Paris, day 4

December 21, 2007. Our last day in Paris. We got off to a slow start this morning. Emmaline and I were both a bit impatient with everyone: we’d planned to be out of the hostel by nine-thirty, but we were only sitting down to breakfast at nine o’clock. The eating area was so crowded that we had to split up between tables and share seats. There was a great scramble after breakfast to get all the luggage packed, the rooms cleared out, and everything taken down to the luggage holding area, which turned out to be a dank, clammy, catacomb-like basement under the hostel. An arched ceiling barely high enough to stand up under, and pipes gurgling against the stone walls. We left our luggage there, though, and set out for our last day’s worth of adventures.

While we waited on the first platform for our train, we stood in a circle and held our prayer time. This morning we went to the Eiffel Tower first. The line for the lift wasn’t too long—it didn’t have any curves in it when we arrived. The tower reared over us, sturdy on its four low arches, the sun glancing through the metal network of its body. Pigeons stalked around our feet, clattering their wings, their feathers iridescent in the sunshine. Emmaline ran up and down the queue impatiently (I joked to Charlotte that Emmaline is only our leader because she can’t stand to be still for too long). We finally decided to get out of the queue for the lift and take the stairs up as far as we could. So we bought tickets at the other pier and set out up the stairs. It was a stiffer climb than any of us expected, I think. Heather, Michaela, and Catherine struggled particularly. The metal stairs clanked under our feet. Up and up, flight after flight, the ground gradually dropping away below us. On the first platform, we found surprisingly that the viewing walkway around the edge of the platform was covered in snow—why, I don’t know, though Emmaline surmised it was to keep the walkway from being slippery (if so, it defeated its own purpose!). We climbed on up to the second platform by the stairs, and from the second platform had to take the lift to the very top. The view from the top of the tower was quite impressive. As we stepped out of the little room onto the viewing walkway, a gust of wind whipped into our hair. Walking around the platform, we could see down onto the great city, Paris, lying rosy like a living being below us. A brown rime of smog hung between the pink haze of the city and the blue sky. Looking down we could see all the places we’d visited: the Musee d’Orsay, the Louvre, Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur, the Arc de Triomphe, the Seine laced with bridges. It was wonderful to be able to spot these famous places and recognize them among the crust of other buildings—the clutter of apartments, flats, restaurants, businesses, shops, veined through with streets like hieroglyphs on a tablet. We found someone to take a group picture and then went down to the second platform.

We ate our lunch on the first platform at a little round table, sharing out the remains of our food: bits of baguette, a lump of rubbery cheese, big soft grapes, Cadbury bars, etc. The familiar taste of bread and cheese, eaten shivering in the cold…. When we’d finished eating, it was back down the flights and flights of stairs again, onto solid ground. I was thankful to be on solid ground. The line for the tower stretched away in a snakey curve. We wandered past the line, across the street, down to the Seine, where we found, tucked away behind the walled bank of the river, a little Christmas market. Bright red carpet spread on the ground between the little wooden shacks, the sellers just opening their shutters to display their wares. We stopped at a stall where a man was selling scarves, and several of the girls bought some. Light clouds over the sky today; the cold was not as harsh. After awhile, we wandered up to street level again, where there was a carousel and a crepe stand. Sarah, Michaela, Charlotte, Emmaline, Heather, and Catherine all rode the carousel, but I stood and watched and took pictures—they pulled faces at me as their colorful plastic horses flashed past.

We wandered on then—over the bridge of the Seine, and up the Seine, towards the Louvre, to visit a café that Catherine Donnelly had recommended. It was good to walk outside in the open air for awhile, to stretch one’s legs. We walked past endless monuments, the Eiffel Tower looming behind us to the right across the river, and war memorials, museums, statues, etc. sprinkled to our left along the street. We walked on the sidewalk under the trees that skirt the Seine. We walked past houseboats moored at the bank, bobbing up and down, their decks covered with potted plants and lawn furniture. Finally we arrived back at the far end of the Champs Elysees. We crossed the square where the ferris wheel is, and ended up in a fancy shmancy shopping district. Five-star hotels, first-class restaurants, high-end namebrands. Sarah and Charlotte and Michaela walked at the back, oohing and aahing over the famous designer clothing shops. Emmaline and I walked in the front, shaking our heads and laughing at them. The streets were crowded with businessmen and Christmas shoppers. Many of the shops were decorated with lights and evergreen. Finally we found the café, Angelina’s, facing the main street running parallel to the Seine, the Rue de Rivoli. Immediately all of us felt very out-of-place. Like the other shops along the street, Angelina’s had its name and insignia in mosaic on the sidewalk, and on a plaque by the door. Inside, we were surrounded by gilded archways, chandeliers, plush carpets, mirrors. A waiter took us upstairs to a corner table, where we sat a bit stiffly, both from weariness and a feeling of unbelonging. Catherine wasn’t feeling well due to a sore tooth. A kind waitress bustled up to us, laughed at our awkwardness at the language, and took our order. She soon returned with it, in white pitchers: famous Angelina’s black hot chocolate for all of us, except Catherine, who’d ordered white, and Sarah, who’d ordered ice cream instead. We sipped the hot chocolate slowly out of white cups. It was as thick as chocolate sauce, and as rich—bitter, unless swirled with cream, and incredibly strong. I could only drink a few sips at a time. It would’ve been more pleasant savored over an hour’s quite conversation, perhaps, but it was still richly delicious. We sat around talking and resting, looking at the splendor around us—the sunbursts and paintings on the walls; the chandeliers; the gilt frames of the mirrors.

