Paris, Je Taime..

This was the article which was published in last years Nth degree, next to Anshu’s article “Reject me Please!” which was so much better than mine. But I am anyways proud at it. This was my first attempt at writing and so here it goes….

Going places has always been one of my greatest passions. Going to paris was a dream come true. I had been preparing for weeks. I had read every single travel book and travel log I could get my hands on. But the real thing completely exceeded my expectations. After the long eight hour flight, finally arriving was a big relief. I had heard a lot about the French and from it I concluded that the French were generally difficult people and specially for outsiders who spoke no French. But the books proved to be wrong when I met my guide Jean at the airport. He turned out to be nice and friendly and seemed to know everything about paris. So after hopping into the car we decided to do a little sightseeing first as the hotel was a little far from the city.

Paris is one of the most populated metropolitans in Europe. It is divided by the river sienne . it is flanked on both sides by some of the most important structures in paris. So we decided to start our trip by going on the river sienne cruise. It was fun to look at all the buildings, but got a little boring towards the end because after a while they all looked pretty much the same. We pretty much so all the monuments along the river including the smaller version of the Statue of Liberty ( the larger version was gifted to the USA by the French after American independence).

Then we strolled down The Avenue des Champs Elysees (the main street in Paris). We started from the Arche De Triomphe. The triumphal arch honours those who fought for France particularly during the Napoleonic wars. On the inside and the top of the arch there are the names of the generals who fought in the war. Underneath is the tomb of the unknown soldiers from World war I. from the view of the city is beautiful. Then we walked towards Eiffel , named after its designer ,engineer Gustave Eiffel. It is the tallest structure in Paris.

It is only accessible to the second level and because we were tired we decided to use the elevator. It was a panoramic view which has been captured by millions of painters across the globe. It looked very pretty lit up at night. It is because of this tower that Paris is called the city of lights.

After this we decided to call it a day . dinner turned out to be bread and cheese. Food was extremely bland. Next day we went to the Disneyland park and studio. It was the best part of the trip. I made it a point to go on all the rides and get autographs of all my favourite cartoon characters. In Disney studio we saw the making of some of the Disney classics. We saw the first ever Mickey mouse cartoon made by Walt Disney. We enjoyed ourselves thoroughly and spent the whole day there. In Disneyland it was difficult to get any vegetarian food so we had to survive on French fries. It was one of the most memorable days of my life.

The next day was left for shopping. Being the fashion capital of the world, it had all the major brands and designer boutiques. We went to stores like GAP, Gucci, Prada, Chanel, H&M etc. then we went to the small flea markets that seemed to be everywhere and shopped without burning a hole in our pockets. We got some of the best bargains here and also the opportunity to interact with many French people. But it was difficult to haggle because we did not know or understand even a word of French. But the French turned out to be very helpful and we went to a pizza place with a couple of people we met their.

Thus endeth ,a great journey to the land of famous monuments, gardens and museums- the beautiful city of Paris. Now I can sense, why its called the most romantic city… but I still haven’t seen the Musee de Louvre and other famous impressionist museums and the Palace of Versailles . maybe I need one more trip just for all the museums…and maybe I can see the Eiffel tower once more.