I’m back with more thoughts on Paris, enjoy:
Frenchmen, and Parisians especially, have a reputation for being snooty and arrogant, especially towards Americans. However, in our three days there, we only encountered one person who treated us disrespectfully (a waiter at a not-so-great restaurant). In fact, everyone was else was more than helpful and tried to speak English to us as much as they could. If a Frenchman came to America speaking little to no English, he or she would be met with far, far more rudeness than we encountered.
Perhaps they were so nice to us because they felt badly about how much money we had to spend in their city. Right now, the exchange rate is 1.55 dollars to a euro, which is the highest it’s ever been. That said, Paris is far and away more expensive than Dublin, which is known for being expensive itself. A bottle of Coke at dinner costs upwards of four euro and a pint of beer costs at least six. Bread, wine and cheese (all of which were great of course) are cheaper than other places though.
Oh, one thing I didn’t like was the Mona Lisa. I’m not an art person to begin with, but I do tend to like some things that depict everyday life as it was back when the paintings were done (i.e. not Biblical scenes, abstract stuff or portraits). Even compared to other portraits in the Louvre, the Mona Lisa was small, bland, and completely and utterly unremarkable. I firmly believe that much like Paris Hilton, the painting is famous for being famous. Enigmatic smile, schmnegmatic schmile.
Speaking of Paris Hilton, we were walking back from the train station after visiting Versailles (amazing, of course) and we came upon the Hilton. It took me a few seconds for the wheels to start churning, but once they did, I knew I had to go “inside Paris Hilton” and take a picture. Turns out it’s quite nice in there, with a lovely lobby and some nice TVs. Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.
Back tomorrow with a Berlin recap.