Paris - simply Paris

While New York kept surprising me in not being quite what I expected, Paris didn't surprise me at all. In fact, from the very first moment onwards, the familiar style of the buildings and avenues almost made me feel a local even though I had only been to Paris once before - for a single day.

If you have trouble picturing the "familiar style" I mention, then have a look at this. It's a paiting from 1898, courtesy of Wikipedia. The charriots have been replaced by cars but apart from that, everything still looks exactly the same - and exactly the same as it looks in every movie you may ever have seen, that played in Paris. (Ratatouille and Moulin Rouge come to mind, but I'm sure there must be heaps I'm forgetting.)

It turns out this recognisable uniformity in architecture is mainly due to a massive remodelling of the city in the mid-to-late 19^th century where large parts of the city were dramatically torn down in order to reshape the city. Pulling off such an authoritarian effort sounds like the sort of extravagance that may have been typical of pre-revolutionary France, but not exactly what I expected hardly 60 years after the revolution. Yet, there is something to be said for it, because it definitely doesn't make Paris ugly.

Partly I guess that is because it would be really quite hard to make Paris look ugly. Wherever you go, whatever direction you turn to, you will stumble upon some monument, park or fascinating building. The number of sights to see and places to go really seem to be without end. (I'll admit that the subjective density of worthwhile sights might be increased by my "slightly-higher-than-average" walking pace, but even so Paris is a nice city to look at.)

Paris is also a big city. As always, I didn't fully appreciate the scale when I checked the maps to find a hostel that was near the conference venue - so between the fact that I managed to book a hotel on the opposite end of the city and the fact that the conference was conveniently organised at locations on opposite sides of the Quartier Latin, I managed to spend a lot of time walking the Parisian streets. (I cannot tell you how I delighted in having proper sidewalks again!)

Other positive things about Paris are the bins that really are everywhere and that prevent junk from littering the streets. Sadly that logic doesn't count for everything, though, since the large number of public toilets (almost though not quite as omnipresent as the bins) do not rid Paris of certain odours which I could have done without. Maybe that has something to do with the tramps (who aren't really all that prevalent but you definitely do see them sleeping on the streets), or with the nightlife which yours truly can of course not comment on. (You do know me better than that, right?)

One major annoyance is the large number of tourists. Being a foreigner myself (and lacking enough french skills to pull off pretending to be a local), I cannot say I mind noticing my barman is Scottish or Singaporese and if the first pub you hit upon turns out to be Irish and has the Ashes on the telly, who would I be to complain? (Especially not once I noticed one end of the pub to be full of Englishmen and the other half full of Aussies. Guess where I was sitting...)

But I can imagine it would start to annoy me to have people speak English to me all the time, to have to deal with unsuspecting, ignorant aliens performing random walks on your streets and sidewalks every day, not being able to take in the beautiful buildings, churches and parks without having a crowd of Nikons obscuring the view. In fact, walking up the stairs to the Sacré Cœur it's hard to notice the Basilica for the throng of visitors who meander about like cattle. In a way I guess it's interesting to realise how annoyed I can get when I find myself doing exactly as the masses - following the tracks that are laid out for me, going to see exactly what they want me to see. (I guess that annoyance and in-built nonconformity is part of what makes me a physicist rather than an accountant.)

But really, the view from the Sacré Cœur - like all the rest of Paris - is worth your while. Just beware and approach it from the back instead of the front. Saves your elbows some work.