I Love Paris in the Springtime

"I knew there was a reason I gave birth to you!"

- My mom's cheerful conclusion as I guided her through the Tube system in London.

This morning I escorted mom through various train and tube stations to reach the Eurostar station. She found it to be quite a bewildering maze, although I tried to give brief explanations about how I was figuring out where to go. I remember how lost I felt the first few times I caught the train in England – it's something you figure out quickly, but definitely a bit confusing in the beginning.

A great advertisement for Marmite flavoured mini rice cakes:
"You either love them or you hate them."

We arrived in Paris and wanted to buy a multiple day pass for public transit but the woman at the tourist information booth didn't speak English so we weren't really sure what she was selling. Mom waited in line and I tried using a nearby self-serve kiosk with a connection to the Paris tourism websites. As I worked my way through the information I could hear mom speaking with the non-English speaking woman at the help-desk. I called out to tell her which kind of pass she should ask for and how many days we'd need and a girl overheard me and came over to ask what we were purchasing to get around Paris. She was from Canada, was travelling alone for the first time, and didn't speak French. We all found it quite astonishing that an international train station didn't employ bilingual staff for the tourist information centre.

We found our way to the hostel and after they finally found my reservation, we were told our room wasn't ready and we'd have to wait about twenty minutes. We made ourselves comfortable and after half an hour were told it would be another half hour or more. We went to a nearby cafe for lunch and met an Australian girl named Claire who has been using a Working Holiday-Maker Visa to live in England for the past year. She's finishing up her time with a solo stay in Paris for a few days and then she's meeting her parents in the south of France for a couple of weeks. We chatted about our plans for exploring Paris and decided to walk past some of the most famous sights and finish with the Eiffel Tower lit up late at night. We invited Claire to join us as she's travelling alone and was uncomfortable being out alone late at night.

The three of us had a great time together – we caught the Metro to the station at the Arc de Triomphe, walked down the Champs Elysees and past the Petite Palais and Grand Palais, admired the houseboats along the river, rested in front of a pond near the Louvre, and walked around the exterior of Notre Dame Cathedral.

Trees lining the Champs-Élysées.

My first full sighting of the Eiffel Tower.

Pont Alexandre III.

Claire.

View from the Louvre to the Arc de Triomphe.

We rested by a pond for a little while and ended up watching a duck with her ducklings for quite some time, particularly her efforts to find a place where the ducklings would be able to climb out of the pond. One duckling managed to climb a piece of wood to get out, but promptly tumbled back into the water. We eventually had to leave and trusted that someone eventually was able to scoop them out of the water.

The Louvre.

Found on the side of a low wall along the Seine River.

Walkways along the Seine.

Houseboats line the Seine.

Look above the ugly store-fronts and most streets are lined with beautiful balconies full of plants with full gardens on rooftops.

It's called the Tube in London, the Subway in New York, and the Metro in London.

Notre Dame de Paris.

A gargoyle on Notre Dame.

When we walked through the garden behind the cathedral I saw an older couple sitting on a bench, resting their feet as the man looked through the photos they had taken on their camera. I approached them and said I would take a photo of them together. They only spoke Italian so I motioned to the camera and they smiled and nodded in agreement. The man handed me the camera and proceeded to take off his hat and lower his feet to sit properly on the bench. I laughed and said, "No, no, no! Go back!" and motioned for him to return to his original position of resting his feet on the bench. The two of them laughed, returned to their original positions, and let me snap a photo. I passed the camera back to them and they got a good giggle from the results.

The wife giggling over the capture of a very real moment of their vacation.

Notre Dame Cathedral - the back of the building.

As we walked through the garden behind the cathedral we saw dark storm clouds rolling in and within a few minutes the sky opened with a torrential downpour. We took shelter under some nearby trees but still became drenched. A woman who took shelter under the same trees laughed and called out, “Welcome to Paris!” Within ten minutes the rain eased and we decided to find a cafe to eat dinner and dry off. We found a little crepe shop on a side street, settled at a table in the back, and my hair dripped water on the menu as I chose my meal.

Mom and I drenched in a Paris rainstorm.
For the rest of our time in Paris we kept an umbrella and waterproof jackets in our backpacks but the sun shone throughout the rest of our stay.

Although all of us had sore feet, we decided to walk along the river to reach the Eiffel Tower. We finally reached the tower at about 10:50 p.m. The tower is lit with beautiful golden light at night (I much preferred the night view to the daytime view) but flickering white lights came on for about ten or fifteen minutes beginning at 11:00 p.m. There were plenty of police officers patrolling the area and quite a few tourists were wandering around – tours to the top of the tower continue until late in the evening. We finally reached our hostel well past midnight and crawled into bed, completely exhausted after our nineteen hour day.

Mom, Claire, and me.