More on France

Yesterday, we went to Paris. I’m not talking about the Paris most non-French people are familiar with – the one with the Eiffel Tower, lovely places to walk along the river Seine, gorgeous parks, and beauty in generally every direction you turn your head. No I’m talking about the real Paris, the one most people live and work in.
It started with the traffic, taking us forty minutes to travel something like 8 miles. It was bumper to bumper and it wasn’t even rush hour. I’m sure if we could have a glimpse of Hell, it would look something like that highway that encircles Paris. And of course we spent another 30 minutes looking for a parking place, where we finally ended in a garage too far from our destination.
After that traffic nightmare, I wasn’t even in the mood to shop anymore. Especially when I entered the store I wanted to go to and couldn’t even view the merchandise for the hordes of people. People whom, I might add, have no qualms about running down you and your baby should you be in the most direct path to their destination.
Public transportation was another struggle. I always found the subway crowded, smelly, and full of suspicious people, but with a baby, all of that multiplied by ten. Suddenly the simplest task, like entering a subway car, bacame an exhausting ordeal. We had to ask people to move, and they practically knocked over the stroller trying to exit the train. I lost count of how many flights of stairs we had to physically carry the stroller up.
There was nowhere to change the baby, so we had to do it in a disgusting corner of a parking garage entrance. But better there than in the street, where people would be pushing past us, probably sending our wipes or our half-naked baby flying into the bus lane.
We were originally planning to meet some friends in Paris again today, but after that ordeal, we decided to visit some local sights instead. And if I had any ligering fantasies about moving back to the romance of Paris, they are surely gone now. That Paris they write about in books and glorify in movies is really only for the wealthy and the tourists.
Tomorrow, we’re leaving for Belle-Ile, an island off the Brittany coast. I won’t be posting any for a week, I’m almost certain. I’m looking forward to it – it’s bound to be the most vacation-like part of our vacation. Sea and sand, like it should be.