Paris Without Photos

My little jaunt to Paris turned out to be slightly more expensive than I'd anticipated. Concerned about the safety of my camera in a hostel, I'd booked a Parisian hotel. Sure enough, the first time I was foolish enough to briefly leave the camera in my locked room was also the last. A slick inside job or another guest with decent lock picking skills means I no longer have my great photos of Paris ... or my 40D. Until I splurge on a new one (the new 50 D is so tempting now), I'll have to beef up my rhetorical skills as I rely less on photos.

Before going to Paris I'd heard plenty of rumors about Parisians who are rude to Americans and refuse to speak English even when they can. I discounted these rumors as a few isolated situations, but unfortunately my experiences matched the rumors much better than the romanticized images of Paris. This certainly was not Copenhagen where anybody on the street will happily speak to you in flawless English. Perhaps I was just foolish to go to a country where the extent of my language knowledge was a very poorly pronounced "Je ne parle pas Francais." After all, my American countrymen are not exactly kind to the foreigner who walks into a random store without speaking a word of English. Luckily, on Monday I met up with some French-speaking Rhodes friends. I don't think I've ever been so happy to see Andrew Hammond's cheery face. The only thing better was seeing his face after I'd refer to walking down Avenue des Champs-Élysées as the "Champs walk."

Despite Paris's old subway trains, cold subways, disagreeable people, and camera thiefs, there actually are a few (mildly) redeeming things the city has to offer. Most notable are the banana and nutella crepes. If some genius were to introduce the idea of also loading these things up with fresh strawberries and whipped cream, France could be almost as cool as the US. The second most notable thing in Paris might be the Louvre if those jerks would have been open on Tuesdays as the 2006 Frommer's "Paris Day By Day" guide claims. Since the Louvre was out, the Musee d'Orsay, a giant train station turned art museum, wins the prize. I think in the matter of about an hour here I saw more impressionist masterpieces than I had in my whole life in London, New York, DC, Chicago, and St. Louis combined.

This is where I would enter tons of awesome photos.

Now I'm going to completely mess up the flow of this whole story since I just recalled the photo of West End London that I intended to post. I had a really early train to Paris on Sunday, so I spent Saturday in London with several Caltech friends. I managed to snag us all half-price Avenue Q tickets. Yet another reason London is much cooler than Paris. Sorry Andrew.