Advertisement
Published: September 23rd 2015
This was now my second time visiting the grand city of Paris, and I was anticipating Victor and our friend's first impressions; like reliving my first impression and experiences through their eyes. But from the very start, things weren't going as well as we all thought they would. Sometimes we go to a new destination and get our expectations shattered. Where do these unrealistic expectations even come from? Do they come from movies, novels, or national geographic? What about when you visit a place for the second time, and it's changed from the first time you visited? Expectations are stressful and unrealistic, and sometimes we are totally unaware that we even have them. When we harbor these expectations, we can set ourselves up for failure, which was the case for this trip.
I remember my first trip to Paris, back in 2009. I was fresh from graduating college, didn't have much money, and was literally eating 1 Euro noodle containers, which was all I could afford to eat at the time. But I think that's often when the adventures are the most fun: when you are young and broke and have to be a little more
creative with your travels. My bag got left behind and later stolen on the metro (rookie mistake), so with the money I had left, I bought a new camera and replaced my lost clothes with a few inexpensive flea market finds. No tears were shed when I lost my belongings on the metro, because my attitude was that they are just replaceable materials, and besides, I was in Paris baby! My favorite memory was how I made friends with the people in my hostel; people from all around the world. I even got free entrance to the Louvre because the ticket salesman thought I was a "pretty girl." Back then I had no basis for comparison, but I still had a great time. I had just stepped into this new world of travel, and it was
all really exciting to me.
Fast forward six years later, and I'm back in Paris again, travelling with my husband Victor and our friends. This was the last city on our Europe trip before going back home, and it was supposed to be very summarized and quick. Kind of like skimming through a book, and saying you know the
whole story. The problem is, trying to see everything Paris has to offer in less than 3 days is pretty much impossible, and exhausting. In general, my group was not impressed with Paris, at all. A lot of things were not "clicking" for us here, and everyone kept saying that it just wasn't what they were expecting. There's that word again...
expectations. We felt uninspired, under-whelmed by the city, and too rushed by the pace. We weren't sure why this happened. We were grateful to be here, and could agree that the city did have a unique quality of romanticism to it, but we felt guilty that we were not really enjoying it the way we were supposed to. In the end, we were just going through the motions of it all.
In actuality, there are many passionate fans of Paris; individuals who will even go out of their way to defend it, and to fly back a couple of times in their lifetime. But some feel the opposite way, and would suggest you skip it, and remark that it's overrated. You know that phrase, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder"? Well I
think that phrase can be applied to travelers and the way they feel about different destinations, because not everyone see's every place the same way. I myself have traveled to a few places that I've loved, but others hated, and vise versa. Whatever category you fall into, there is no denying that Paris is one of the most culturally striking cities in the world, and the Parisians are very proud of that fact.
The first thing that struck Victor and my friends about Paris, is how quick tempered some of the Parisians were. The Parisian cab driver (who took us to our hotel from the airport) was blunt and irritated at us for not knowing how to speak French... which made us wonder, why then would you work in the cab industry: an industry comprised of mostly non-French speaking customers?! "Oui", "merci", "bonjour", and " s'il vous plait" could only get us so far, but at least we tried. Then there was the congestion and pollution. Our friends often joked that we cleaned our lungs in the pure air of Switzerland, only to later dirty them in Paris. There are two culprits to this: cigarette smoke and
traffic pollution. It seemed like 90% of the people here smoked. This made it difficult to enjoy an outdoor corner bistro, especially when the wind blew the smoke in our direction, and our face. Even though most of the sites were beautiful, it still wasn't as clean as everyone thought it would be. I think it was the distracting sight of trash mounds, dog poop, and cigarette buds around the Eiffel tower that took them the most by surprise. It was enough to send those picture perfect images of Paris crashing down. As a result of all the long lines at most of the attractions (which sucks the energy right out of you) our group eventually had to split up. Jose and Erika chose to spend some time at the Louvre. Naty and David also did their own thing. Victor and I spent a day looking for places that didn't seem as crowded at the time, like the beautiful crown of Paris, the Sacre Coeur Basilica, and Napoleon's Arc de Triomphe. Both had some of the best views in Paris.
Some people may disagree with us on this one, but we
weren't impressed with the food options either. Falling in love with crepes in Paris was something that we expected would happen instantly. Unfortunately, we went to one of the "top rated" crepe restaurants, and they were tasteless and dry, not at all what we expected them to taste like. Victor and I could hardly find a decent vegetarian meal here either, but we did manage to eat a lot of fruit and fluffy croissants. Then one day we were all walking downtown feeling hungry and desperate, so someone in our group suggested we attempt to find a Colombian Restaurant. We did eventually find one, and had our favorite meal of all! Yes, our favorite meal in Paris was a traditional Colombian bandeja paisa.... go figure! The irony of this made us laugh the entire time. I'm sure there is a gourmet Parisian foodie out there cringing right now. However, we did love all the soft chewy freshly baked bread and bakeries at our disposal, and Paris is full of them.
This story is more like a tale of bad timing, but I think that maybe in order to properly fall in love Paris,
you have to look beyond just visiting the Eiffel tower or the Louvre. Open yourself up to staying longer and preferably somewhere outside of the city, take it slow, bond with the French using their language, peel back the layers and discover new sites that are not typically talked about. Although most people just want to do a typical tour and check things off their sight seeing list, I think it would be even more beneficial to skip some of these things and visit museums or other places that aren't as well known so that it won't be as overwhelming. Lesson learned too late. My thoughts, however are that I would rather visit parts of France that have breathtaking beautiful outdoor landscapes, like Provence, and the alpine town of Annecy.
Although our time here wasn't the most inspiring, that's to be expected when you travel sometimes. Everyone has different experiences on their travels, and you'll have days when things might not go according to your expectations. Sometimes that feeling you get of wonderment in a new exciting place is instantaneous, but sometimes it's lacking the allure you expected it would have.
Judging by our photos of Paris, you'll see that we got to see many typical pretty places, but the "feeling" wasn't entirely there for us. It's really all in the perspective of the individual. I think that the fact that my perspective of Paris changed so much over the years, proves that just like we live different stages in our life, our travels and experiences should constantly be evolving and reflecting that as well. We've realized that our favorite way to travel has not been to "just travel for the sake of travelling", but to choose our destinations wisely, and then test the waters and learn something new from that journey. Our hope is that our next trips will be full of those inspiring moments again, and will bring a fresh set of new perspectives, and appreciation for our earth's natural beauty. I never would have pegged myself as an "outdoorsy" girl, but Victor and I agree that our favorite travels have been the ones spent exploring outdoor terrains, enjoying the oceans, the animals, and taking it at a slower pace in smaller towns. As for our plans, we are not sure exactly when or where our next trip will
be, but in the mean time we'll be home refueling our engines while we navigate our options. After all, 50% of our wanderlust is fed by the anticipation of future adventures, and for now that's good enough for us 😊
Happy Travels 😊
Advertisement
Tot: 0.096s; Tpl: 0.016s; cc: 11; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0337s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb
nancic123
Nanci and David Curry
Oh, no say it isn't so!
First of all what a well written blog and even if you didn't enjoy Paris this time, the pictures are wonderful! We have been to a few places now that weren't quite what we expected. It seems to especially happen in places we have been before and had an excellent time in. As you say, perhaps if you spent longer or went a little slower. Or perhaps if you had of gone somewhere new.....Great blog anyway and it's nice to hear someone being honest about travel for a change. Sometimes it just isn't that great (but the pictures are nice!).