“London or Paris (choose one). Which city did you like better? Why” – Mary Jo

Hmmm, this is like asking me which piano-based musician I like better: Ben Folds or Tori Amos. One is a flame-haired, kooky, piano goddess and the other is a charismatic, geek, rocker. I like them both for very different reasons.

I like that they speak English in London, or at least some variation of English. Despite the fact that there are no trash cans downtown, London seemed cleaner than Paris. I found the London tube to be easier to navigate and prettier than the Paris Metro, which was grimier and not as well labeled. I also disliked the little rectangular paper tickets you have to use in Paris, which littered the ground at many stations.

However, London was much more expensive than Paris. By the time I was ordering my first lunch in French, I was relieved by the much lower prices. The French food was better, allowing me to sample tarts, chocolate bread, crepes and other naughty carbohydrates. Paris was also home to the delicious Kit Kat McFlurry, but I never went into a British McDonalds, so it’s possible they have it too. London was home to the most amazing food halls and I probably left some drool on the glass cases there. I fell in love with Parisian coffee. They serve it on a saucer with two cure sugar cubes which I delighted to stir into my coffee. When I took my last sip, it was extra sweet, flavored with the remainder crystals. I also liked the French attitude that you should sit and enjoy a meal. I only found the lack of to-go coffee annoying because I was trying to do a lot, but I think if I lived there I would like the slower pace.

Both cities are beautiful. Big Ben and Westminster Abbey are shiny and beautiful and I wanted to scoop them up to put in my pocket. Paris has quaint, winding streets with narrow sidewalks everywhere, making it very walkable. Standing at the top of the Arc de Triomphe you can see the streets spiral out, which made me appreciate how well planned Paris is. I also love how the city is painted in a consistent white, pastel color. You can walk along the river in both cities, and both have many lovely public parks to people watch in. Both cities have lots of museums, which are free in London but not Paris.

When I departed from Paris, I felt like I’d left more undone than I had in London. I suppose if I had to pick a favorite, I’d go with Paris, but I would probably enjoy it more if I spoke French. A bientot!

I first experienced I’ve Been There! Disorder after a trip to New York after my college graduation. When I watched David Letterman on TV afterward, I’d clap my hands when I saw the theatre front or the Hello, Deli, thinking, “I’ve been there!” Since I went to Washington, DC a few months ago, whenever I see video of the White House I know what lawn they are on or what side of the building they’re facing. It is astounding that these cities are real places that you can actually visit and not just magical fantasy islands existing in the slipstream of television.

Hopefully, I’ve Been There! Disorder will lessen as time passes, because it is probably annoying for my family and friends that I keep shouting, “I’ve been there!” during newscasts and commercials. Before, I never realized how frequently images of these places appear in our culture, but now that I’m tuned into recognizing them, I notice that they’re everywhere. Perhaps this is part of what they mean when they say travel makes you more “worldly.”

I think my next book shall be called, "The European Vacation Diet," in which you eat whatever chocolate coated crepe or croissant you want without remorse because you are climbing to the top of Sacre-Coeur first thing in the morning. Warning: Here be stairs. Lots and lots of stairs.

On my final full day in Paris, I finally got the weather I had been expecting. I walked under warm and sunny skies with my jacket tied tight around my waist and not pulled tight against my body. In Paris, I got the rainy weather I was expecting in Britain, whereas London failed to produce any significant amount of Heather Nova’s London Rain.

I woke up when I wanted to and not at a time dictated by museum openings. Then I had a leisurely breakfast at the cafe on the corner where I had a delicious coffee and this Omelet Nature:

I’m sorry to tell my fellow Americans that I did indeed eat the whole thing, plus the three small pieces of bread not pictured. I have done nothing to disprove the stereotype of Americans as gluttonous pigs, but I needed the energy for all the walking and stair climbing I had planned that day.

