Europe: Two Hours in Paris

It began as a silly, very Lisa-esque idea. “Hey, my train’s going through Paris. I should just get a longer layover and see a sight or two!” It ended as a very silly, Lisa-esque two hours: speed-walk through Paris, glimpse the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, and Notre Dame, then hop a bus back to the station long before you have to because you’re paranoid about missing your train.

Yes, this is what I do with my free time. Who wants to spend all that energy trying to figure out the bus schedule, when you can just start walking and get hopelessly lost? Who cares about focusing on what you can reasonably see, when you feel a sense of incredible obligation to at least see the tip of the Eiffel Tower?

Goodness gracious me, what a thrilling experience!

With the way my schedule worked out, I really didn’t have time to see Paris, even at a glance. So I just dove in the middle of it. And I feel that it’s somehow better: weaving through the crowded sidewalks, listening to the orchestra of car horns honking at each other, staring in horror at the pellmell flow of traffic, walking at a breakneck speed and turning at every whim, snapping pictures as I go. The smell of Paris that I whiffed around every corner was urine. It washed up from the subways and the alleyways and every corner of the train station. Not enough to be nauseating, just enough to ground you in a sense of the grime of the city, the constant hustle and bustle with no time to clean up the edges.

Of course, the Louvre Palace is amazing, Notre Dame is iconic, and the Eiffel Tower… well, from the distance I saw it at, it just looked like a tower. But still! I had to see it!

I could spend a month in the Louvre and not see it all, I'm sure.

I took a few photos, to prove I was there. But then it was time to hop back on the train. My brief stay in France was over. It was time to head back to the place where this trip began: the Netherlands.

This was as close as I got before I had to run catch a bus back to the train station. C'est la vie!