I Love Paris in the Springtime

We gathered at the train station in light, spitting rain, where — because they check your tickets on the train, and not at the station — everyone: family, hosts, students, and travelers, could cram onto the platform with the normal commuters and feel the appalling rush of a high-speed train not stopping at the station as we waited for the 7:08 to the Paris — Gare St. Lazare station.

It was a time for tears and exhaustion, the latter of which carried with us for most of the day.

We were met by Fabien, our tour guide, at the station, and he led us on a whirlwind journey through the metro, where we quickly learned how to jam our oversized bags into carriages with tiny, narrow openings designed for the French sense of personal space, and how to mostly-successfully navigate the ticket gates, which require an inherent sense of timing and which look like a medieval torture device. A number of our collective basically had to jump the turnstile in order for the group to stay together, much to the total lack of comment from the Parisian commuters, who must also have trouble with these damn things all the time.

After stuffing our bags in a cramped, narrow, locked closet, we headed right back out to the metro again and into the city to the Champs Élysées, where Fabien introduced us to the history of the Arc de Triomphe and released us to the long Champs shopping district to begin our Paris experience by expertly hovering between the haute Parisian aesthetic and the world-wide phenomenon of crass capitalism.

After a brief stop back at the hostel to shed any extra belongings we may have been carrying, we headed to Monmartre to look at the Byzantine architecture of the Sacré Coeur basilica and to climb its many, many steps to look out at the Paris skyline, with its excellent view of continuously threatening clouds.

Then we wandered the Monmartre neighrborhood, searching for glimpses of the Eiffel tower, doing some window shopping, some actual shopping, and checking out the plentiful street art before a fantastic dinner and back to the hostel for a well-earned night's sleep.

PS: Today's title soundtrack.