And back home.

[mothwing]

We arrived back home at 6am yesterday morning! The trip was a very mixed experience - the bus ride there and back were both miserable and I need to remember to never get it into my head again that an overnight bus tour would be a good idea. It's just not because in spite of the company's announcements, you can't sleep on overnight buses.

Still, Paris is of course amazing and like being hit in the face with significant European history every couple of meters.
There are a lot of things (mostly museums) that I would have really liked to see but didn't get to because we didn't have enough time to waste on standing in line for hours, but even like this there simply was not enough time to take everything in and I think you could probably walk the same routes several times before you have seen what there is to see. I put the picture dump into two backdated posts called Paris I and Paris II.



So. Ten things I'll remember about the trip that aren't in the pictures.

1. On the bus there, a young Turkish gentleman seeking asylum in German sitting next to me was denied entry into the Netherlands because he did not have a passport. We arrived at that border at 4:30 in the morning and the border guard was incredibly condescending to him, talking at him fast in German in spite of the fact that the Turkish man had said that he could not speak a lot of German and what identification he had was his residence permit and his Turkish ID card. Apparently my belief that that'd be sufficient under EU laws (the Schengen Agreement, specifically) were mistaken. He had to leave the bus in the middle of the night and they took him with them. I hope he got home alright.


2. French and Belgian macarons are much better than the German variety that I've tasted so far. Ours tend to taste plasticky and artificial, those were tasting of less artificial flavouring and their texture is much more rich and fluffy.


3. I nearly got separated from Crocky on day one by small deaf old-lady chuggers while having lunch on a busy plaza. They were collecting for the deaf society France and they were incredibly pushy. At first we thought they were merely collecting signatures, but when it became obvious that they wanted money, I did want to contribute something, but did not have enough money with me. One of them rather pushily herded me over to an ATM which turned out to be broken, and when she told me to follow her to the main street, leaving Crocky even further behind, I left her and went back to search for Crocky and spent a couple of panicky moments looking for her before I rediscovered her.


4. French boulangeries in general are better than run-of-the-mill German bakeries. On our first night we picked up fresh olive bread that was extremely delicious at a corner shop bakery close to our hotel at around 10pm. Ours would have offered slightly stale wheat rolls and little else besides.


5. This is hardly scientific, but there seem to be a lot more people of colour in Paris that appear a lot happier than German POC in our major cities do. Or rather, their contrast made me realise how unhappy many German POC typically look.


6. Maybe it's the signs posted every couple of meters, but Notre Dame really is a holy place. it's oddly tangible. I don't know how to describe it, but some places you step into, and it's probably me bringing my own expectations, but they appear to be just... holy. Even as a grubby non-Catholic tourist I got that feeling, and hearing the Lord's prayer nearly killed me.


7. At school French was easily my third least favourite subject after Math and Physics. The teacher was our form teacher and he was terrible. I hated him and consequently his subject and never got over that feeling, even when I got much nicer teachers in Hamburg. Benefiting from the Basking in Reflected Glory-Effect I received much better marks as well, since I was sitting next to a very accomplished friend and always did my homework. Nevertheless, my French skills were never more than rudimentary. It's amazing to me how much is still there in spite of my disinterest and active dislike.


8. The French métro system is wonderfully intuitive. Whenever we thought that there ought to be a métro station near somewhere, there was.


9. Notre Dame and the Gare du Nord were guarded by French soldiers armed with assault rifles who are apparently there to protect the church against terrorism. I don't understand how the presence of assault rifles in a densely populated area makes anyone feel any safer, but that kind of logic never made sense to me. Especially seeing them next to Notre Dame made them seem very much out of place.


10. Crocky is the best travelling companion. She stays calm in stressful situations, she gets excited about similar things as me, she also likes walking through cities, she does not mind me stopping for pictures or to stare at animals or plants.

Comments

[therealsnape.livejournal.com]

Great to hear you had such fun. And oh, yes, French macarons ...

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

It was a lovely trip, apart from the busride there. Macarons are truly terrible for all diet plans, I find.