I entered the Metro to discover that my pass no longer worked and that holding up the entrance really annoys the person behind you. I’m not sure if I bought the wrong pass or if it got demagnetized, but it meant I had to go buy some more tickets. I stared at the lone ticket machine in the corner of the subway, unsure of how to make my selection after touching the screen didn’t work. Then the man behind me showed me how to roll the cylinder at the bottom up and down to make my choice. (And they say the French are rude.) I got my ticket and rode to Sacre-Coeur, a Catholic Church at the top of a hill in the Montemarte district of Paris.

Notice the word “hill.”

There is a cute little train called the funicular that you can ride to the top, but that requires a Metro ticket and I didn’t want to go through that nonsense again, so I pretended I couldn’t hear my knees screaming and my cartilage whining as I hiked up the hill past people trying to sell me friendship bracelets.

The view was spectacular, particularly on a clear day like this. I toured the inside of the church and rubbed the foot of St. Pete’s statue for luck. Then I exited and moseyed around the cobblestone streets and steeps hills of Montmartre. It’s a quaint, Bohemian district of France where many famous and not-so-famous artists lived and still hang out. I wondered by Toulouse-Lautrec’s old house, past the building Vincent Van Gough lived in for two years, all the way down to the Moulin Rouge. I passed a bakery on the way where I stopped for a praline tart. If the line outside the store was this long, it had to be good. (And it was!)

I sat down and looked over my Rick Steves’ guidebook that had mapped out my walk to make sure I hadn’t missed anything, and whoops, I had walked right by the cafe featured in the movie Amelie. That’s one of my favorite movies, so I backtracked a block up the street to take a look and there it was!

For lunch, I bought a Nutella Panini from a street vendor. Yes, I had a chocolate sandwich for lunch, and it was good. They are crazy about Nutella in Paris. There were jars and jars of it on display on every street vendor’s cart. Montemarte is a good place to grab some grub because there was a wide selection of delicious-looking eateries open. I walked through the red light district, gawking at the items on display at the Erotic Museum, got back on the Metro and headed for the Bastille. On the way my insulin levels dropped suddenly from the chocolate sandwich or eight days of sightseeing and I felt like taking a nap. I sat on the stairs of the Opera Bastille instead and watched the people go by until I felt strong enough to stroll down the Promenade Plantee.

Much like the trail that runs by my apartment, this is a long, narrow, linear park is built on an old railway viaduct. I sat on a bench for awhile, recovering my energy, and musing about the graffiti problem in Paris.

Then I was off again, doing the Rick Steves’ guided walk through the Marais district, an older part of town built on a swamp (or in French, a “marais”). It’s a bourgeois neighborhood with lots of shops. There is a Jewish district that was falafel central. I also strolled through the gay district to the Pompidou modern art museum, though I didn’t have time to go inside. I popped into a hat shop, hoping to buy a souvenir, but all the hats were either too expensive or wouldn’t cram into my suitcase well. I bought a cute little kitty change purse instead to house all my 1 Euro and 2 Euro coins.

I continued walking past Les Forum des Halles again and past the Louvre and half the Tuileries to Angelina’s, a salon where I’d been instructed to try the hot chocolate. I’d walked approximately 5 miles that day, so I took a rest break halfway down the Louvre to sit on the sidewalk. Hey, it works for the beggars! Sadly, no one threw me any Euros.

I met friend of a friend, Elizabeth, at Angelina’s who greeted me with two cheek kisses like the French do. She also got us a great table by the window by insisting politely, which is a technique I will have to steal from her. The hot chocolate was indeed scrumptious, like drinking a chocolate bar.

Before I left for Paris, I mentioned my hot chocolate plans to a coworker who insisted I try a hot chocolate at the South Bend Chocolate Company which he deemed to be the best hot chocolate in the world. I will no doubt cause a controversy with this statement, but after trying both, I have to deem the South Bend Chocolate Company the winner. Angelina’s hot chocolate was superb too, but there’s something about the drizzles of milk chocolate on top of the tasty whipped cream topping of the South Bend Chocolate Company’s drink that I adore. So, if you’re ever in Indianapolis, stop on by! They’ve got a store on the circle downtown.

