. All the cheese didn’t stop us from hitting up one of the local gelato shops on the way home though and it was a great, very Parisian final evening.
I spent Sunday morning doing a long run down the Seine and through and around Jardin des Plantes, yet another really beautiful garden / park in the center of Paris. I was great to feel a bit more like a local although in classic Andrea-form, I did run past Heidi’s street (I actually knew where I was if you can believe it but I think I read the wrong sign) but got the Louvre which I knew was too far west and was able to navigate a detour back to the apartment. I was really feeling like a local at that point! As expected, I had much too little time (again) in one of the world’s truly great cities and left only wanting more of the city… and of the macaroons, the crepes, the cheeses. (I think if I lived there it would be a full-time job to appropriately balance the eating and the running!)
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