Joel in Paris

The night-time flight to Paris was less enjoyable. I have never meshed well with air-travel, and found it difficult to sleep even with the aid of the potent relaxant mother fed me before boarding (which took the edge off my vivid visions of mid-air collision, but did little to rock me to sleep as it were)

Paris was an altogether new experience for me. We were met at the airport by Emmanuelle who showed us around town and got our bags stored away and fed us and kept us entertained. She also navigated for us, which was essential considering that every destination seemed to require no less than 5 different transfers on the metro and innumerable flights of confusing and identical looking hallways and staircases. There is another rather curious aspect to the Parisian metro system that i will mention briefly before i continue on. You have to pay to use the washrooms. The first time i saw this phenomenon i almost shit myself. (and its a good thing i didn’t because i didn’t have exact change) Now, i’m as open minded as the next guy, but i simply cannot wrap my head around the concept of the pay toilet. I can think of nothing more maliciously cruel than forcing people to pay 2 dollars to piss out the 8 dollar late you just sold them. But that’s just me, and this is just Paris.

Getting on with the tale, we spent probably a good hour or so on various trains in the metro before finally climbing up to the surface. The sun was shining menacingly overhead so i slipped my sunglasses down over my eyes as i emerged into the daylight. I then proceeded to take them right off again as soon as i took a look around. Paris is beautiful. And it is worth having to squint to be able to see this city with un-tinted eyes. I had thought that the buildings in Ney York looked old (a 30s and 40s sort of old with a lot of red brick and cast iron fire escapes) but the buildings in Paris are OLD. Statues and gargoyles and stone carvings that would have a safe home in a museum were they in Calgary hang from the side of it seems every building in Paris. Down any road you can find a piece of history. The roads themselves are cobbled, uneven, and narrow. The biggest cars i saw were compacts, the smallest little more than golf carts. Lunch was a chef’s salad at a local cafe(delicious), and then on to the tour bus. The sites were great: the arc du triumph, the Eiffel tower, etc, etc. It’s hard to focus on one specific monument as a point of attention and praise when the whole city is so spectacular. I have something to confess. I actually fell asleep on the tour bus and missed a lot of the sites. The truth is that after only one night of trying to sleep on the airplane i am exhausted. It’s only going to get worse from here on out.

We finish Paris with a night-time train ride to Venice. The sleeper car we have booked fits 6 people (sort of) and we end up sharing our evening with a nice family from Oregon and a building restoration engineer from Egypt. Trying to fit our over-sized bags under and between and around the bunks in our cramped cabin is a trying task and after a minute or two of red-faced swearing and wasted exertion mother calmly informs me that if i don’t calm down she’s shipping me home on the next available flight. I chain-smoke 3 cigarettes and feel much better. I sleep well on the train, mother does not. We wake up in the strangest place i have ever seen. This is Venice.