It's very, very easy to get lost in a city whose streetplan is still (somewhat) based on its medieval antecedents. We Americans are spoiled by our snap-on* one-size-fits-all cardinal-directions grid patterns. All it takes are some funny streets that meet at odd angles and we're thoroughly perdu. It reminds me of my year in Norwich: I spent the first month or so completely lost, wandering around until I figured out where I was. Today I left the UC Paris center after our grad meet-n'-greet and promptly wandered along about three more kilometers of streets than I had meant to.This leads to the three things I wanted to note about Paris so far:
- It's fun to get lost here because there are just ridiculous numbers of famous places that you accidentally bump into. "Hmm...I'm lost. Hey! It's Les Halles! And the Jewish Quarter! And by golly, there's the Centre Pompidou! And darn if that isn't the Hotel de Ville!" Etc.
- Wondered where the rollerblade factories of the world shifted their output after the fruit-boot craze of the 90s finally died for good in the US? They're all right here. Probably 60% of Parisians ride scooters, and the rest are on rollerblades. It's extremely weird, especially when you come across an otherwise tough/cool-looking dude who just happens to be nonchalantly cruising along on his rollerblades.
- On an unrelated note, after all of my worrying about the visa process and getting here, the French customs official could not have given less of a shit about me. I'm not even sure he actually looked at my visa.
* That's "snap," not "strap," you perv.
6 comments:
yeah... French customs officials pretty much don't care. In fact, I didn't even go through customs at all, i was directed around them completely. *shakes head* Boggles the mind. again... trying not to be too jealous. ;)
*le sigh*
sounds wonderful
Yeah, I should have specified: I didn't have to go through customs. This disinterested dude in a plexiglas box half-heartedly looked at my passport and that was it.
C: it's weird but neat. For sure.
I have two levels of lost-getting. It's pretty rare for me to get to level two. My sis and I attempted to get lost in Venice, but never made it past level one.
Level One: you definitely don't recognize where you are, but know you could get back to a familiar place without a lot of heartbreak.
Level Two: No idea how the fuck you got here, nor how the fuck to get out.
Also, this reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend about the difference between east and west Portland. Specifically, southeast and southwest. Southeast is about as easy to navigate as it gets and southwest is just frustratingly, unnecessarily complex. It boggles the mind.
P-town: EastSIDE! RepreSENT!
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