Paris, France
Man, I really wish RyanAir had flown directly into Paris, instead of Beauvais, I thought to myself. That shuttle took at least an hour and a half, it seemed. Alright, let’s look at the map here. Oh wait, I don’t have it with me. Darn. Alright, let’s look at the directions I wrote down. To get to the Aloha Hostel, we take this southbound street to the subway…then this line…then after a few stops, we’re there.
My group is walking away. I’d better speak up: “Um, the hostel is a couple of hours away on foot. Plus, there’s the lockout time we have to worry about. Are you sure you don’t want to take the subway?”
There are three students who are traveling with me (Ryan Damman, Alex Andrade, and Laiken Whitters). They respond in near unison: “Yep.”
I’m the one who originally planned for us to take the subway to get to the hostel. Why couldn’t we just do that? It’d be faster. Great, we’re walking. Alright, time to go through a mental checklist of all of the things I may have forgotten.
Let’s see…I have my camera in my outside pocket, my GPS in my middle pocket, and my passport…oh geez, where’s my – oh, it’s around my neck. Sheesh, that was a scare. Continuing on, I’ve brought along three undershirts, two regular shirts, only one pair of shoes and pants, both black, and a pea coat that I am currently wearing to keep me warm. Then there’s –
The Arc de Triumphe comes into view. We’re passing right beneath it.
Dangit, Heath, get your camera out. It’s in the outside pocket. What in the – it’s not here! Sigh. Let’s check – oh, of course, I moved it to the middle pocket. Guess it’s time to catch up with the amateur photographers, Ryan and Laiken, who already have their cameras out.
Let’s get a good shot of the Arc. Nope, that shot’s blurry. Blurry. Really blurry. Again, blurry. Man, these nighttime shots are hard to do. How many shots have you taken so far, Ryan? 40?! I can’t even get 4, much less one good one. Okay, find a bench and hold the camera steady…good…and we’re done. Hey, not a bad shot, if I do say so myself.
Where’d everyone just go? Sigh. There they are - three streets over, already on the move again. Alright, time to catch up by running across an unmarked, 6-lane roundabout. This is smart.
I’m feeling a bit flustered right now, I’ll admit it. The streets and the architecture look cool. It’s all very…French. There’s a lot of uniformity, a lot of symmetry. I’ll be honest - it’s nice being alone with my own thoughts. This way, I can follow the group and I don’t have to look where –
“Heath, you should probably look where you’re going”.
Ryan, Laiken, and Alex have all stopped again, and I just bumped into them.
Why did we stop? We still have at least an hour of walking and searching for the hostel, and we haven’t even seen the Eiffel –
Oh, there it is. That explains why they stopped. You’re a sharp one, Heath.
Huh. The Eiffel Tower. Not bad, Paris. I think I might like it here.
Favorite moments in Paris: Touring the Louvre and the Musee d’Orsay, watching the Eiffel Tower light up every night, having a 4-course meal on a diner boat, running into some English speaking folks on a free walking tour with Alex, listening to the organ in Notre Dame, and enjoying the 4-hour-long, professional production of Giulio Cesare in the Parisian National Opera House (which also happens to be the Phantom of the Opera’s opera house).
Zurich, Switzerland
A warm, smooth rush of air blows back my pea coat as I walk into the store. Glistening behind glass counters all around the room are the timekeepers of the well-to-do. These watches, these trinkets of gold, platinum, and diamond sparkle enthusiastically, desperate to be owned and worn by the store’s next visitor. Sharp, watchful eyes gleam suavely behind each brand’s counter, waiting patiently until they can persuade their next client into purchasing a token of success.
I make my way, with my posse of three trailing close behind me, slowly around the store. A clerk beckons us to the elevator, where we are whisked away to another level of the store. The doors open, and we find ourselves looking upon yet another room of tiny, gilded gadgets. Suddenly, I see it! There, behind the counter I have been looking for all along, is a row of watches crowned with the brand of kings: Rolex.
There’s no need to panic – I’ve seen Rolex watches before. I’ve just never worn one. So, naturally, today is a day as good as any to try on a watch worth more everything I’ve ever owned. The clerk asks which one I want to try, and I point to one of the shinier ones. She expertly slips it onto my wrist as she starts explaining all of its features.
“Well, this is the Daytona model, as I’m sure you can tell. It’s 18-karat white gold and is designed to withstand pressure under water up to 4000 feet. Divers have found Rolexs in the wreckage of ships before, after years of not being used. Once the divers winded them, the watches still worked.”
I play it cool, nodding my head and raising my eyebrows at the important parts. When she says something particularly significant, I even say something like “That’s right, I remember” or “Very interesting”.
Honestly, I don’t know a thing about Rolex watches, but I want to save face and make sure that I don’t look like a fool. Oh great – I haven’t been paying close attention –
“You know? The Daytona model? The one that everyone has been talking about?”
“Oh, oh yeah…OH! Yeah, yeah, I know what you’re saying, of course!”
