Paris... Oh la la (Part 1)

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My first trip to Paris dates back to la classe de neige 1995. Studying in a French lycee wasn’t all about bad grades and the French making you feel like a failure (Ok, maybe I’m the only one who feels that way!) but it was also about making friendships from the age of 3 and the famous France trip without parents in 5th grade!

In January 1995 I remember going to the VIP lounge at the El Salvador airport and being so excited about the adventure we were about to take! About 30 kids, 3 teachers, to France, no parents... so cool!

Waiting for our flight at the lounge! I'm the one in white! haha

I was excited but many of the kids were crying, one even got sick on the airplane... I couldn’t wait to see France!

Waiting at Miami Airport

At such young age I thought everything was really cool!
We visited castles in la Vallee de la Loire while we stayed in what seemed like a castle to us; probably the most memorable moment was when we saw the feeding of the hunting dogs, we were ALL so excited! haha

Always making faces... and with was looks like a thousand layers!

We experienced snow for the first time, skiing for two weeks in the French Alps, going for walks in the snow and waiting for the smiling cookies with chocolate in the middle was the highlight of all our walks!
Hockey matches, cheese making at the neighbors, and the famous palo palo palo dance in the dorm are things I will never forget.

We even have a video, where we can't really tell who is who:
Part 1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2S-i8PaQjw&feature=youtu.be

Part 2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTovrxfPcig

The month went by fast, lots of memories and good (and also bad) experiences. The French food was something so different for all of us (mmm... anybody packed any pupusas?) Monsieur Giménez would go from table to table and made us try all kinds of food, especially cheese! We got used to four course meals with the cheese platter for dessert... who eats cheese for dessert?, I thought the French must be crazy!

The next time I went back to Paris was 3 years later in 1998 for a whole summer and stayed at a boarding school. This time France was an eye opener! In El Salvador I lived in a bubble in a privileged lifestyle going from school to extracurricular activities, to friends houses, and that’s it. I was only exposed to my environment but at the boarding school they were kids from France, Greece, and other countries and I remember the Greeks telling me that brothers and sisters slept in the same room... I was horrified! I had never heard of kids not having their own room (except they were the same sex, or really poor!) I also met a skinny girl with bulimia, I didn’t even know what that was!
Then I made some friends who ended up being thieves! The school let us go to the mall and two friends ended up stealing stuff and getting caught, how embarrassing!!! Then I went to the mall again with another friend to buy a birthday present and I liked one necklace for the gift but it was too expensive for my budget so I bought something cheaper; on the way home my friend Julie showed me the necklace I liked, she stole it!!! I couldn’t believe these people! My mom would kill me if I ever stole anything!!!

During that trip I was allowed to travel by myself by train to meet some family friends at the beach for a couple of weeks. At 14 I felt confident on being able to reach the beach all on my own, it was so empowering to be out in the world taking care of myself!

In 2006 I met Paris once again! This time with a boyfriend as the end of our (very long) summer trip after spending a month in a rented apartment in Siena, Italy, and practicing our Italian with the locals.

Seine cruise

From that trip I promised myself not to go back to Paris, I had to explore more of Europe instead of going back to the same place.

The next year I broke that promise when I finished 2 months of backpacking in Paris with my friend Giovanna. By then I had seen the Louvre at least 5 times! This time I said, no more Paris... for real!

Gi and I in 2007

Celebrating Gi's bday with a view of the Eiffel Towel and some bubbles from our hotel!

But... Ten years later, there I was again in Paris! This time I promised not to do the touristic Paris anymore but guess what? I Failed! BIG TIME!

I arrived in Paris and headed to my friend Claire's house where she had made a delicious vegetarian meal! Claire lived in her grandma's flat and when I entered it it felt like I left 2017 and entered an apartment in 1960, so cool!

The decor made me travel back in time; Claire had told me about it when we met in Myanmar but it was surreal to enter and see a house covered in flowery wall paper, with furniture from back in the day, and gave me a sense of how people lived in Paris a couple of decades ago.

The next day I took a bus to the Louvre!
I didn’t enter the Louvre (it was Tuesday and it was closed anyway!) but I did start my walk through Paris at the Louvre with the nice and very photogenic pyramids! I set down my tripod and started experimenting with different settings in my camera to get an artsy photo:

Artsy enough!

From there I went to the Seine to walk along the water and reproduce a picture from 2007

so many memories, so beautiful to see Paris in the winter time; definitely more calm, less crowded and as charming as I remembered it.

2007

2017! haha

After my peaceful Seine walk I ended up at L’Île-de-France and in front of Notre Dame cathedral.

I stopped in front of it to take in the facade and listened to my rick Steves audio guide of Notre Dame.

