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PARIS - Tuesday, June 6, 2000
by Judy
Sadler
PARIS
Tuesday, June 6, 2000
We woke the next morning, quickly packed our suitcases, had another "bread" breakfast, and dragged our luggage down to the locked room that the hotel provided for us. Before leaving, we had a moment to photograph some graffiti.
This graffiti says, loosely translated,
"You must destroy everything before everything can be improved."
A pretty scarey thought!
Then, we were off on the metro to the Latin Quarter. Suzy pointed out the place where we would have lunch and gave us a free morning, which Nancy, Melissa, Melaine, Michelle and I spent shopping and sight seeing.
You will see above La fontaine Saint Michel which was just stuck on a very ordinary street corner among shops that sold tourist trinkets. Paris is indeed an amazing city in many ways, but the architecture and monuments are extraordinary.
We even happened upon the Sorbonne in our wanderings.
As the time neared for lunch, we gathered the tourist memorabilia that we'd purchased and strolled back through the Latin Quarter. The food displays were wonderful to see.
We purchased the items we would eat for our evening meal at a small market near our restaurant - bread, cheese, fruit, cookies, but most important plenty of water. Suzy's stern instructions to us was to not underestimate the amount of water that we would need on the overnight train. All running water in western Europe is suitable for drinking, but water in holding tanks was considered very unsafe. Of course, the train had no other way to provide water except by using its holding tanks. We had also been advised to take a roll of toilet tissue from the Parc D'exposition as the toilets were generally quite nasty in the train by morning. I wonder what the hotel staff thought when they discovered all of us had taken a roll of tissue. Luckily for us, however, our toilets were in very good shape so that's one European experience we were glad to miss.
We packed our stores of food away in backpacks, ate lunch in the Latin Quarter, and newly fortified, set off on the metro to visit and scale the Tour Eiffel (or the Eiffel Tower to all you tourists). Once more, we were glad to be a part of a Tour as Suzy led us past the long lines, and sent us up in elevators. We were reminded that Suzy takes mountain climbing expeditions to Peru in the "off" season, and we were very glad that this expedition included elevators. The top half of the Tower was closed because of problems with some of the elevators, but, trust me, we were plenty high up anyway.
Way off in the distance - just to the right of center - is Sacre Coeur, which we were told is not really a safe place to visit any more. Another good reason to tour Europe on a supervised tour was that you were kept from venturing into unsafe areas of the cities you were visiting. The view was actually clearer than this picture shows.
Melissa, J.D., and I descended and decided to walk back to the place we first saw the Eiffel Tower from the day before. It was about a mile or so as it took 20 minutes of pretty swift walking. Melissa and J.D. wanted to buy a painting from the painter who was there the day before; but he wasn't there this day, so we walked back a different route and found these French men playing Boche in the park.
Rejoining our group. we headed off a different route to a different metro station. We were going to ride Suzy's favorite metro - the elevated train. And wonder of wonders, there were the French painters, so Melissa and J.D. got their paintings after all.
We took the metro back to our hotel, where we stuffed purchases in our suitcases, and prepared to head off on a new adventure. As I said before, this time we were picked up by our bus in a spot that was uphill from the hotel - but not just uphill, it was uphill and a number of steps as well. We were growing a little weak, and it was a major chore to drag those suitcases up the steps and into the waiting bus. Our luggage had great wheels that were totally useless on stairs, At least we didn't have to take the metro, which was something we'd been warned might happen. And off we went in our comfortable bus to the Train Station. We arrived at the station about an hour before we could board, and so we sat on the train station floor, and made a picnic in the middle of the room. We were ravenous and couldn't wait to eat the provisions that we'd stashed away for the train.
When the time arrived, Suzy gave us instructions on how to stow our luggage in the very compact couchettes (pronounce koo shetts) - advising that it was worth the time and effort to stow everything possible as the night got very long when you had to sleep with your suitcase.
The couchettes provided benches by day and four bunks by night for the passengers. The custom was to assign these compartments without regard to sex on most trains; but this train was more conservative. However, students on an EF tour never room with the public and are assigned to room only with students from their own group with no mixing of sexes. This rule, I am sure, greatly relieves the minds of the students' parents. Not so for some of the grownups. Two of the ladies on our tour, were assigned a couchette with two ladies from the public. They were relieved that their roommates were very businesslike and simply went to bed without making a fuss.
Melissa, Melaine, and Michelle were assigned a couchette with Suzy; and Nancy and I were assigned a couchette with the Padre and Heidi. J.D. roomed with some of the other guys.
I find I've run ahead of myself in my narrative and so I shall back up at this point. The train arrived on time, and Suzy lined us up like the good soldiers we'd become and marched us to our train. She had determined who must enter first in each car, which was wise, because if she'd sent the people who were to occupy the first couchette in first, there would have been a bottleneck. First to enter, were the occupants at the far end of the car, etc.
We were quickly assigned and The Padre and I were elected to stow the luggage as there was only room for two workers in the tiny couchette. The battle that ensued would have made Waterloo look like a gentle skirmish. The Padre and I wrestled and sweated those bags into position, falling and rising in the melee, and when the dust had settled, only one bunk had become unhinged and most of the luggage was stowed.
When we'd stuffed all our belongings away, I went to some of the couchettes trying to get as many pictures of our group as I could
Melissa took the picture of Nancy and me. I guess that's why I was elected photographer
Michelle in red tank top, Julie in jean shirt,
Therese in white shirt, and Lyndsey in green jacket.
Starting with the red sweatshirt and going clockwise:
Allison, Jen, Katie, and Liz
Starting from the blue shirt in left bottom:
Cassie, Kristin, Lori, Laura
Melissa, Melaine, and Michelle
We settled to read and to watch the lovely French Countryside from the windows of the train. The countryside surrounding Paris looks a lot like the northeastern part of Oklahoma. However, the houses and outbuildings are definitely French - no doubt about it. They're lovely and quaint and mostly made of stone - not a single metal building could be seen. We knew that we weren't in Oklahoma anymore.
It stayed light for a couple of hours after we boarded the train, and when we could no longer see out the windows, we prepared for bed, knowing that when we awoke in the morning, we would be in Spain, and France would be far behind. The rocking motion and "white" noise of the train, coupled with almost total exhaustion was the sweetest of lullabies and we were soon fast asleep.
As I read back through these pages, I find that I have been unable to capture the magic of those days we spent in Paris. It is indeed true that you just had to be there. How very grateful I am that I had the opportunity to spend these two very short days in Paris. If I return to Europe, I would like at least a week in Paris so that I could explore at leisure the museums and buildings that we so quickly toured.
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