Oh no. I’m clueless. I have been all along. This watch costs over 35,000 dollars in the US – my suave act is quickly disintegrating into boyhood dreams of grandeur. At least this nice lady has given me the chance to experience the high life.
“Well, thank you for letting me test run the Daytona, but I don’t think I’m going to be buying today”. Seconds later, I am out the door, palms sweating and eyes shining like diamonds, walking onto the cobblestone street in Zurich, Switzerland. I’ve tried on a Rolex, I thought to myself. I. Have. Worn. A. Rolex.
Alex spoke up. “Heath, that was pretty funny. She saw right through your act as soon as you walked in the door…anyway, you must be on cloud nine right now, eh?”
He was right. I was. It’s hard to top being the richest American college student around for a good five minutes.
Favorite moments in Zurich: Buying chocolates and gummy bears, strolling around the lake, and eating warm cheese fondue whilst sitting on furry chairs, with wool blankets in our laps and bearable companions to share stories with all around the table. Also, sharing a late-night bottle of wine by the lake with Ryan, Laiken, Alex, and a group of trumpeter swans was pretty fun, too.
“Zurich!” (Frankfurt, Germany)
The shadowy chill of Germany in winter marched down my spine as we entered the market in Frankfurt. Stalls were set up all around us in one of the Frankfurt’s downtown squares. Amidst all of the modern facades of steel and glass, the market stood on its own, a colorful mosaic of family-owned booths, where vendors peddled everything from fresh fruit and vegetables to honey-based commodities.
In the middle of it all were the vendors selling the stuff we had been looking for all along: bratwurst sandwiches. There were plenty of other things to choose from, but they would have to wait. The lines weren’t long at all, and soon we were taking our seats under a canvas awning, munching on bratwurst and sipping on hot apple-wine, a drink Germans love to have in the winter for obvious reasons.
That meal in the market was not my worst meal in Frankfurt.
Oftentimes on this trip, I found myself taking time off from walking just so I could sit and watch people go about their daily lives. People-watching, many call it. I took some time right then and there, while finishing my sandwich, to do that. I didn’t ponder too much – just acknowledged things that I felt were interesting. There goes a lady with purple dreadlocks and platform shoes. There goes a guy with a Siberian husky. Wow, a homeless lady showing rats to random passerby. Oh, and look, one of the vendors looks like Alan Rickman. You don’t see that every day.
Anyway, I loved this final leg of the trip. After a long week of shopping (but really only buying a scarf, some candy, a few key-chains, and a pair of sunglasses) and cultural events, I was ready for some modern creature comforts.
Time for confession: I gave in and got McDonald’s while I was in Frankfurt. Actually, it happened in Paris, too. It’s just that McDonald’s was the cheapest place to get a hot meal in those two places (Zurich was another story – 11.50 CHF, or about 12 USD for a Big Mac).
Despite the uncanny global consistency of their burgers, none of the 4 times I had McDonald’s were my worst meal in Frankfurt.
When Ryan, Laiken, Alex, and I arrived in Frankfurt, we had brought with us, from Switzerland, a bottle of Smirnoff and a couple of 2-liters of Coke. We had thought about cracking them open on the train, but we chickened out. Instead, we left them in our room in the Colour Hotel, where we were staying. That first night, after a day of relatively light shopping (Ryan and Laiken had spent most of their shopping money in Paris, including some on extra luggage to carry their spoils), we came home to rest and relax.
I may as well have been named Icharus, because I flew too close to the sun that night. My tolerance for alcohol is ‘pretty high’, and with most drinks, I shy away from the prospect of having too many drinks simply because the drinks themselves taste awful (i.e. almost every kind of beer). Wine is okay, but unless I have a good vintage, it’s not something I want to have more than a few glasses of. Vodka, as I have now found out, doesn’t seem to have the same burning sensation as wine or the same bitterness as beer. It’s dangerously smooth liquor, and even more so if you get strawberry vodka. Thankfully, I wasn’t drinking alone that first night in Frankfurt, and I wasn’t going traveling beyond the confines of our quaint penthouse hotel room.
To keep a long story short, I jumped headfirst into the festivities. We talked about our trip, about our social lives, and about where we wanted to go in life, among other things. Then, when most of the vodka was gone, we took a few steps down the block to a drug store and bought another bottle. My famous quote of the evening occurred when I declared loudly that we had arrived in the most amazing city in Europe: “Zurich!”… No, Heath, we’re in Frankfurt. Oh, right.
Anyway, I did black out after we came back, but I never threw up. All in all, though, it was the worst ‘meal’ of the trip, because I don’t really want to ever have vodka again. Alcohol generally isn’t going to make my life more exciting - all it is going to do is skew the perception of the normal life I lead and distract me from making my ordinary sober life into one that is extraordinary.
When the trip came to an end, I was exhausted. I had spent half of my funds that were set aside for traveling. I was and still am desperate for more, and I would do just that for the following weekend in the city I have anticipated going to more than almost any other: Florence!
Stay tuned for my update on my recent weekend in Florence! Renaissance conspiracies abound!
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