Meredith Trip - Paris Impressions

Paris was awesome! Dude, I was just kind of walking around - walking around PARIS! The feeling I get now and then when I think back to Cedarburg or Keene (that's in New Hampshire, 'k?) and realize how much of a different, bigger, more threatening deal Chicago was when I first moved there comes back to me. Except that instead of thinking that Chicago is in a wholly different class than those tiny cities of my origin because of its millions of people, transit systems, large buildings, and prodigious murder rates, I think about how Paris is another step up for me from Chicago. Not only is Paris a city every bit as big as Chicago, it's more complex in that I don't know it yet and I still managed to negotiate it (and let me tell you, getting from Chateau Gontier to Paris or vice versa is nobody's exact cup of tea), plus everybody speaks French.

What I mean to say, basically, about Paris is this: it's another set of challenges, another set of unknowns to explore and figure out, and it's still one of those cities that ranks among the Biggest Ever, Thank You. I didn't really see too much of the actual city, and just about 0% of the major landmarks. I did, however, get a hotel room, use the bus, RER (subway, where you must remember to KEEP YOUR TICKET because you need it to exit the station), and train a grand vitesse (Really Fast Train) to get around, and I did it all in French. None of this was all that hard, but what it means to me is that I can do all of this. I can hack my way through a foreign country using their language and getting on the good sides of their waiters. I can negotiate complicated scheduling problems and manage not to seem too much like a tourist. This builds confidence, and I have an appetite for a bunch more of it.

Also, Charles de Gaulle - Roissy airport is large and tortured. The ride between Terminal 1 and 2 is about 10 minutes by bus. Yuck.