Finally we paid and walked to the nearest subway station, through all the fanciness. We took the metro to the Opera Garnier. The Opera Garnier was just as spectacular as we’d expected, though sadly the main part of the Opera was closed off due to renovations. It was this opera house on which The Phantom of the Opera was based, and looking at it, I was swept up for a little while. The façade was gilt, of course, with the figures of Choreography and Lyric seated on either side, resplendent. Inside, along the first entry area, were lifelike statues of famous composers—Handel, Rameau, etc. Standing at the arches of the first entry area, we could look at the famous staircase—sparkling with light, gilding, and statues. Bronze women posed at either side of the head of the stair, balancing chandeliers on their heads and arms, which fountained over them with beads of crystal. Faces stared and swirled from every inch of balustrade. Over our heads, stone masks glared down at the first entry area, their eye sockets eerily black as the light shone starkly up at them.

As we left the Opera Garnier, it was beginning to get dark. Emmaline navigated us through the metro to San Sulfice, where we found, at last, a proper Christmas market, nestled under the shoulder of a church. The trees of the market sparkled with little lights. There were rows and rows of stalls, with carpet running between. We split up to look around. A much more relaxed atmosphere than in Belfast. The sellers would actually talk to you, being friendly. There weren’t many other people around, and Christmas music was playing from one of the stalls, drifting on the night air. Heather, Catherine, and I looked at jewelry and candies. We looked at stalls of French confectionery, polished stone jewelry, pashminas, Asian flower art, Canadian beers, all sorts of odd little random things. When we met up again, Charlotte requested that we go to the train station with the bookstore so that she could buy some French comic books for her brother. So we went back to Gare Montparnesse. While Charlotte and Emmaline looked in the bookstore, the rest of us browsed in the small Christmas market behind the train station—much more grubby than San Sulfice, and not nearly as pleasant—more like a cheap wholesale tourist stop than a Christmas market. Heather found ice skaters performing, though, and that kept her happy until the rest of us were ready to go.

Then came the final piece of excitement of our trip: the race to the airport. Sarah and Emmaline wanted to go to the grocery store to buy French foods, so while they did that, the rest of us went to the hostel and took out our luggage. We managed to haul all our luggage, plus Sarah’s and Emmaline’s, to the train stop, but Sarah and Emmaline were late. Michaela and I, both on edge, started to carry things down past the ticket barriers (our tickets always malfunctioned; mine was the last to do so, but thankfully Michaela knew enough French to get it fixed before Emmaline showed up). When Emmaline and Sarah came, we raced to the train, and from that train to the next, to the next…. Tense, Charlotte panicked, Emmaline and I trying to reassure everyone, though, as I watched the hands on my watch slide past, I felt my heart sinking. At last, sweating and breathless, we caught the final train to the airport. Charlotte was dizzy, nearly fainting from hunger, so Emmaline pulled out the bread, cheese, and fruit she’d providentially bought at the grocery store, and we made a small meal, sitting on the train—the familiar taste of bread and that soft spreading cheese for the last time. Sitting there watching the city slide by, from the fancy buildings of inner Paris to the office buildings to the grimy slums and convenience stores on the outskirts, I shook my head at Emmaline.

When the train let us off at the airport, we ran from the train station to the terminal, and arrived with just seven minutes to spare at the checkout. But after we checked in, we found, to our complete dismay, that we had a twenty-minute wait to get through border security! We all managed to get through, though, and ran up to the clerk at the gate—only to be told coldly, in broken English, “You wait!” Our plane was half-an-hour late. So we sat in the airport, recovering our breath, laughing shakily in relief, and resting, until finally it was our turn to hand in our boarding passes and take the bus out onto the tarmac. We climbed the stairs onto the plane, and were again surrounded by the familiar sound of Northern Irish voices as the stewardesses gave us our safety instructions. And then the plane lifted off…

I spent the flight with my head in my arms, reliving the past four days, and dozing. When we touched down in Belfast again, I was struck with a sudden and very bad case of motion sickness. The airport seemed oddly familiar, memories of it from that dazed September day. I went through the non-EU customs alone, and met the other girls on the other side. We collected our bags, then went out to meet parents. One by one we said our good-byes. Mr. Wilson, Sarah’s father, was there to pick Emmaline, Sarah, Catherine, and me up from the airport. All of us dozed on the hour-long drive back to Coleraine. He dropped Catherine off at her house, then Emmaline and me off at the dark farm. Stepping into the kitchen, I found myself suddenly surrounded by more familiarity, by warmth—a big Christmas tree in the corner by the bay windows; cards hanging on the cabinets; lights strung in the windows; little decorations sprinkled on the shelves. Emmaline and I went up to her room and went to bed, but of course neither one of us could fall asleep immediately. We lay away for at least half-an-hour talking, reliving the trip, all its silliness and unpleasantness and strangeness. We laughed about bread and cheese, about the cold, about all the stairs we’d climbed, about the metro, about difficulties speaking French. At last we dropped off to sleep. I could still hear, in my mind, the noises of the city—the emergency sirens, the noise of cars, the patter of French.