The 'Hôtel de la Place du Louvre' in Paris is where we chose to stay, and I would recommend it to any of you thinking of a cheeky trip to the City of art and attitude. It's located in front of the Saint Germain l’Auxerrois church and you could spit on the Louvre from the front doors if you were inclined to do so.
We flew in and grabbed the Metro to where we thought would be the closest stop to the Hotel, it wasn't but it gave us the opportunity to have a nosey around the city whilst stress testing the little plastic wheels with a mind of their own that were attached to the bottom of our budget cases.
I was under the impression that Parisian's were a rude bunch. This was one of the many false impressions that was foisted on me from early on by society. I have since learned that much of what I was told about 'Foreigners' is untrue. They didn't smell particularly bad either, not to me, but then at the time I was a heavy smoker and the Malboro may have lessened the impact somewhat...so I can't completely rule out the possibility that they smell bad. A return trip may be required now that I have quit the habbit. But, the rudeness is definately not true. I found those I had to communicate with more than polite and quite tollerant of yet another English speaking tourist using makey up words to ask for a beer and a pie.
It was nice to get away and feel that mild discomfort and inferiority you get when you are abroad, it's far nicer than the mild discomfort and inferiority you feel when your'e at home, and there's new stuff to look at and explore.
We did the Louvre, and I have to say that it was less than I had expected, full of tourists and extremely difficult to get out of. I have never before spent so long following exit signs without actuallty finding the way out of a place, it was definately no accident and I am sure that the confusion was deliberately designed by the staff to give them something to laugh at. Art museums must be rather short of laughs. We didn't do the Moulin Rouge because it was a fair treck on the Metro by my reckoning and most likely filled with homosexuals..another misconception foisted on me by the society I grew up in.
The Eiffel Tower was fun, for me at least. It was perhaps less fun for Alison with her fear of heights but I convinced her that she could not come to Paris and be satisfied with staring up at it from the ground...and forced her to climb the stairs all the way to the first level. I left her there when we arrived and continued up a bit further, but not wanting to pay the price of a small car for a lift ride to the very top, I soon returned and we grabbed an overpriced coffee before coming back down.
There were other trips..Notre Dame, the Latin quater and meals out in 'posh places'. All in all we had a good old explore the two of us.
The end of our little trip was marked by the arrival of 2007, and we decided to pop up the old Champs-Élysées and join the main celebrations. That idea changed early on.
Paris does not hide the fact that it has problems, I don't suppose there is any reason to expect that it should..but it's Paris and you kind of expect NOT to see dead tramps, hoardes of armed police, emergency roadside hospitals and umpteen riot vans several hours prior to the celebrations for new year. By the time we had seen all the above, we decided to return to our 'local' eating place on the banks of the Seine and watch the fireworks from a safe distance. When we arrived, we were advised that we had made a good choice, as the celebrations nearly always end up in a riot.
We had a really good time, and both of us were quite sad to have to return from our little 'engagement adventure' But there were things to plan now, wedding things..future things and I was excited to have the opportunity to be in a position to be planning them again, this time with someone truly special.
Two thousand and Seven smelled good as it arrived with cool rain and a fresh Parissian breeze fanfared by hundreds of tooting car horns and illuminated by fireworks. To me it smelled of second chances.
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