Continued from Fiery in Firenze . . . and Goodbye to Italia
We get off at Bercy and decide to simply get a cab and have it take all of us to our address. So some guy in a smoking jacket and a cravat rolls up with a big van and is polite and kind and looks like a history teacher at a prestigious private school so we thank him and climb in. He says he’s going to give us a tour and we tentatively say yes but really we don’t know what to say because we don’t know if he’s taking us for a ride and charging us more money or whether he’s really genuine. No, we paid him in advance, the meter isn’t running so we sit back and enjoy the ride as he crosses the Seine and points out the gothic legendary Notre Dame Cathedral. We think nothing of it as he pulls in front of the Louvre and almost don’t notice as a police officer pulls him over and then we’re sitting in a cab bus, tired and dirty and smelly and overflowing with luggage while on our left is the legendary glass pyramid and on our right our driver and a police officer are yelling, occasionally pointing and glancing back at us and we wonder if we’re going to jail or if maybe the cop saved us from some Hostel fate and I curse myself for not learning French as well. Eventually the driver gets back in and says, in accented English, “It’s okay, I needed some new permit to drive through here and I didn’t know that.”
“Fine, fine, can you just take us to our hotel now.”
“Ok.”
So we’re in Paris lugging our 9 oversized luggage bags down some strange street and we go in to see if we can check in early since our train pulled in @ 9:30 but they say no so we ask if we can just leave our bags behind the front desk and the girl, a cute little teenager who is appreciative of Americans, says yes and we thank her, then take off down the street.
We find a little café where we drink coffees in the early morning air across from another gothic church, eating croissants that literally melt n your mouth and covered in honey and sugar and feel refreshed and energized.
Walking down the street again we pass a corner advertising “Learn American Wall Street English!” and the Grand Marnier headquarters and delicate little cafes and patisseries and soon find ourselves at the Arc de Triomphe,
that greatest of war tributes and again I’m blown away by the size, the intricate carvings in it and the sprawling arches and the eternal flame. Tourists abound and it is a little annoying so we hope that the fact that we aren’t wearing khaki shorts like all the idiot American gapers sets us apart from them. In front of the tribute I look to the right and see the Eiffel Tower stabbing skyward over the tops of neighborhoods and it sinks in that we’re in Paris. The City of Lights.
We walk back under the street in the large walkway that allows us to cross over to Champs d’Elysee but it’s too wide and everything looks too expensive so we walk a few streets over to where we had been earlier and find a little restaurant to grab some lunch before arriving back at our hotel.
Beers all around and we point and pick and the waiter isn’t rude but he’s not overly nice and we decide to ask few questions as I order Frankfurters and Kyle orders Chitterlings.
I get a plate full of Oscar Mayer but Kyle’s meal, while it looks simply delectable, is a hideous concoction of intestine and other rank shit so it tastes just like that, shit and we decide that he’s the bravest person of the trip but he also ate the worst meal of the whole voyage.
So we hump our tired bodies back down the street and stop for another coffee, keep the ride going, and at the hotel our room’s finally ready so we tank them before loading Mom and Becca into the elevator, an old thin rectangle inside a gated vertical tunnel and you have to close both doors as it lurches to life and it feels like it’ll fall but it’s been around for years so it’s probably okay. As they ascend I print up the stairs next to it, up to our dorm on the third floor and I just barely lose to them and help the girls carry the bags into the room as I send the elevator back for Dad and Kyle to load the rest of the luggage and bring it up.
Finally in our large suite, with one room for the parents and a large living room with a bed and a cot for Kyle with large windows and a view of Parisian rooftops that reminds me of Amelie and there’s a whimsy in the air and although we’re tired and had been regretting this last day in France, now I’m thinking I wish we had longer here.
After a few hours of lounging, Dad napping while Bec and Kyle and Mom and I repack our bags since the different things we’ve bought and brought have gotten mixed up into every bag, we get cleaned up and decide to set off for our last night of sight-seeing.
(Another Gotan Project song)
So it’s down the street past a few designer stores and we walk down into the subway and take it to Tour Eiffel where we get off and we find ourselves on the left bank and Mom tells me that the left bank of the seine was supposedly a cool hipster place for locals and ex-pats alike. We find our way to a grand square where a lone skate is working on his 360-flips and olleying down a set of stairs and we pose for family pictures in front of the Eiffel tower during the day.
Then we walk down the stairs to a platform where a crowd of teenagers are practicing throwing different B-Boy moves, hurricanes and power stalls and one guy even spinning on his head as we pass a street accordion player echoing French sensibilities and cross the Seine.
I stare over the bridge and look at the difference between the quaint left bank (or is it the right bank? Can’t remember, time is always shifting) and the industrial commercial right bank so that it shows the great contrast between old world and new world that’s so prevalent in Europe.
We pass the street urchins trying to hock cheap models of the Tour Eiffel and some of them light up and while they say “Want the Bling Bling? The jiggy jiggy?” it’s amusing but annoying. Then we’re under the storied tower looking up and it’s again bigger than I thought, so amazing and dynamic of a testament to humanity and we think about going up but decide we want to wait until it’s dark so we can see all of Paris at night lit up and romantic and glorious. We’re not sure when that’ll happen, though, because it’s now 7 and the sun still burns bright.
We pass the Eiffel and through a well-manicured garden into a surrounding arondissement and we’re looking for a fine French meal as I’ve read so much fine stuff about Parisian Cuisine in my Playboy and our lunch left much to be desired.