After I cheek kissed Elizabeth good-bye, I dashed off to my final sight to see: The Eiffel Tower. You didn’t think I’d do Paris without stopping by this landmark, did you? I made my way under its four feet, trying to sort out where to buy tickets, when suddenly a mob of people started running towards me. It must be a hoard of rabid PastaQueen fans! I love you too, my darlings! No, wait, it seems they’ve just opened the east tower’s ticket booth. I’m standing right by the east tower! Quick, run! So I ran to the ticket line and waited all of two minutes to buy a ticket before I rode the elevator to the second floor. This totally made up for all that time I wasted looking for the tourism bureau on the first day. Then there was a short line for the elevator to the very top and then I was looking down on Paris from up high.

I love how the city is sketched with white pastels on the canvas of the land. I gazed at the buildings and the people and the trees, without any of the torrid winds I had expected at the tippy top. Then I ate an overpriced sandwich from the cafe and made my way down to the second and first levels of the tower as well. The first floor was practically deserted. I watched a film collage there of movies that featured the Eiffel Tower. I thought about staying another two hours to see the light show that happens at the top of every hour at night, but the good weather drifted off to another country and rain started pouring down between the beams of the tower. I scurried down the staircase, which was faster than the elevator and headed for the Metro, happy to know I could now say, “I’ll always have Paris.”

It was raining and the sun was trapped behind a blockade of grey clouds, but I was in Paris, damn it, and I was going to walk the Champs-Elysees. I only had a hat and a water-resistant jacket, but at least this statue knew how to dress for Paris weather.

My two-day museum pass would expire tomorrow, so I declared museum mania on Sunday. I’d planned on waking at seven o’clock to finish my walk down the Champs-Elysees, through the Tuileries, and directly into the Louvre as it was opening at nine o’clock, but once again my body had other plans. I dragged myself out of bed by eight and had the hotel breakfast again because it was quick and easy, but swore I’d hit a patissiere for some pain au chocolat tomorrow.

Several runners jogged past me as I walked by the obelisk at Place de la Concorde and through the green gardens of the Tuileries. These people were running past famous landmarks in sweat shorts like it’s no big deal! There is so much grandeur and history and postcard material littered around Paris that it seems odd for people to be going about their mundane lives here like people in cities not mentioned in guidebooks.

On my boat tour the first night in Paris, the guide pointed to the large former palace on the river bank and said, “This is the Louvre.” Then the Louvre kept going and going and going and going. It is the largest building I can recall seeing and has more art than I’ll ever be able to see. This is why I downloaded another free Rick Steves audio tour and just hit the highlights like the Venus De Milo, Winged Victory, and the Mona Lisa. The only snag came when I discovered that the first room mentioned in the tour was closed, leaving me lost yet again trying to find room two. I wandered by ancient statuary and Chinese tourists and eventually ended up in the right place.

When I have visited museums before, my brain reaches information overload after about an hour and I leave without seeing many sections of the museum. Having the guide gave me the endurance to hit more sections by only visiting the highlights. Getting the background information on why each piece of art is considered as grrrrrrreast as a box of Frosted Flakes made the visit more memorable and meaningful even reflecting on it a few days later.

People always say that the Mona Lisa is smaller than you expect. So many people have told me this that I entered her gallery thinking I would see a postcard size image. Yet when I saw a portrait the size of a small poster smiling behind the glass, I was probably the only person in the room thinking, “Wow, that’s bigger than I expected!”

After I exposed myself to all that culture, I sat on the Pont des Arts waiting for Francine, my lunch date for the afternoon. As I watched for someone wearing a black cap, a middle-aged man sat down next to me and after a minute asked me something in French, which turned out to be, “What time is it?” He also spoke English, so we then talked about the “situation,” meaning the economy, good things to see in Paris, and he told the peddler trying to sell us a fake gold ring to go away. Finally, I saw a woman in a black hat approach and told this musician and geologist who was named Christophe, “Au revoir.” I greeted the woman in the black hat who looked at me strangely before I heard my name called from 20 feet away and turned to see the real Francine, also wearing a black cap which is evidently popular in Paris these days.

