There we stood, shoulder to shoulder, teeth gritted, eyes facing forwards towards our one goal.
Among two complete strangers and four close friends, I managed to edge my way forwards into the pulsing crowd ahead of me. Gripped with our mission for justice in this world often devoid of it, we moved onwards. As a beacon of humanity and cooperation nearly smothered by the horde of darkness, this French woman and I locked eyes, nodded, and rushed forwards as my friend Melissa stood vigilant guard. The man whose path she blocked stared daggers at us as the both of us approached the window and ordered our Chicken Wraps from the open food truck window and claimed our food in triumph before heading to the dance floor of the outdoor concert.
In retrospect, the most exhilarating part of spending a weekend in Paris maybe shouldn’t have been this experience of preventing a rude man from cutting us and the entire line for the food truck that we spent over an hour waiting for. But here we are. The immediate teamwork we found and bonds we made with a random duo of French students in the line behind us, who were just as fed up as we were, was priceless. The feeling of a concrete win in recent string of losses was enough to make me feel ecstatic.
Paris was a life-changing trip and experience, but it was definitely a lot to take in. I hadn’t really been in a big city in quite a while, and just remembering simple things like “if some random person comes to you asking for donations to charity, he is trying to scam you” and “if someone is trying to help you, they are in fact trying to scam you” might have gotten lost in the weeds somewhere. Oh well. Lesson learned for the next city.
The other more positive experiences were each more exciting than the last. Friday night we arrived at our hostel and danced in the club connected directly to the building on the ground floor. We woke up bright and early Saturday to see the construction on the Notre Dame cathedral, walk along the Seine, and buy kitschy souvenirs for friends and family back home. We descended into the catacombs and the sheer amount of bones present from hundreds of years of cemeteries was mind boggling. The Eiffel Tower was so much bigger than expected, and we must have taken nearly a hundred pictures with it. That night we adventured out of the city for a really fun concert on the absolutely breathtaking grounds of the Palace of Versailles (eating some good food that we fought hard for to add to the experience). Taking the entire rest of our trip on Sunday to walk the Louvre was honestly life changing as we had eyes open wide at the sheer amount of things there were to see.
Real artifacts from thousands of years ago and more, like the Code of Hammurabi. Paintings made by people who’s seemed almost more mythological than real until their work was hanging three feet in front of my face. Joining the throngs clamoring to see the Mona Lisa. All of it was different and impressive and we absolutely didn’t have enough time allotted to explore it properly… but we knew that going in.
Overall I would say the experience was encouraging in two big ways. My ability to navigate public transit was validated as I felt very confident understanding a brand new city’s metro system (with Apple Maps’ help of course, but that doesn’t make me not still feel very good about it). And secondly, that each of these weekend excursions will definitely be worth the money spent and sleep lost to make them happen. Just the idea of being in another brand new country with an entirely new people and language was crazy, but to think I’m doing it three more times at least? It definitely makes me feel very good about the days coming ahead.
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