As I entered I had flashbacks of the Sunday mass I attended when I was 10 (not sure they are real memories, though) and remembered going up to the gargoyles in 2006 with my boyfriend and having a nice sunset over Paris.

The window displays were as beautiful as I remembered them but somehow Notre Dame didn’t feel as amazing as it once did; maybe I’ve seen so many churches that they have lost their wow factor.

I got out of the church and walked to the garden behind it, taking a last glance at the beautiful church and its 300-foot-tall neo Gothic spire.

I crossed the street from the back garden and entered the Deportation Memorial. This memorial was created for the 200,000 French victims of the Nazi concentration camps of WWII.

After entering I walked straight into the path and went down the stairs where the memorial begins. One truly feels like a prisoner in there.

"Forgive. Do not forget."

Plaque reads on the floor reads: "They went to the end of the earth and did not return"

Name of concentration camps

From the memorial I walked on "Pont de L'Arche" and turned to walk along the river looking at the famous Parisian stands by the Seine feeling like every other tourist in the city!

While listening to the guide I learned that these "bouquinistes" (booksellers) with stunning views of Notre Dame sell mostly used books, have almost no overhead and have a very flexible schedule. There is an eight year wait time to get one of the stands and in order to keep their license they must open at least 4 days a week, paint the stalls green, and pay a 100Euro fee per year... Sounds easy.

Looks like an easy job!

Notre Dame from across the river

I then walked across the street to beautiful Place Viviani to start my walk on the left bank.

Place Viviani

Stopped at the very famous Shakespeare and company bookstore, an english bookstore where people like Hemingway stopped to borrow books.

I then made it to the heart of the left bank (or so I think)...

and turned into Rue Saint Severin, the pedestrian street in the Latin Quarter! I don't know why but the Latin Quarter is the one I always like to go back to, maybe because it's the place where I can get the cheapest crepes... yum!

The neighbourhood had changed a lot, obviously since 10 years had passed! Of course it felt a million times more touristy! But I still loved walking those streets and having memories come back to me of the many years ago when I would walk there and eat crepes.

I kept walking, this time I walked on Boulevard St. Michel. I made sure to walk slowly and take in the ambiance of Paris, people on bikes, the architecture, the details on the streets, the many beautifully decorated windows.

I especially loved looking at the many cafes! What were people doing? Some were reading the newspaper, some were meeting friends, many on their phones, but a big number of people sitting and sipping on coffee and smoking a cigarette were simply people watching... I love people watching!

I walked for what seemed like forever, I was determined to walk to the Eiffel Tower! About an hour before I actually got there I could see the tower peaking almost in front of me, giving me hope that I was really close... but still was very far. The good thing was that the walk was very pleasant and really beautiful!

Almost there...

Once I finally got to Champs de Mars I pulled out my tripod:

I quickly took a couple of pictures and headed to the Eiffel tower just to check it out and to my surprise one can no longer just walk under the Eiffel tower, I had to wait for like 20- 30 minutes to go through security just to go close to it! By the time I made it all day light had gone so it was time to put my night shooting skills to test!

Mission accomplished, I got myself and the whole Eiffel tower in the picture!

In my opinion the best place to take pictures of the Eiffel tower is from Trocadero so I walked there to the check out the view at night, I don't think I have ever been there at night.

By then I was exhausted! I had been walking for about 10+ hours but I still had dinner plans with my friends so I powered through, I decided to walk from Trocadero to the Arc de Triomphe.

I spent a couple of hours walking down the champs Elysees, I had vivid memories of 1998 when I was at the Champs Elysees when France won the world cup... it was madness! (It was also madness in 2006 when I was in Italy and they won the WorldCup!)
It was a sunday and at boarding school we were just 2 kids left so we were asked what we wanted to do and we picked going to the movies at the champs Elysees! After watching Taxi we came out to the street and remembered seeing people going insane, the horn sounds were deafening, people screaming, people hugging each other, people crying!
That night I re lived a little bit of that moment back in 1998 and got flashbacks of 10 years olds Salvadorians in 1995 singing "Aux Champs Elysees" while walking up and down the avenue!

The evening ended by having dinner with 2 friends from El Salvador who live in Paris. I have said it before that one of my favourite things about traveling is touching base with old friends, we spent a night full of laughter and reminisced on the good old times!

By the end of the evening I was exhausted, headed back to Claire's house to rest before I spent another crazy busy day in Paris the following day!

About Post Author

Andrea

Hi! It's me... Andrea! In 2016 I decided to drop everything and take a year to enrich my life and travel around the world. It turns out the world is just too big for 12 months! Still on the road and sharing my experience as a solo female traveler around the globe!