Francine is a friend of a friend who moved to Paris after meeting and marrying a Frenchman. We talked about the French philosophy of working to live, not living to work, and the seven nine weeks of vacation time she gets each year. She speaks French and took care of ordering this creamy, culinary orgasm on a plate for me at a crepe restaurant.

Before I came to France I was told most people here speak English, which they do, so I barely brushed up on my French because I didn’t see the point. I thought speaking in English here would be great, but instead every conversation makes me feel like a jackass who visited a country without having the respect to learn the resident’s language. Not being able to communicate well makes me feel vulnerable. I sometimes get the wrong food delivered to me. I get the wrong type of tickets from the metro office. It’s all a jumble and I can understand why babies cry a lot because it’s unbelievably frustrating not to be able to properly tell someone what you want. Water, food and shelter and basic human needs, but let’s add language to that list too.

Francine also led me through the curvy back streets of Paris to Laduree, the best place in the world to buy macaroons. We don’t really have anything like macaroons in America. The closest comparison I can think of is an Oreo cookie, but that’s not even close. Macaroons have a crunchy crust and gooey insides. I tasted chocolate, mint, coconut, and blackcurrant, all of which were yum.

Francine pointed me towards the Orsay, which picks up in the period of art where the Louvre drops off. The building used to be a train station and is quite easily the coolest museum building I have ever been in.

My museum pass once again paid for itself when I skipped a massive line for tickets and went straight to the security check. I could walk into the Indianapolis Museum of Art with a can of spray paint in my purse, but in Paris they are serious about their art museum security. There was much to love at the Orsay, including the model of Paris hiding beneath a glass floor, the large clock faces on the sides of the building, and the way the frosted panel in front of the 5 stairs of escalators lets enough light in for you to see the shadows of all the visitors walking back and forth.

I walked into the Monet room and instantly thought, I recognize those haystacks. They’re famous! Then I turned to my right and thought, I recognize that woman with a scarf. She’s famous! And then I turned again and thought, I recognize those cathedrals. They’re famous! I was so amazed that this much famous art was in one room that I stopped taking photos right there because I knew my memory card would fill up if I continued photography every notable work of art in this building. Again, I used a free Rick Steves audio guide to lead me toward the noteworthy exhibits since I had a limited amount of time.

Once I’d sucked up all the beauty my eyes could take at the Orsay, I waited for a bus to the Rodin museum for 10 minutes before walking there myself. My feet were beginning to get sore, but I had now become accustomed to this feeling since it was the sixth day in a row that I’d pounded them with sidewalks and sightseeing. Besides, pain and I are old buddies. It’s my really annoying friend who never goes away. I’ve learned to work around its quirks and habits to live how I want to, which today involved seeing some famous sculptures.

At this point, I was beginning to lose my steam, yet I made it all around Rodin’s old mansion and gardens looking at the art he freed from marble. The man was busy. There were a lot of rooms full of rocks. It really makes you think.

I dragged myself to the Metro and returned briefly to my hotel, happy to know I’d gotten about 60 euros worth of admissions for the price of 32, plus no waiting! Then it was off to Canal St. Martin, a recently gentrified section of the city, not known to many tourists. No one here was trying to sell me a miniature Eiffel tower. This was a more authentic Paris, a place where parents took their kids in the evenings to race on their razor scooters and play soccer in the parks sandwiched between the two lanes of roads. I walked only two blocks before coming upon the sounds of drums and this:

An orangutan? He or she was with his friends, a penguin, a polar bear, and about 20 drummers sounding out a rhythm and drawing a crowd to them like the pied piper as they slowly marched down the street. Soon we ran into some people with a sousaphone playing in a square next to some mimes. Yes! Real live French mimes! And no, they weren’t funny!

I had stumbled upon Le Priotemps des Rues, which was quite a lark that I left only to eat dinner at a nearby restaurant. On the way I saw a man wearing shirt that resembled the Starbucks logo, only it said “Starfucks here” and I wondered if he could get away with wearing that in America. Probably.

Then it was back to the hotel once more to vege out in front of an episode of The Mentalist dubbed in German and Cinema Paradiso subtitled in French before turning off the TV and turning in for the night.

