Paris Revisited

My trip from Raleigh to Paris was, as was predictable, painful. I can’t say anything went wrong on the trip. As a matter of fact, everything seemed to go right on the trip. Every single flight was on time. There were no crying babies. There were fat people sitting next to me taking up all of my elbow room. The food was nasty, but typical. I really don’t have anything specific to complain about. It’s just that I have a lot of trouble sleeping on planes and this trip was no exception.

Before I get to the next topic, allow me to set it up. In 1999, I was playing softball and while I was running to first base I blew some tendon or something out in my left leg. I don’t remember exactly what it was, but I went to the doctor and he told me that it wasn’t my ACL, but it was something attached to the ACL and he put my leg in a cast and gave me some crutches. He told me to keep the cast on for a few weeks and that in five-six weeks, all would be normal. I seem to recall that it healed a little faster, but that his time frame was relatively close. In the summer of 2000, it happened again. This time, I wasn’t playing softball; I was walking in my apartment. I went to the doctor again and he wrapped it up in an ACE bandage and sent me on my way and it healed in a few weeks.

Thursday, after arriving in Paris and walking around for an hour or so, I went to my hotel. Since I hadn’t slept in about 24 hours, I took a nap. A few hours later, when I woke up, I straightened out my legs. POP!!! There it went again. On the first day of a nine-week trip in which I planned to walk several miles every day, I go back on the DL. Fortunately, I happen to travel with an ACE bandage with me, so I wrapped up a leg and, never being one to let common sense interfere with my plans, I went walking. And walking. And walking. My leg hurt after a while on Thursday and Friday, but by the end of the day Saturday, it wasn’t hurting at all. To be honest, at the moment, it feels good as new – knock on wood. Oh, well.

If you recall from my last trip to Paris (and if you don’t, feel free to go back and read all about it), I visited most of the places that I wanted to visit. I went up the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triumph; I visited the Louvre and Musee D’Orsay; I did all kinds of crap. This time, I spent most of my time just walking around neighborhoods, some of which I had visited before and some of which were new to me, and stopped in little cafés and got a sandwich and some coffee and people watched. Last time I visited, I stayed in Montmartre. This time around, my hotel was in the Latin Quarter, near the Pantheon and La Sorbonne, so I spent a lot of time in that neighborhood in the beginning. Of course, I spread out. At one point, I walked from Notre Dame to the Eiffel Tower, to the Arc de Triomphe, to the Louvre, to the Musee D’Orsay . . . and then I got tired and hopped on the Metro. But it was a Hell of a lot of walking for a one-legged man.

I liked doing it this way because, even though I am still obviously a tourist, it felt much less touristy since I wasn’t standing in lines to see all of the well-known attractions. One thing that I want to point out, though, is that when I was in Paris before, the weather was perfect the entire time and I said that Paris was the most beautiful city that I’d ever seen. This time around confirmed my earlier assessment because the weather was pretty crappy the entire time I was there (we were hit by a cyclone or typhoon or Act of God or something my last day), but even in the gray and the rain and the cold, Paris still is a stunningly beautiful city.

On my last full day in Paris, I met up with a friend of mine from Buenos Aires. That’ll give me something to write about in my next entry, though.

Bonsoir.