Everybody Loves Paris

Paris from the Arc de Triomphe

I firmly believe that Paris lives up to the hype. Everybody loves it for a reason. When I emerged from the Porte de Clichy metro station nine days ago, I couldn’t stop this big smile from spreading over my face. I texted one of my friends in Paris: Aw Ayman, Paris is so beautiful. I forgot how pretty it is.

He responded with: I know, right? Then he said: wait, I thought you were getting here tomorrow?  Bro.

Paris is beautiful. The buildings are big and grand, the boulevards are wide and cobblestoned and lined with exceedingly narrow sidewalks that make passing a slow person really hard. Bridges criss-cross the Seine, each one with its own character. Walking across the Pont Alexandre III makes you feel like you’re a Russian oligarch (in a good way) and walking across the Bir-Hakeim makes you feel like a character in an indie film. There are stately public parks with manicured grass, gravel paths, and gates that lock at 5:30pm.

The Pont Alexandre III

I saw a teenage boy tap-dancing in a square in Montmartre as little kids (and I) tossed coins into his hat. People carry baguettes in paper bags and read paperbacks on the Mètro, even if they’re only going two stops. (I’m convinced they only do this to look intellectual; it doesn’t make sense to go through the effort of pulling out your book to read for two minutes while you’re also trying not to fall over.) My friend Renata and I saw a group of couples dancing in the street to music played by a trio of old jazz musicians.

Obviously Paris is not perfect. People puff on cigarettes and blow the smoke in your face, despite the big white stickers on all the cigarette packs that say FUMER TUE (smoking kills). Certain metro stations smell like shit or like fish, and pickpockets are so common on the M1 line that there are automated announcements you hear while on the train, in both French and English: “Keep an eye on your personal belongings. There are pickpockets on this train.” There’s construction everywhere to get ready for the Olympics this summer, and during rush hour you can barely squeeze your way through the busier Mètro stations like Châtelet and Saint-Lazare.

stalls selling books on the Left Bank of the Seine

And then there are the darker things about Paris: there is a large homeless population, and I saw a few people lying on top of the grates that have hot air flowing through them, just to try and keep warm. Two nights after Ayman and I walked across the Bir-Hakeim at 11pm, another 23-year-old was killed walking across Bir-Hakeim at 11pm.

But anywhere there are people, there’s going to be a little trouble and chaos. And Paris is the perfect mix of humanity—the street performers, the little boulangeries, the young people laughing on their way to parties—and otherworldliness—the art in the museums, the golden domes, the marble monuments.

The best thing to do in Paris is just to walk. Grab a croissant for €1.20, or a pain au chocolate for twenty cents more, hop on the Mètro to an interesting neighborhood if you’re not staying in one, and just spend a few hours wandering. If you get tired, sit down for some coffee or on a park bench and people watch.

The Jardin du Luxembourg

The inner city is organized into eighteen arrondissements that spiral outwards from the Île de la Cité, the island in the Seine that’s the center of the city and the home of the still-under-construction Notre Dame. The first arrondissement is where you’ll find the Louvre, the Tuileries gardens, and the Grand Palais. Just east of the first is Le Marais, in the third and fourth arrondissements, which Renata described as “the chicest neighborhood in Paris." I ended up spending a lot of time in the Marais because it’s got nice coffee shops and bakeries and a free museum on the history of Paris called the Musée Carnavalet.

If you know a little French, you should look at the street signs while you’re walking around, because some of them are…odd. There’s a tiny street in the Marais—only a block long, and a short block at that—called Rue des Mauvais Garçons (Street of the Bad Boys). There’s a street just across the Seine called Rue du Chat Qui Pêche (Street of the Cat Who Fishes). The street signs will also tell you which arrondissement you’re currently in.