I wasn’t sure why the train started playing accordion music on the way to Versailles, but on the ride back I figured it out when I saw a busker hop on at one stop and play us some tunes before collecting tips and hopping off at the next stop. He must hit a lot of trains a day and the man was just an example of how many more buskers and beggars I’ve seen in Paris than London. Twice at tourist spots I’ve had a woman come up to me with a card and ask, “English?” The first time I said yes and was presented with a card begging for money, but the second time suddenly, “Je ne pas parle anglais.” Some of the beggars sit on the streets with cute little sleeping dogs which they probably keep to increase tips.

I wanted to arrive at Versailles, the ornate palace of Louis XiV, right when it opened at nine o’clock to avoid the crowds. My body had different plans and I didn’t crawl out of bed until 8:20, probably because I lost an hour in the time change between London and Paris. I ate breakfast at the hotel because it was quick and convenient. When I filled my coffee cup I noticed yet again that Europeans use real sugar and real milk, not any of the artificial sweeteners and light creamers that you find in America. The sugar even comes in cute little cubes which I delight in plopping into my coffee and stirring away.

I bought a special RER train ticket to Versailles, but I think I hopped on the wrong train at first, so I hopped off at the next stop and felt better when I hopped on a train that said “Vick” on the front, meaning it was going to Versailles. I read up about the place on the 30-minute ride, got off at the station, and made the 10-minute walk to the palace, arriving at about ten o’clock. I was glad I had my museum pass because I got to skip the lengthy ticket line pictured here in the distance.

Once I was inside, I put on my headphones and let the Rick Steves audio tour guide me since it was free off the Internet and not 5 euros like the audio guides for sale at the information desk. His audio guides consist of Rick reading his guidebook chapter aloud, but listening to it is a better experience than walking from room to room with your nose stuck in a book. It frees your eyes for looking. It helped to have the book because the pictures helped me find the right room to go to.

All I can say of Versailles is that it is incredibly ornate and will make even a four bedroom house look like a cramped studio apartment. The gardens make you glad you aren’t in charge of mowing the lawn and trimming the topiaries. They are usually free, but I went on the weekend when the fountains were on so I had to pay a fee, but it was worth it.

I only went as far as the Apollo fountain, but the grounds extend even farther to another house. However, the sky was becoming overcast and I had things back in Paris I wanted to see before closing time, so I hiked and hiked and hiked back up the lawn and only got slightly lost in the bushes.

I got on the train back to Paris and got off without ever passing through a turnstile demanding my ticket, which means I could have bought the one-way ticket and saved myself half the fee since the Paris Metro doesn’t seem to mind if I ride for free. There have been two other times I have entered Metro stations and similarly found open turnstiles, which makes me wonder how much money the department of transportation lose every year and if that is why they can’t afford to clean the graffiti off the trains. On the train back I was again confronted by someone who wanted something, this time a guy with a petition I refused to sign because I wasn’t sure if it was really for more handicapped accessible laws or was something that would get me in trouble. I actually had to get up and move seats to get him to go away.

Sainte-Chapelle was next, a church whose walls are mostly stained glass. It must be absolutely brilliant on a sunny day, but even as rain clouds threatened to close in, it was gorgeous to behold. After visiting Notre Dame, I was expecting it to be bigger, but it was by no means a small church. Like a leggy woman, the ceilings went up forever.

I exited Sainte-Chapelle and stopped in the Conciergerie which is next door. This was a prison where they held prisoners before beheading them, such as Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI. After seeing the splendor of Versailles and Sainte-Chapelle, the plain walls and arches of the Conciergerie were a stark contrast. I also found myself a bit imprisoned when I couldn’t find the exit and looped through the second floor display twice.

I wondered over to Notre Dame because my museum pass includes a tour of the tower, but the line looked rather long and I wasn’t sure I wanted to climb that many stairs, especially considering my next stop. I took the Metro to the Arc De Triomphe and collected another mandatory tourist photo. Visit Paris and collect them all!

