Paris for Tourists

Last weekend was kind of a continuation of my international travel, so I’ll explain that first before I get to my real Paris life so far, full of small scale adventures. I’ll get to your blog suggestions as well, 2 are hand-written already!

Last weekend –

I met an American (I called him Indiana, but his real name’s Tyler) in Madrid who was coming to Paris the same day as me. So Friday I went to his hostel and chilled on some whiskey in the main room with him and a few new hostel friends. One girl was from Los Angeles, but lives in Aix-en-Provence now learning French, and she decided to take a weekend in Paris. These two American guys live in an apartment across the street, and teach English in Paris, but they come to the hostel to use the internet and hang out with people. And a couple of cool Irish girls, one studies in a town to the northeast of Paris I think? And her friend who’d come to visit for the weekend. They suggested a Chinese place across the street, so we got some sweet noodles for cheap.

I headed home before it got too late, and had a nice chat with a couple Parisians when I changed trains and couldn’t find the right tunnel to the 6. They were looking for it too, and one guy spoke a little English that he couldn’t wait to use on me. I spoke much better French than he spoke English though, at least after my glass of whiskey from earlier. I have a drink and my French is instantly 10x better, its crazy. I’ve either gotta drink a lot more around the dorm, or learn to gain a similar level of confidence in a sober state, in order to make more friends. I should probably lean toward the latter.

So Saturday I took a wander around Paris. I took the train north a ways with the intention of just wandering my way home, but it got really cold and rainy so I ended up just hoppin on the metro again. I did get to check out Les Halles (a really nice underground mall), though, and picked up some hair supplies. That night Tyler n a big group of hostel people wanted to go to a movie, so I tagged along. We saw the new one with Vigo Mortensen in it, really good, but really sad.

Afterwards some of the group went out and found a pub with tvs playing American football. Tyler’s a big colts? fan I think, I don’t know I don’t watch football hehe. I got to talking with a few international Parisians: A really funny German guy who grew up with an Irish friend, so his English had an Irish accent, a nice guy from Boston who’d learned French from a Canadian singer, and a girl from Wyoming who spoke English with a British accent and thought she was the shit. All three of them had been in Paris over a year, and had worked on and off at bars in the neighborhood so they knew a bunch of people around.

Me, Tyler, and these three peaced to a new bar at around 3, since the Wyoming girl (Kat) said the vibe was better. We got to talking with a few older Parisians who were really cool, and I did some translating for the conversation since Tyler doesn’t speak any French. The bar closed at some crazy-late hour again, but before we left Kat introduced me to a big group of other expat friends of hers who were all really nice and pleased to hear I was staying in Paris.

It’s an amazing city, but it’d be a hell of a lot better if the metro ran all night. We left the bar and decided to wait for it to start again. Tyler, me, and one of the older French guys we’d met went to a bar/restaurant/cafe by the Pont Neuf, right on the Seine, and got another round of wine. I don’t remember the French guy’s name, but we didn’t realize initially how bad his English was (he played it off well), so we’d been chattering away and leaving him out. At some point I noticed and started translating as much as I could. Him and Tyler had both been in the military, so they compared the French and American systems. Apparently there were French troops in Iraq before they officially said they wouldn’t be involved, interesting.

Sunrise over the seine, a metro ride home, and some much-needed sleep. Sometime mid-afternoon on Sunday I met up with Tyler again and we went to the Eiffel tower at around sunset. I know I know, it’s touristy, but it is a really great view. It was nice. Walked around a bit, and went home to my new home in Paris! Tyler’s probably either in Amsterdam or Copenhagen now, ah the life of a traveler.