The mythical cat who fishes lives in the fifth arrondissement, called the Latin Quarter because it’s the home to the Sorbonne, and the language of university study used to be Latin. The Latin Quarter feels old to me—the streets are narrower and intersect at absurd angles, and the churches are blackened with soot and grime—but I think your IQ automatically bumps up a few points while you’re exploring it.

West of the Latin Quarter is the St. Germain neighborhood in the sixth, which feels like a place where students go when they’re tired of being intellectual and just want a sandwich or a crepe and some alcohol. Crepes are cheaper than sandwiches and there are little stands all over the place where you can buy them. They’re usually sold alongside some kebabs or “tacos” which aren’t tacos, they’re grilled burritos.

the Place de Bastille

I went to a bar called “Tennessee” in St. Germain, with a friend from UNC and some of his Paris friends. There was an American flag hanging on the wall and so many people packed inside that if you ignored the soccer on the TV and all the French, you could have been in Goodfellows on Franklin Street. The British guy in our group got hit on instantly and aggressively by two different guys, but Ayman and I and our Russian friend made it to a corner booth unbothered. Draft beer tastes just as good in Paris as it does in Chapel Hill.

West of St. Germain is the seventh, where a bunch of the big stuff is, like the Eiffel Tower and Napoleon’s tomb at Invalides. The Eiffel Tower does light up every night, and on the hour mark it glitters with strobe lights for five minutes before resuming a steady glow. The base of the tower is swarming with tourists, rodents, and those guys who are trying to sell cheap Eiffel Tower souvenirs and knock-off champagne for astronomical prices. When I was with Ayman, he’d just say “non, merci, c’est gentil” and the men would leave us alone because Ayman’s French is so good that he passes for a local (which he basically is). When I was alone I’d just give them a death glare and say nothing, which is another way to pass for a local (which I am not).

Eiffel Tower from the Bir-Hakeim Bridge

Just across the Seine is the eighth and the Champs-Elysée, the name of the neighborhood and of the famous shopping street that stretches from the Place de Concord in the first arrondissement to the Arc de Triomphe. Walking along the Champs-Elysée, you’re reminded that Paris is the capital of luxury for the entire world and French culture is the ultimate in aspirational schemata. The well-heeled from London and Rome, New York and L.A. come to Paris, sure, but so do the elite from Tehran, Mumbai, Shanghai, and Moscow. Paris welcomes them—and their money—with open arms. For example, the signs in Charles de Gaulle are all in French, English, and Mandarin because there’s been such an influx of Chinese tourists in the past several years.

Like in Istanbul, you can hear every language walking the streets of Paris, but unlike in Istanbul, everybody is trying their absolute hardest to be French. Everybody wears berets, eats croissants and macarons, drinks champagne and red Bordeaux blends, and says “merci, madame, bonne journée.” This is because the French—I don’t know how—have pulled off the ultimate PR coup: equating French culture with sophistication, glamour, romance, and luxury. I think this is why so many people, especially Americans, are disappointed when they finally come to Paris, because they’re surprised to see than even in France there’s trash on the street and guys who pee in alleys.

Sunset in Montmartre

I’ll mention one more neighborhood that really exists at that intersection of French glamour and urban...grossness: Montmartre, in the eighteenth arrondissement. You might know Montmartre for its bohemian cafés and street artists or as the site of the Sacré Coeur and its famous hilltop view of Paris. Montmartre is also the place you’re most likely to get pickpocketed or catcalled or to witness a drug deal going down by the Anvers Mètro stop. The vibe is very "starving artists who don't believe in monogamy or capitalism." It's polarizing. Ayman loves it. “This is real Paris,” he told me and his friend Juan Pablo. Over Sichuan noodles and beer few nights earlier, Renata had made a face at the mention of Montmartre. “Don’t go there at night,” she’s warned me.

I liked it when I walked around by myself and with Ayman and Juan Pablo. The artists in the Place du Tertre were talented and Sacré Cœur was beautiful.

I'll be back to Paris soon, hopefully in March, because I can’t get enough of it.