Les Quatre Hommes À Paris

It all began as I was shooting through the Chunnel that connects England and France beneath the English Channel, aboard the EuroStar with The Kinks blasting through my iPod. I can't explain what came over me, or what inspired my actions, but somewhere in Normandy I was overcome with a rush of excitement. I consider myself an experienced, though not professional, traveler who has seen much of Western Europe, including France, this semester as well as in the past. But this particular trip to Paris was conducted with a heightened sense of excitement that surpassed any other feeling before, even my first trip this semester to Ireland or my initial flight to the UK. I had been warmed up with my French the previous weekend in Nice, and what was to be a long weekend in Paris (Thursday-Sunday) would be a welcomed respite from the deluge of work I have been stuck in the middle of and continue to struggle with even now.
The only way I can sum up the trip was exceptional. It was hardly perfect, namely in the sense that my group of four guys stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the...er... passionate couples that populated every public and private place in the city. But we accomplished all that we set out to do and have some memories to last a lifetime of a truly remarkable place. You won't ever find me knocking the aesthetic value of Paris. There is just so much to do!
We stayed in the Bastille section of the city and navigated everywhere from Montmarte to the Statue of Liberty, even traversing from Notre Dame to the Champs-Élysées on foot (no easy task, even for spry lads like ourselves). The night life was exciting and aside from parting with too much money for my own liking, usually brushed off by the devil in my shoulder asking "how many more times will you be in Paris," usually entailed running into an American or two. Perhaps the best part of the trip though was Versailles, which even as my second trip there still awed me. All the wealth amassed there, indeed enough to bankrupt France and send it into a series of bloody revolutions, was incredible. And it wouldn't be France without a protest; we witnessed what appeared to be a children's rally on our way out of the Versailles train station... just as interesting as the chanting, hooting, and hollering was the general ambivalence by the local French to the uproar.
From the social science point of view, my most experience occurred on the way back on the EuroStar train. Some woman and her kid were sitting in my seat and refusing to leave, insisting that the train manager told them they could sit wherever they want. Of course this was false, but the person who was supposed to sit adjacent to my seat, Fayed, and I were upgraded to first class. During the travail, Fayed and I discussed what brought us to this particular place and his story I found fascinating. He is a Parisian hired by and English bank to work in London and has all of his EuroStar expenditures paid for by his employer, allowing him to commute back and forth between the cities to see his family and girlfriend. He had been to America once for a similar stay to my European semester, his being in Michigan. He was extremely interested in my thoughts on France and Europe in general and gave me some suggestions on where to check out for night life in London.
But after my return its been back to the grindstone. Work, work, work before our program gets uprooted next week to relocate to Greece. I'm looking forward to Greece, but I wish I had more time in London, and without all the work that's consumed me recently. OK, enough procrastinating, back to discussing the foreign policy merits of Lords Palmerston and Aberdeen. Until next time.