I am depending on the kindness of other tourists to get these photos, but it is remarkable how varying their photography skills are. Some people take 3 shots and go into crouches to get the best angle. Then there was the girl who cut off half the Arc in her photo of me and thought nothing of it.

The Arc de Triomphe has stairs, lots and lots and lots of stairs, spreading out one after another in an endless spiral.

I paused to catch my breath twice, but managed to make it to the top. There are two floors beneath the top which hold sweet, sweet, cushioned benches and exhibits about the arc, including a camera view of everyone standing below you.

It finally started to drizzle once I stepped onto the top of the tower, so I could not see as far as I would on a clear day, but the view was still spectacular.

The stairs looked a lot more appealing on the way down than the way up. Once I reached the bottom, the rain had momentarily stopped, so I started to stroll down the Champs-Elysees, a main thoroughfare that is the home to cinemas, shops and restaurants. I walked past Gucci, Peugeot’s car dealership, and too many famous storefronts to mention. I popped into Laduree for a few minutes since they are considered the place to buy macaroons. However, the line was long and so cramped that I was practically licking my neighbor, so I went back onto the street and decided I’d get macaroons later instead of getting claustrophobia now.

I stopped into a Monoprix to buy a salad and some prune yogurt, but forgot to buy a plastic spoon, so I ended up using my finger, which worked surprisingly well. I sat down on a bench next to a middle-aged French man because it was the only spot and he suddenly started talking me up. I was tired and not in the mood for conversation and when he asked if I was traveling alone I decided to travel two benches down instead. My paranoia tells me I saved myself from being sold into an Albanian prostitution ring.

Then the humidity broke 100% and the rain started to come down again. I had made it halfway down the street to Rond-Point, a traffic circle where the shops end. My feet hurt. I was tired. So I decided I would finish my walk tomorrow and descended into the closest Metro stop and headed back to my hotel. I rested my feet, but my stomach was moaning, so I headed out onto the street and in the hopes of finding something familiar to me I entered a McDonalds. I ordered a McFlurry and was elated to discover they have Kit Kat toppings in France. I sucked down the creamy deliciousness as I watched some French television. Word games like Password are no fun to watch when you don’t understand the language. I felt a bit guilty for sitting in my room and wasting any moment I was in Paris, but I also knew I needed to rest and take a break so I could be fully awake to enjoy my trip and not sleepwalk through the tourist sites. I settled into BBC and CNN until finally turning off the lights and turning in for the night.

This is the restaurant that greeted me as I emerged from the metro station near my hotel. There’s a Kentucky Fried Chicken and a McDonalds on the square too. The McDonalds serves Kit Kat McFlurries, so at least that was worth the trip. One item that didn’t make the trip from London to Paris was my universal power outlet converter which allows me to do silly things like recharge my camera battery and write these travel blogs on my computer. To the person who discovers my outlet converter in a socket at the Eurostar station in London, have fun plugging in worldwide, my treat!

My mind had been on other things, like OMG WHERE IS MY RAIL PASS I JUST HAD IT A SECOND – oh it’s in my other pocket. I’d also spent five minutes wondering around Marks & Spencer’s before I left Britain trying to find anything I could buy with the 42 pence the currency exchange bureau didn’t think was worth converting. I’d tried the small pharmacy stand, not I couldn’t even afford a pack of gum due to marked up prices. Wow. My choices at M&S were either a huge bottle of sparkling Scottish water or a M&S candy bar. I will leave my final choice unknown to keep some mystery in life.

As the train sped off for Paris, the air pressure in my ears kept popping. I was saddened that they didn’t tell us when we were entering the Chunnel. It just got dark for a long time and I figured we were going under the water. Then I don’t remember much of anything because I took a nap, but became fully awake when I was wondering around a train station where all the signs were written in a language I only 20% understand and spent 15 minutes figuring out the Metro ticket machines. I finally solved all the puzzles and arrived at my Metro stop and then walked right by my hotel without seeing it, just like I’d walked by the tea shop the day before. I truly go out of my way to get lost.

