Paris Day 1

Yours truly in front of the
Eiffel Tower!

Let me say this right up front.  I love, love, loved Paris!  You must also know that I love New York City.  I love big teeming cities with lots of crowds and museums and good, efficient public transportation.  I love to walk and gawk and I don't mind the smell of exhaust and I love to see places where people live lives that are very different from my Midwestern suburban life.  I like both the big, touristy sites, but I equally love the more mundane things about new places.  In this and the next few post, I'd like to discuss some of the must-see tourist destinations we felt compelled to see in Paris. 

Since neither my husband or I are world travellers, we did some research prior to going.  Our very helpful travel agent Douglas Schroeder at www.freedomtoursllc.com had a number of tours available, as did our hotel, but we decided that with only five days, we could probably see what we wanted to see at our own pace.  I picked up a copy of 24 Great Walks in Paris by Frommer's and found it very useful.  This book lays out walking tours of different areas of the city and includes little tidbits of historical information about the neighborhoods as well as suggestions for seeing any of the big, popular locations in that area.  Each walk starts and ends at a Metro stop and lasts 2 or 3 hours.  We didn't always follow them exactly, but they were a good framework to start our planning. 

Day 1: The Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, and Champs-Elysees
After getting off the train from Leman at the Montparnasse station, we navigated our way to our hotel via the Metro.  The jury is still out on whether or not that was a good decision.  We did make it there without any mishaps, but we had to switch lines two or three times and there were many, many steps at each station.  Since we were dragging our luggage, that required more effort than I'd planned to expend.  If I had one piece of advice it would be to travel as lightly as possible.  We brought a small suitcase each, an over night bag, and packed one small empty suitcase inside our other suitcase.  These were all bulging by the time we came back, but they were still manageable even at their heaviest. 

A view of the Sacre-Coeur
from the Eiffel Tower

Once we'd dropped off our luggage at our hotel, we decided to walk to the Eiffel Tower (a 15 minute walk) and since one of the two elevators to the top were out of commission and the line to get to the other was several hours long, we opted to pay about 5 euros and take the stairs.  I should tell you right now that I am not a fan of heights, so I knew that getting to the second level of the tower would be plenty high enough for me.  What I hadn't realized that there were more than 300 steps, up one of this massive open legs just to reach the bottom level.  To get to the second level seemed pretty comparable.  Needless to say, we only made it up to the first level, and is was spectacular.  I'm glad we did this first so that we could get an idea of the city's scale.  From all four sides you could not see an end to the buildings, most of them ornate and historic.  Off in the distance there were some more modern looking sky scrapers, but they were the exception, not the rule.

We saw the Arc de Triomphe in the distance and decided to head there next.  After another 15 minute walk we came upon this huge monument in all its glory.  We stumbled upon some kind of military ceremony with a full band, dignitaries, and giant flags.  What we didn't realize was that this structure is in the middle of a six lane round-about and we had happened upon it during rush hour.  Apparently the way to go through a round-about in Paris is to find the shortest path across regardless of what the lane lines might suggest and take the most direct path through.  This went for everything from massive tour buses, passenger cars, motorcycles, tiny scooters, and people on bicycles.  This was easily the most insane site I saw in Paris.  Jim and I sat on a bench in slack-jawed wonder.  When I talk about passenger cars, I am not just talking about the Smart Cars that are abundant, I am also talking about everything from ancient Soviet era oddities being held together with baling wire and duct tape, to gorgeous new Ferraris and Porsches.  When we could stand it no longer, we headed down the Champs-Elysees.

The entrance to the
Abercrombie & Fitch store on the
Champs-Elysees

The Champs-Elysees seemed a lot like the Time Square of Paris.  It appeared to be designed with upscale tourist shopping in mind.  There were a few chain stores I recognized, and many I did not.  There were many restaurants and everything was fancy.  We didn't spend a lot of time here because it was getting later and we were ready to head back to the hotel.  Besides, if I just wanted to see big stores and go shopping, these were the kind of stores I could find back home.  We had four more days ahead of us and we needed to save up some energy for Notre Dame, the Louvre, the Musee d'Orsay, and Sacre-Coeur.

A Brief Intermission

          Thanks to all of you who stopped by last week while I went off on my Abercrombie & Fitch rant.  I think I am better now, but there is no telling when this might rear its ugly head again.  For those of you who didn’t stop by, let me just tell you that I went a little nuts when I heard that Abercrombie & Fitch offered someone on “The Jersey Shores” money to NOT wear their clothes.  I then went out and bought a way too small A&F shirt at Salvation Army and posted a really unflattering photo of myself in said shirt.  I invited others to do the same in hopes that maybe they’d pay US not to wear their clothes.  So far a few folks have said they might, and I will post them if they do, but I’ve not gotten much feedback.  I warn you that this is not flattering, but you can see it here:  Abercrombie & Fitch Page.

          I’ve had some time to analyze why this drove me so nuts.  I realize that this is most likely a publicity stunt to get people talking about this store right at school clothes shopping time.  It also probably drove a lot of people to check out a crappy MTV reality show that they might not have watched otherwise.  Truth be told, I was way too cheap as a parent for my kids to even ask to go into that store, and since my kids are well out of high school and buying their own clothes, it is really a moot point, but it drove me crazy nonetheless.

          Abercrombie & Fitch, you have the right to sell crappy, trendy, overpriced clothes with your store name in big letters all over them.  You have the right to use sexualized images of flawless young people to advertise you wares.  Stupid and suggestible people on dumb reality shows have the right to buy them and wear them and do whatever they choose - drink until you throw up and black out, have random sex with each other, fight, scream, cry and urinate in any number of inapproriate places.  You have the right to reap the profits when other dumb people see this and buy your clothes.  What you don’t have a right to do is complain about this in an effort to distance yourself from a circumstance that you created.  If parents won’t buy their kids your clothes because they don’t want their kids associated with anything the cast of “The Jersey Shores” does, to include wearing your clothes, then you need to suck it up and deal with it.  You need to be happy with the customers you have, and if you are not, you need to reevaluate your corporate philosophy.  If I have to take personal responsibility for my actions, you need to do the same with your brand.

          That being said, I still think that there is a project here.  I am tempted to buy an armload of A&F shirts at Salvation Army and either silk screen or iron on or write with marker all over them.  I want to write something like “If you pay me enough, I’ll stop wearing A&F” or “Friends don’t let friends wear Abercrombie & Fitch” and then sell them at a modest price for people to wear as a statement.  I want people to photograph themselves wearing their statement, and for every photo someone sends me of themselves, I will donate money to the American Cancer Society so people with real problems will benefit from this silliness.  I am picturing more of a global art project with each shirt being worn and photographed on many people in many locations.  Of course that will take time and effort.  Do you even think it is worth the effort?  I am seriously interested in your thoughts and ideas.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get off my soapbox and get back to painting a bedroom which is the closest thing to an art project I have.

The Butcher