Thoughts on Paris, Mid-Trip

One of the more useful skills to have is setting your expectations according to the people you are traveling with.

Paris residential architecture isn’t as interesting as London. But the architecture of the major attractions is incredible.

The Eiffel Tower was far more impressive than I expected. It’s huge, and has a much greater presence than buildings that are technically taller. It’s also ringed with the names of famous French scientists and intellectuals.

I have heard from various people that Paris was dirty, and that Parisians were rude. So far, neither of these have been true, at least in my relative experience.

Hell is a sexy, sexy place, at least according to Rodin.

Paris (and London) loves to glorify their heroes. But most of their heroes are scientists and humanitarians. I’ll take that over Batman and Clint Eastwood.

In my expert, three-days-each opinion: Paris has more culture; London has more life.

Navigating in Paris without GPS is hard. The residential buildings are all extremely similar. The business are either chains or use the same motifs. The streets are rarely orthogonal and often end abruptly or change names. The signage is very easy to miss. But it’s also a fun place to get lost in.

I’m glad for my French language education (thank you Ms. AschenBergWalker), but it was never enough to be practical in a conversational way. The danger of speaking French is that someone may speak French back to you; in that case we both have to drop back to English.

On that note: I hear more English on the street here than I did in London. And there’s far more Americans.

When language fails, it’s easy to fill in the blanks thought context. “Oh, this place looks large and governmental, and there’s lots of young people walking around; ah right, it’s the university.”