But there I was, digging through all my luggage, and my power adaptor was NOT there. It couldn’t be hiding anywhere in my closet room, because the bed fills up literally half the floor and the bathroom really puts the “closet” in water closet. As I realized my power converter was not there, my autonomic nervous system started to rev up like one of those black scooters I’d seen all over town. I told myself, It’s ok. You can buy one, and if you had to lose anything that was better than your passport or credit cards. Only I didn’t know where in town to buy one and I needed to do it soon or else I’d have no digital images of my travels to make people at home madly jealous of me.

I stepped outside to go to the Metro and I was wet. It was raining. I went back inside and got my hat. Then I went to the Metro station and inserted my ticket in the turnstile. The doors did not open. The machine at the station I arrived at only took coins and I only had enough coins for two tickets. I had left the other ticket in my room because I thought it was the used one. There were no ticket machines in my current station. I walked back to the hotel and got my other ticket, a flimsy rectangular slice of paper with a magnetic strip running down the back. I saw discarded tickets on the subway floors and longed for the easy plastic rectangle of familiarity that was my London Oyster card. Finally, I got on the subway and got on the train and arrived at the station near Notre Dame, my first stop. Thankfully, the rain stopped, which I’m sure the people at the bread festival on Notre Dame’s front lawn appreciated. Or it might have been a pain festival, but there was bread inside, not iron maidens, so I think it was a bread festival.

As I walked for the three arches above the front doors, I saw a booth for the tourism office, so I decided to buy a 2-day museum pass which allows me to see lots of museums for the price of the card and lets me skip ticket lines. Ben was very nice explaining the pass to me and I liked him a lot until I smacked face first into the language barrier and he charged me for two 2-day passes when I had wanted only one.

“The machine doesn’t let us do refunds here. You’ll have to go to the tourism office.” My autonomic nervous system loved to hear that. I tried not to let my primitive brain know that I was also worried about finding an ATM to get some Euros, because I knew that would cause me to seize up right next to the crypt, where they would conveniently bury me.

Ben wrote down the address, marked it on one of the fifty maps they had in the booth, and told me to get off at the Pyramids Metro station. I walked to the nearest station and gazed and stared and focused on the Metro map, but I could not find the Pyramids station. The Paris metro is far more confusing than the London tube, and not just because it’s in French. Fuck this. I’ll just walk. And that is how I found myself walking past Le Forum des Halles and the Opera House.

This is also why I was walking the streets of Paris muttering to myself, “Stupid fucking Paris. Why am I visiting a city where I don’t speak the language? And why did I think I should do this alone? And where am I going to find an ATM that will accept my card? And where the hell am I going to buy a power converter? And how does the stupid fucking train system work?” But at least it wasn’t raining.

I told myself to go with the flow and not struggle too hard to make my scheduled itinerary for the day. “What will happen, will happen,” and other tautologies like that repeated in my brain. I finally found the tourism bureau, after walking right past it even though they have huge letters in the window saying “PARIS TOURISM.” They had the credit card machine that could refund my extra ticket. They also explained the train passes to me and could sell me one, so I shelled out for the 5-day, 3 zone, pass just so I wouldn’t have to bother with those stupid, disposable tickets anymore. Then they told me I could buy a power converter at the Monoprix department store which was just around the corner and not a mile away like the tourism bureau had been. Big props to the staff of the tourism bureau! Luckily, I also found an ATM on my way and stuffed hundreds of Euros into my pants. After I bought the converter all the stress items were crossed off my list, but it still took my body another 30 minutes to get the message and chill out.

I found the Pyramids metro station, which was on the map, just hard to find because of all the other lines and dots and colors, and sped back to Notre Dame by 4:30, starting my planned activities for the day even though the day was mostly over.

Notre Dame is beautiful and ornate, but I had mixed feelings about how tourist-y it is. At Westminster Abbey, they forbid photography, which annoyed me when I was there, but now I appreciated the flash-free environment it created. It seems like people are so insistent on capturing a moment with their cameras that they forget to be in the moment and experience it now, not when they’re looking through a scrapbook. I also wonder what the builders of the cathedral would feel if they knew the building they worked so long and hard to create was now not primarily a place of worship, but a place for a gift shop and souvenir coin machines.

