Paris: A Glorified Camden

An Applied Language Student's Year Abord in Paris

Day 1 - The Arrival

"Ladies and Gentelmen, we have arrived at our final destination - Paris: Garde du Nord - where the local time is 11:54 - we thank you for chossing to travel with us." This is how my Parisian experience began. However I argue that the announcement should have gone something along the lines of: "Ladies and Gentelmen, we're here now, in Paris, (at last). Now, I warn you it isn't as glamourous as everyone makes it out to be, but make the most of it!" (that would have been far more appropriate). Nevertheless, with my 2 large suitcases in hand and 15kg rucksack on my back, I started to make my way to the house that I'll be calling my home for the next 4 months. A journey which should have taken - all in all - around 30 minutes, but in fact took near enough 2 hours!! Not because of the suitcases but because I had no idea where I was going. So, I get the métro from Gard du Nord and I was not impressed. Firstly because the carriage doors do not open automatically (at least not for the line I was on), which as a Londoner fustrated immensely. Secondly, because each platform at every station for that line seemed derelict, there where wires hanging out from the ceiling and the walls (even in the tunnels!) and there were (what I assume to be fuse boxe of some sort) left half covered - talk about health and saftey! I then get off the métro and I start to wonder why my travel cards wern't working. Did the Parisians help? (in their own way - yes)  beacuase I eventually found out that you had to buy a seperate type of ticket in order to enter the station. Who did I find this out from? One small janitor lady (with short blonde/ginger dyed frizzy hair) who was screaming and gesturing widly at me to move towards the ticket machine. Luckly I got home in one piece.

Day 3 - Exploring Paris

After having: unpacked, done my shopping, and sorted out whatever documents I needed to be sorted out, I finally had time to go see Paris. And where best to start my journey than La Tour Eiffel. I make my way to Champs de Mars - Tour Eiffel and just around the corner there she was! in all her iron glory! The fancy radio tower, in lace! Now, you have to bare in mind that I found myself in a city where the terror attack alert was high, therefore no saftey measures were overlooked nor cut. In this knowledge, when I finally stood in front of the Eiffel Tower I didn't gaze upon a picture perfect tourist spot but rather what I saw was a barricaded lanscape: the gardens were closed off, the pathways were somewhat restricted, and the pavements were lined with metal railings. To enter the tower itself you had to go through security, which where these little metal huts that stood guard under the tower's belly. Once you were through you could either proceed to walk over to the otherside towards Trocadéro Gardens (snapping some good shots of the tower from underneath), or you could opt to fork out around 5 euro just to reach to top of the tower. Now, that's when I got annoyed. No tourist attraction in Paris is free, (unlike in London, *coughs, looks side to side*) but I thought at least the metal tower would be, given that you had to climb yourself and all.

Thenafter I decieded that the best way to discover Paris was to get lost in it, and that's exactly what I did! I have no idea what bus/train/métro I took to get to wherever exactly it was were I took this photo, but I can tell you that the area reminded of Camden Town, London; maybe with a touch more class. It was quirky, full of diversity, and life. Every street had its personality, its own vibe, and buzzing hub. Packed to the brim with: hipster outlets, perfume shops, and traditional Parisian style cafés and artisan boulangerie's. Yet, what I believe was the best thing about this area (wherever it was) was that you were guaranteed to uncover some form of art which would force you to: stop, stare, and think. Whether it be that you'd just had to pop your head round the corner to gaze upon some form of experessive street art which profound meaning, or that you happened to come across the geometric artwork of an American artist from NYC trying to making a living by selling on the street. Either way it was beautiful!

After much walking around I decided to go home, but on my way back I came across a few things that reminded me of home (that is London, precisly SouthEast London). The first being, vadalised public property, in this case a graffiated postbox, the second was what seemed to be (at least in my opinion) a vintage pedestrian crossing traffic light button (I don't know if that's the correct name but I'm gonna go with it! F.Y.I these are rare to find in Paris), but my favourite of all were the bright coloured train station walls (orwise how else were you to know that it was a train station?) stained with mediocre graffiati from local artists (#wesupportlocalartists).