"Paris beckons."

First, corrections and addendum:

Some horrendous spelling, grammar, and punctuation mistakes cropped up in the previous blogs. Shameful. But my lame excuse is that I was on a French keyboard last time, and rushed, thus no time to spellcheck. Unacceptable. The only error that really matters is that Kate's baby's middle name is not Jomathan, it's Jonathan. You probably guessed that, but I also forgot to mention he arrived on July 19. I feel particularly convicted on writing correct English after recently reading "Eats, Shoots and Leaves". I laughed my butt off. Who knew reading about punctuation could be so funny? Read it. If you want.

Now, back to travel adventures:

In Praha (Prague) now. After two days inVersailles and two days of plowing through French, German, and Czech countryside. We're whipping through the countries now. But, before I get to that, I better tell you about Paris, the most glamourous and chic city in the world, or so they'd like us to believe.

Ok. Paris is quite glamourous and chic. It is. It's true. Who wants to admit the French have that certain "je ne sais quoi" we don't? But we have to. It became apparent as soon we were just waiting to get on the train there and we were surrounded by an equal measure of Brits and Frenchfolk. The French sauntered with cool unconscious nonchalance. Sleek, interesting, bronzed. Ooo la la. I so want to be like that. But I am oh so self-aware. Every wrinkle in my bland shorts, each too pink part on my skin, my clumsy French. And the Brits, well, they're just posing. Sorry to you Brits out there. Brits have their strengths: efficient postal system, colonization, and, um...well, we're not talking about them anyway.

Parisiennes. Despite their near statue-like perfection and their reputation for being very conscious of this, we found them to be helpful and pleasant. We witnessed some heated arguments (on a bus and in a market) to support claims to their passionate nature. And the whole place just has a different feel. They break for lunch midday. Eat, wine, conversation, rest. It feels less rushed, more relaxed. People lounging about--stretched on hot grass, feet in algae-filled fountains, leaning about in charming street cafes and bars. We liked it.

And the beauty. The buildings curve. Fountains and statues glitter in their goldleaf skins. Each corner looks thought about by a people who care for human and inspiring aesthetics. Paris oozes charm and taste. The place floors you in a way unlike London. And the astounding number of tourists attested to this as well.

And where did we reside for our week in this inspiring and chic city? On a tiny, crowded dirt hill. Fitting, non? The large campground we stayed in buzzed with noisy tourists, afloat on its own sewage and garbage which it produced with healthy proliferation. The smell made me crazy. But not as crazy as being crowded onto a tiny patch of dirt the size of a small backyard with twenty other tents, with all of us trying to pretend the others didn't exist just so we could pretend to have some measure of privacy. Taps that only stayed on with constant pressing. Dirty sinks. Hot showers on hot days and cold ones on cool nights. The prices, the heat, the noise. It all started to break me down like cruel torture. In the most fashionable place on earth, I was most unfashionably starting to truly lose it. By the end of the week, I was crying to return home to all that was familiar and clean and didn't smell like shit and piss in every nook and cranny. (Excuse my crudeness, but this was my desperation.)

Fortunately, each morning is new. And cooler (30 Celsius instead of 38 or 40). And we learned. Instead of walking, we hopped local busses and toured the city via commuter routes, which was fun and interesting. We turned up in little corners that tourists don't with flea markets and street markets with cheap and fresh produce and immigrant streets. Turkish cafes filled with men smoking their long strange pipes. Big African mamas in full African garb. Arab men in their little hats arm in arm. All nationalities and languages I don't usually have the opportunity to hear. This was my favorite time in Paris. The "real" Paris. We even saw regular white folks--Parisiennes that were not so cool, just normal. Like us. Sort of.

Of course we did the tourist route. The Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, Arc de Triomphe, and so on. What was amazing about these was that despite the crowds, the million photos I've seen of these, they are still awesome. More impressive than I even expected. Even Matt was impressed. And his fierce patriotism makes him difficult to impress let me tell you.

The best moments of these was crawling about the Louvre in hidden and abandoned corners that no one cared about, while hundreds shoved their way to the small Mona Lisa, the headless Winged Victory, and the armless Venus de Milo to take their requisite tourist photos. The Louvre is massive. Walking about its three wings and multiple floors is to walk a good few kilometers. Not only the art, but this formal royal palace itself overwhelms. Its courtyard has a giant glass pyramid with four smaller ones flanking it and green triangular pools. I felt most impacted by a small painting of Jesus showing only his head and torso with loose ropes from which he surely could loose himself, which reminded me that his act was a choice. For love, we can choose what feels most inconvenient, unknown, terrifying, and even painful. I've been thinking about choices lately--mostly my fear and relentless avoidance of them. But not choosing is a choice. And to never choose is to choose death eventually, as my suicidal brother taught me.

Another highlight: lying on our backs on benches under the Eiffel Tower at sunrise before the maddening crowds. Mostly just us except for the unlucky cleaners who try to sweep and rinse away the huge piles of garbage from the tourists the day before and the armed guards with their bored fingers on the triggers of their automatic rifles. It was almost romantic. And Matt and I were sorely in need of some romance by then.

This was Paris. We missed so much, but had our fill. So we hopped in our brand new (rented) Renault Turbo Clio and pressed onward.