We pass ornately-sculpted houses all packed in tight together so there’s an amazing feeling. We spot the most well-decorated McDonald’s I’ve ever seen and finally choose a fine corner restaurant and we walk in and everybody’s kind, hosts and waiters and we come to realize the idea of the asshole ignorant Parisienne is probably propagated by the same stupid overweight American Cultural Gapers who got W elected.
They show respect if you show respect and certainly some of them are probably rude but imagine if a Frenchman went to Georgia and tried speaking French as we insist on going to France and speaking English. Some redneck with the Confederate Flag flying off his camaro would tell them “Frenchie-Frog go on back home to ‘yer ‘lil France-land” and then they’d be afraid and think Americans were rude.
As we sit down and order a first bottle of Bordeaux I tell my traveling partners I could see myself moving to France because they’re the only people as arrogant and egocentric as Americans and so it should be familiar. As it is, the streets feel much more American than Italy and it is very nice here in Paris.
We order escargot and Becca and Kyle can now officially say that they’re eaten the amazing little crustaceans and even better, they can say the first time they’ve eaten snails was in Paris, a true feat to be sure. It’s a delicacy I love, with tons of butter and fine spices.
We order chicken and fish and steaks and it’s an amazing dinner which compliments the wine perfectly a perfect last supper of a wild whirlwind tour on par with National Lampoon’s European Vacation. Afterwards we walk back towards the Eiffel Tower and stare up as the lights come up in an epileptic fit of luminance and it’s wondrous to behold. Finally the lights are coming on and night is falling close to 9:45 and we wonder why until we realize that Paris is on the same latitude as Canada though it’s decidedly warmer here.
We try to go up the Eiffel Tower but a troupe of diplomats have apparently rented it out for the grand city views so it’s not possible and that’s just another thing we have to do next time we come. We go to cross the Seine again over dinner boats floating down the grand river with sumptuous meals and music being enjoyed by the wealthy under glass roofs and passing back and forth into the romantic night and we decide we want to do that some day and again lament that we don’t have enough time in Paris.
We walk back to the square where we first spotted the skateboarders and the B-Boys and take some final family shots that look ripped out of postcards from the French Tourist Board and we’re happy and together 
as Kyle runs down the stairs, the lone wolf of the voyage, for a perfect shot against the backdrop of massive illuminated pillars.
Finally we go back into the subway, passing another street accordion performer, and head back towards our hotel. A final jaunt through the street and we’re riding the rickety elevator up to our suite to fall hard asleep, our last night of the trip.
(Paris song is "Toujour Pas D'Amour" by Priscilla)
The next morning Bec and I wake up early and tired hugs are shared with the rest of the family as the girl and I take our couple bags out of the pile of luggage and then it was two, on the street looking for the Roissy Bus which takes people to the airport for a few euros versus a 60 euro cab ride.
We arrive at the airport but don’t know which terminal is ours so we get off and realize we’re at the wrong one and nothing tells us which one is the correct one so we have to get onto another shuttle to another terminal and it’s very frustrating navigating Charles de Gaulle but we do it and get through security and have a final meal of sandwiches and orange juices as we await our flight.
We get a brilliant view of Paris from the air and then fall hard asleep until we’re touching down in Miami where we change planes and have a final leg to LAX.
We touch down at night and page the shuttle to the long-term parking where we left our car and again think we’re in a foreign country as the cabbie is speaking a foreign language but it’s only Spanish and that’s just LA.
(The ride home is playing to Donavon Frankenreiter's "Heading Home")
We’re home, we tired, we’re happy, and our world has gotten a little bigger, as travel inevitably does. That is the value of such voyages to far off lands only glimpsed in picture books and National Geographics and movies and other cultural ephemera for the wanderer looking to change their worldview. Travel means getting out of your routine, trying new foods and meeting new people, experiencing things one is not privy too in their stagnant, sedentary lives. And I don’t think you can accomplish that by staying at 5-Star hotels, following planned tours and speaking only to the people looking to cater to English-Speaking visitors. Sure you may see a few things but you see them through tinted glasses that shield out the real cultural diversity of this vast world. It’s almost like a living picture book and while that is certainly more valuable than not visiting them at all, you miss out on some of the details and oddities only found through total immersion in these societies.
That was the beauty of this trip. Staying in a nunnery in Rome (which can be done by people even without connections, as many weary wanderers apparently rent out rooms at convents and monastery around Rome for cheap rates and with the knowledge they are supporting people who are truly at the heart of the old European world) to renting a car and driving to a part of Italy rarely visited by out-of-towners to a villa in a small fishing village to catching trains and busses and subways through all of these cities as the locals do. The colors you pick up on those experiences are the ones missing from everyday life and the ones that will stay with you long after a guided tour where you do nothing but gape at pretty buildings fades away.
Traveling at times should be difficult and trying and you should be forced to learn about the country’s customs and parts of its language before you go because otherwise you’re showing disrespect to your hosts and, fuck, as Americans we already have enough assholes painting for the world the picture that America is nothing more than a bunch of ignorant, pompous assholes. Look around, get off the beaten path, and try some crazy shit. I guarantee that despite all the difficulties and hardships of such things, you’ll be a much better person. As Thomas Fuller once said, “If an ass goes traveling he’ll not come home a horse.” So don’t be an ass. Of course you wouldn’t be if you read our blog so keep reading that too.
Hope you enjoyed the ride – because we sure did. Happy Travels! And remember, wherever you go, whatever you do, always look to get off the beaten path and leave the gapers behind.
Unkal Ryno
Closed out to "Time to Say Goodbye" by Andrea Bocelli
Good fucking finally, and I love the video editing. I will call you on Monday. Whole fucking South Island in One post? Come On, brahs!
TBC
Shoots,
WJB
Posted by: | May 16, 2008 at 01:47 AM