Rainbow Child

Day 4 was our last day there and we were still tired after the long walk from day 3 so we just wanted to go to one more place and take the metro everywhere else. La Défense seemed like a pretty nice choice – something very different from what we had seen up until then in Paris.

And different it was! Actually, it was quite scary: all those tall steel and glass buildings, corporate shit people walking around in their fancy costumes, bleah! It was another side of Paris that I wanted to see but didn’t like.

But apart from that Paris was an incredibly nice experience. I was a bit afraid that after this trip we’d have to break up but we survived and we’re still standing

Ironically (or not) on our longest day out I took just a couple of pictures with my digital camera and used mostly my film cameras (can hardly wait to have the films developed!!!). On that day C. was busy with uni work so it was just the two of us wandering around. The best part about it was that we combined sightseeing with a biiiit of shopping. God, I’m such a whore for discounts!

We walked on Rue de Rivoli, through Louvre’s famous court, through the Tuileries gardens, past the Place de la Concorde , up Champs-Élysées and finishing at the Arc de Triomphe. It doesn’t sound that scary, does it? That’s what we thought when we planned this walking trip, but by the time we got to the finishing point I was dead tired and all I wanted to do was go home asap, get into bed and sleep. And that’s exactly what I did

When asked what we wanted to do in Paris we simply answered “to walk around the city as much as possible and take lots of pictures”. So that’s exactly what we did the next three days. We had no idea what we wanted to see, where we wanted to go – we just wanted to be on the streets of Paris, not having an itinerary and not knowing where we were.

Well, C. didn’t let that happen She said there are certain things we must see and she made the visiting plans for us. We saw a different part of the city each day and we couldn’t have been happier with the places we’ve been. On the second day we walked around Montmartre, where Sacré-Coeur is. I remembered the basilica from my first visit to Paris (I was 14 years old, it doesn’t really count) and I was happy to see it again. The thing I remembered about it was that I liked it

Montmartre was so bohemian – my kind of neighbourhood Well, OK, most of what I’ve seen in Paris can be labeled as ‘bohemian’, but I liked this part better than any other. I think on that day we walked from 12 o’clock until 6 or 7 in the afternoon. We just took the metro to get there and then go back home. By the time we got back we were literally exhausted. But we only got what we wanted

I’m so proud that I refrained myself from compulsively buying trivial souvenirs! Instead I bought some dresses At least they’re more practical. And I didn’t buy many presents either. It was a low-cost trip all the way

I hate flying. I totally hate the feeling I have when the plane goes up, I hate the panic attacks I have when the plane moves while flying, I hate the bumpy landings. I hate everything about it! Other than that, what a great thing to be able to travel thousands of kilometers in such a short time!

We arrived in Paris around 3 o’clock in the afternoon and by 5 we were walking around the city. His sister is sooo nice! She found a place for us to stay there, she cooked for us, she was our guide, yeah, she was great!  Of course, she would have liked us to stay longer, to visit more places, to do more stuff, but maybe next time. Three and a half days were exactly the time we needed to walk around Paris and take pics with all the cameras we own (the digital ones + the film ones = 7 cameras).

On our first afternoon there we walked around the Latin quarter and Notre Dame. Whenever I’m visiting a foreign city I’m amazed of how good it looks. Most of the cities here are horrible: the big communistic blocks, ugly shops, cars parked everywhere, people dressed like they’re going to a funeral. It’s horrible! Being abroad is like a breath of fresh air and also like a punch in the face: you realise you’ve been cursed to live in such an ugly country and that no matter how much you hope things will change one day, deep down you know they won’t and you’ll grow old looking at the same shitty buildings, bumping into the same angry people.

But there everything is quaint: from the cosy restaurants to their old bikes scattered around the city. There was always something new to discover, some nice flowers in a window, a beautiful lady with a colourful scarf, the fact that the drivers respect the bikers and don’t honk at them to pedal faster, in other words – civilisation.

I could have walked aimlessly for hours and I still wouldn’t have got enough of it. I know it’s not good comparing what you have with what you could have, but being there made me not want to come back ever again.