The Roller Coaster Ride That is not Paris Disney

My first day was really an emotional roller coaster.  I guess you could say it was my first day on the ride.

I should share that really, I am not under any circumstances a fan of roller coasters…like at all…so this whole business has been jarring for a non-roller coaster person. 

The first step into the “roller coaster car” (if we’re going to keep going with that analogy) was the whole anxiety thing I have about getting through security with ease.  Domestic travel for me is always about who is going to like my tattoos at security and who feels that I need to be a “randomly selected” individual for extra screening.  I was very anxious that this would be the case for international travel.  And that my liquids were not small enough. Or that the plastic bag was too full. Or that my electronics would take too long to turn on. Or…..

Security was a breeze.  My tattoos did not phase anyone (they were busy trialling a new scanner that moves the plastic bins without the helping hands of the screeners…and it was not cooperating), my liquids were fine (phew! I got to keep my hairspray), and I was super early with enough time to peruse the duty free stuff, eat, and wait for the plane.

Learned that leg room is more important than cramming a bag full of shit I didn’t even look at on the flight (note to self…on the way home check the suit case and put computer bag in overhead bin…have little bag for books and snacks for under seat ahead).  Oh, even more importantly:  AISLE SEAT FOR A 9 HOUR FLIGHT!!!!!  Waiting 5 hours to pee because the dude on the aisle was asleep for 3 hours is not a great way to avoid kidney stones.  However, I did learn how to live on the minimum number of sips of liquid so as not to overwhelm my bladder. I feel so much wiser already.

I tried to sleep on the plane but my body is still set on BC time so it was only 11pmish when we landed at CDG airport.  I was pretty tired, though…sort of stumbled out of the plane with the rest of the weary travellers (almost literally – my ankle almost gave out on steel step three of the airplane steps – that woulda been cool….my hands full of suit case and computer bag).  Customs was a breeze and off I went to find my hotel…finally.

Got to my room and felt super overwhelmed.  The whole process of coming to the terminal where customs is was different – you have to take a bus shuttle from the plane to the terminal because at the economy flight terminal there is no disembarking connector to a building.  Ok.  Did that.  Didn’t know what to expect at customs (they just stamped my passport) and was anxious about having to speak French (it’s rusty…to say the least).  And when I paid for my room, it was a little more than I expected, even with the extra charge for early check in. 

Also, I’m travelling alone – kinda overwhelming when there is no one to bounce ideas off of.  Heightens my discomfort level so much and I have lived so much of my adult life trying to avoid discomfort – or creating it on my own terms…

By the time I plunked my bags down in my room, I was seriously ready to shut the blinds, have a shower and sleep all day…to avoid going into Paris alone and having to – gasp – muddle through speaking my shitty French. 

My anxiety nearly paralysed me.  I felt so overwhelmed with all of the stuff I had to do to go to museums, get a ticket for the train.  (Train?!  Fuck! What train do I take?)  I really couldn’t bare it.

Thank Goddess for computers.  I sat and looked up the shit I needed to know and just got the fuck on with it.

I am so glad I did because I would have not had the first of the “one of the most amazing moments of my life” I am sure this trip is going to offer me:

                I just grabbed a train ticket and a museum pass and trained down town Paris (same as skytraining/West Coast expressing…ok…cool – anxiety starting to lower).  I had followed the directions I researched and learned that my connecting train was out of order because of upgrades.  I had to walk from Notre Dame.  I had no map, no list of what building/place was what.  I just took my knowledge of Paris landmarks I learned from Assassin’s Creed Unity (who said video games were no good…)  and my art history classes and started walking.  My destination:  the Musee d’Orsay.  I decided early to avoid the Louver – too many people – and I had been to great antiquities museums in Berlin so...  Also, fin de cycle type art is more my thing – y’know impressionists, expressionists – that sort of thing. 

There is so much history here - and I forgot that feeling from when I was in Germany 30 (ahem) years ago – that I felt like my head was going to explode.  I kept walking.  I passed a statue I recognized (sorry – not great with statues…paintings are my thing…and found myself on the Pont Neuf – the place where people put locks on the bridge.  I must confess I don’t know why – I think it is a superstitious thing about locking the love you have for your lover forever.  I had no lock and my lover is at home so I kept walking.

Walked up the Siene and just kept snapping pics and … holy shit  … off in the distance is the Eiffel Tower!  My camera did nothing but make it look like a grey toothpick in the back ground.  I wandered some more and looked across the Siene to see a super impressive looking building (remember I have no map) and think:  “that looks important; guess I should check it out.”  I snap a pic of the façade of the building and walk through the arches into more amazing façade and breath taking statues at the top of the building and…holy shit, it’s the Louvre! 

Snap. Snap. Sn…

I stop dead in my tracks.  It’s the Arc de Triomphe. 

I really did not expect it to be in this place and I just stopped.  My eyes filled with tears.  The sight of the golden chariot driver caught my breath.  I couldn’t move for a few seconds…this thing is ROMAN…ancient fucking Roman!!!!!!

We poor Canadians, with our baby country, have little or no sense of history – grand ancient history – because we are only a little under 200 years old.  When you are in a place with thousands of years of history it is really a powerful experience.

Needless to say, I snapped a bunch of photos and kept walking on through the gardens and back to the Seine.  And found the Musee d’Orsay! 

There really is something spiritual about coming face-to-face with an art work that you have admired in your head for a long time.  Standing before works of art created by artists you have loved for a long time is intoxicating.  A friend of mine posted a special word for that feeling/experience and it was that word that I kept thinking about as I wandered the Musee d’Orsay.  Monet, Cezanne, Pissaro, Toulouse Lautrec, Gauguin, right before you. 

The most beautiful moment, though was walking into a side gallery and gazing upon a Bourgereau piece.  I have a poster of his Abduction of Psyche hanging in my house.  I love his work so much!  And here was this canvas before me…his brush touched this work!  I was enraptured! 

And in this state I wandered the rest of the museum and across the street to a little military museum. 

I decided it was time to wander back and catch a train to CDG and my hotel.  I wandered passed a boulangerie and decided to get food for my dinner at my room and…y’know…it’s Paris so that’s what you do.  So I sucked up my terror of having to speak French and I ordered a sandwich I knew would survive the 35 degree heat on the trek back to the airport.  Jumped on the train to learn that the terminus was not the airport and nearly had a heart attack…oh, and my phone was dying – of course – so any call to a taxi would be out if this train didn’t hook me up later with a transfer zone.  It did, thank the travel gods.

I found my way back to my hotel room, the dust of the Arc de Triomphe still on my feet and my sandals, exhilarated from my communion with art and history and, after a shower and organizing my stuff, I finally got to enjoy the best fucking sandwich with the best fucking bread I have ever eaten.

I was so happy that I hadn’t let my discomfort with the unknown keep me in my airport hotel room for the day!  I would not have had this amazing experience – and sandwich…seriously…the fucking bread!!!!!!   I would have regretted missing that day for the rest of my life!

Holy fuck!  That was day one!  Today I meet up with my tour group and we go off to Arras.  More amazing shit to come.

One wish from yesterday:  I was more organized.  And I would have liked to have had a drink and the pub/restaurant named for Voltaire on the road named for him.  Would have been cool. 

Next time.