I hate the inevitable exhaustion and pain and suffering that travel entails, my feet are aching and no amount of pressing or massaging does anything for it. My head is aching, in fact, my whole body aches from the exhaustion and I am so close to completely collapsing and falling asleep. Of course, this is where my blog comes into the picture and I am sitting here, in Paris, at 1:50am at night, having just come to our accommodation from an exhausting day trip, ready to sleep. In fact, I am going to stop this blog post right here and update it later. I will, won’t I?
I did, I have come back to edit this post today, it is 12 am and I am as exhausted as can be. But today’s experiences are for another blog post altogether. I need to finish this post first. But before that, I feel the need to share a beautiful picture of the Eiffel Tower. Well, it is by no means a great picture probably, but the beauty of the tower should hopefully make up for my non-existent photography skills. The tower is marvellous, it completely had me under its spell, I could not take my eyes off it, or off the view that it provided me. I got the opportunity to go to the summit and even though I froze because of the cold, fast wind that blew up there, and there were too many people and too little space, I still would consider it the highlight of my trip. After all, it is not very often that people get to visit the Eiffel Tower (except maybe if you lived in Paris, but then, why would you want to go there every day? The cost would be insane)
The day started when we left the house in the morning to drive to Paris. I had course registration that morning, but I could not do it. Instead, I had asked a senior to do it for me and he did it, even though I did not exactly get my first preference in one course. But that doesn’t matter because I got a place with another professor offering the same course, and well, my friends also moved here because of a multitude of reasons (one of them could have been yours truly), so I have my fingers crossed for a good semester. The course I am most excited for though is this course on Language politics and linguistic anthropology in South Asia, with a professor I adored last semester. Now I get to have another class with her, in a very small capacity (only 16 people in the course). She is brilliant and well, I cannot wait for the class. She is a visiting professor and her return this semester had been quite a question mark until recently, but I am glad (super happy) that she is back. This time, my week is slightly better distributed, with a little more breathing time than usual. All my courses are intensive though, more intensive than the last semester, so I only hope this semester goes well.
Back to the trip, we went to Paris and my uncle dropped us off at the Louvre Museum. And what a museum it was! Humongous, filled with artistic treasures from as early as 4000 BC, it was the one museum that I shall not forget for a very long time. Of course, the Mona Lisa is there but I actually did not spend much time near it, nor did I take any photos. It was quite weird for my parents who didn’t really see the point of the museum, “it’s all only pictures and statues,” they said. But I did not know how to explain it to them, in a way they could comprehend, that I found meaning and joy in looking at those pictures and sculptures. I tried though, I made sure to tell them stories from the Roman and Greek mythology that were being depicted in some sculptures, the Biblical stories (even though I myself know VERY LITTLE) that inspired some paintings, etc. I think, compared to the last time they had been here (alone, for an exam my mother had to give in France), this time they were able to better appreciate the artistic genius they were witnessing. And well, even if they don’t really get why I was so excited about the museum, at least they were able to enjoy parts of it because I was there.
Tired, after nearly 5.5 hours walking around the museum (my feet had died and been resurrected so many times, they deserved a few paintings of their own), we made our way to the metro station to get tickets to go to the Arc de Triomphe. It was a station called Charles de Gaulle (I simply don’t know how to pronounce these things) that we had to get down at, from the station near the museum (I forgot its name and don’t really want to google it at the middle of the night, I have another post to write). After a brief struggle trying to explain to the ticket guy what we wanted tickets for, we finally got our tickets (even the ones to get to our accommodation) and boarded the metro. For someone who had really seen quite a lot of the London Underground, this metro was way different. From the seats, to the setting, to the languages spoken, to the announcements (or their non-existence), everything was a brand new experience. I think I prefer the London Underground though. When we did get to the Arc de Triomphe, we did not climb up because the queue was too long and we also wanted to get to the Eiffel Tower. Moreover, there was a parade at the foot of the arch, so we turned tail (after a few photographs, of course) and made our way to the station to get to Bir Hakeim, the station for the Eiffel Tower.
There were some issues with the train tickets, I might have experienced a mild form of racism at the enquiry counter, and a few other things happened. But I don’t really see the point of letting those minor things get in the way of the ultimate beauty and brilliance of the tower and my experience of it. I got the opportunity to eat a pain au chocolat (it was super nice, fluffy and soft and flaky all together) and that was a good experience too (though I wish I could have had the opportunity and the culinary tolerance to try different other things from French cuisine). The line at the tower was too long though, my already dead legs put up a very brave fight until the very end, but they died as soon as I could get back to where we were staying. We went to the summit, taking two lifts to get there, but on the way down, we got down to the second floor and climbed down on foot. This was a very interesting experience and I am sure I would have enjoyed it better had my legs not been that close to giving way. In fact, the last few steps, I nearly collapsed because my legs did give way. When I finally got to the place we were staying (the train back to the accommodation place was beautiful!), I collapsed. That was the end and that’s when I started this post. Now I have another post to write for today, I shall be able to do that, won’t I?
And that’s my memory for the day.