I followed the Rick Steves Guidebook’s historic Paris walk, which was quite informative and led me to lovely parts of the city I didn’t know about and wouldn’t have found otherwise. I particularly liked the street next to St. Severin’s which was filled with quaint cafes and shops. The same vibe flowed into the St. Michel area and I found myself feeling a mild hum of euphoria over the aching of my feet as I walked down cobblestone streets with people of different nationalities and reading signs in foreign languages. This was a foreign country in a way that Britain wasn’t. It was more foreign than foreign.

I walked past Sainte-Chapelle, a church with marvelous stained glass windows. Next there was the Palais de Justice, a quant park grove called Place Dauphine, and a park at the point of the island called Pont Neuf. I walked back to Place St. Michel and bought a falafel even if my French sucks. (My apologies to my two college TAs. I should have paid more attention.) I went back to the little island behind the bigger island Notre Dame is on and had some Berthillon ice cream. I had another 45 minutes to kill before the Seine boat site-seeing cruise I’d bought a ticket for, so I ordered a hot chocolate at a cafe and the waiter sat me in a table with this view.

Not too shabby.

Then it was on to the twilight cruise, which was beautiful but cold because both Paris and London have required a sweater I did not pack in my carry-on. Like at Notre Dame, my stomach felt a little weird as I saw a luxury cruise boat full of people eating dinner sail by a row of tents on the pier which I assume are for homeless people. Then we circled by the Eiffel Tower which was alight and towering like its name.

Finally I walked home to the Metro and back to the hotel feeling like I’d seen Paris, not all of it but enough. If I only had one day, this one would suffice, anxiety and unexpected disasters included.

Then I let my computer run all night and uploaded a bazillion travel photos to Flickr, no doubt annoying anyone else trying to use the network. Enjoy! I should warn you that these journal entries are being posted one day after everything that happened, so don’t be confused when you see pictures of Versailles in my stream and wonder why I never mentioned the hall or mirrors. There will be more photos to come now that I can charge my battery.

This is not about my underpants.

Last week an e-mail was sent to everyone in my office announcing a one-week furlough this quarter. My coworkers were understandably depressed, shoulders sagging at their desks, wondering how they’d get by with one less week of pay.

This is when I exclaimed, “I’m going to Europe!” and my boss almost spit out his Coke.

“Are you serious?” he asked, half laughing.

“Yep!” I said. And I was. I am.

I have always wanted to go to Europe. My brother lived in Italy for a semester in college. My friends have taken trips with their French classes and Spanish classes. Other friends have gone backpacking in Ireland and gotten drunk in London and eaten chocolate in Switzerland. And still I have never left the country.

I have always wanted to go to Europe, but I’ve never made any plans to go to Europe. Partly this was because I was poor and in debt in my early 20′s. But partly it is because I never took the initiative, never got off my ass and made plans.

When I was doing my taxes this year, I added up all the money I have paid to doctors and MRI facilities and headache clinics, and it was a big number. A very big number. I realized I could have bought the most kick-ass vacation with all that money, but I had never bothered to. Instead, I’d paid the medical bills without thought because they had to be paid. It’s like how my country will spend billions of dollars on wars because they have to, but they won’t bother to spend that much money fixing healthcare or improving education. It’s dumb.

So now I’ve decided to spend some of that money on something I really want, not a head CT, but a European vacation. I was going to wait until September, but if my employer is giving me an extra week off this quarter, I’m going to use it. I’ve booked my flight for only $410. Yay, recession! Not only are you giving me the time off to travel, you are making it really cheap. See, there is always a bright side, even to a crap economy.

So this May I will be in London and Paris. And it will be awesome because I’ve decided it will be. Deciding where to go was easy, but trying to pick a guidebook at the bookstore has been overwhelming. So tell me, where should I go? Where should I stay? I’ve got about a week and I’m open to suggestions.

But finally, I am going to Europe!

Images from FreeFoto.com