Went to Paris with a stranger

Thoughts and ponderings in the City of Light

Last week I spent five days in Paris with my sister and a stranger. Rewind. About 6 months ago we had met a stranger, Matt, on the internet through the Yes Theory Youtube channel and Seek Discomfort Instagram. The three of us became internet pen-pals. He lives in England, so upon hearing of my trip to London, Matt and I decided to meet up and travel to Paris. About two weeks before the trip, we convinced my sister to join the fun (Although she didn’t need much convincing.) She and I were on different flights to London but got there within 10 minutes of each other. Then Matt met up with us in London and the first time we met in person, we went and got tattoos that say “seek discomfort.” The next day the three of us, once strangers now friends, flew to Paris. 

This is a lengthy piece, so 1) thank you for reading 2) I recommend playing this song in the background as you sit back to read.

There’s something about Paris I can’t seem to put my finger on.

It seems more antique, delicate, and fashionable than New York. It seems grander, lighter, and more personal than London. People seem to float rather than walk and most of them seem rather smiling and happy at the simple act of just walking down the Latin Quarter to get a café.

In London, I suspected hearts must be beating under those thick classic black coats. But in Paris, hearts seemed to beat a lot more lively and worn on the sleeves of those colorful coats and thoughtful outfits.

Now I know what it feels like to sit in a Parisian coffee shop munching on a perfectly buttery croissant, sipping on a cappuccino alone with my pondering of the world and watching streets come to life. Perhaps it’s more than watching. It’s participating. It’s being. Being a part of the world and the city buzz.

Paris, a walkable contemplation

Paris is a very pedestrian city where a short commuting walk becomes a scenic experience. One moment you’ll find yourself traversing in silence through a narrow and tight cobbled street lined with crooked buildings and ornate iron balconies like Rue des Tournelles. The next, you pop out right onto a wide Rue de Rivoli, a grand boulevard filled with shops, cars, bikes, motorcycles, buses, the tram, a metro station, and a plaza. 

The wide-mouth boulevards of Paris were a surprise to me, having mostly assumed Paris was a series of tiny streets straight from Paris Las Vegas or Epcot. Big cars and trucks seemed to have a much easier time here than in London where almost all streets are small. 

Turns out that Paris’s boulevards weren’t so much designed for easier passage of motor vehicles but rather to prevent mob control following the French Revolution in 1790 and massive protests in the 1830s and 40s. Expansive roads would make it more difficult for mobs to create barricades and paralyze the city. From 1853 to 1870 Georges-Eugène Haussmann led the expansion of Parisian roads, crumpling narrow roads and replacing them with sweeping boulevards.

Even Mark Twain had something to say for this, 

“He is annihilating the crooked streets and building in their stead noble boulevards as straight as an arrow – avenues which a cannonball could traverse from end to end without meeting an obstruction more irresistible than the flesh and bones of men – boulevards whose stately edifices will never afford refuges and plotting places for starving, discontented revolution breeders. The mobs used to riot there, but they must seek another rallying point in the future. And this ingenious Napoleon paves the streets of his great cities with a smooth, compact composition of asphaltum and sand. No more barricades of flagstones – no more assaulting his majesty’s troops with cobbles.”

While popular whispers of air circulation and desire to be grander than London were reasons to create the boulevards, the truth was crowd control and mob prevention to protect the ruling Napoleon III from any insurrections. 

Ironic about the protests because while we were visiting Paris, we happened upon a massive protest on the Right Bank of the Seine. We had been peacefully strolling on the Left Bank when suddenly the silence turns into sirens and we start seeing flames and flares on the other side with a mob tearing its way through the Quai du Louvre. A quick Twitter check tells us it’s a protest about the capsizing of a refugee watercraft attempting to cross the English Channel from France and the French police doing nothing to save the 27 people on board. We didn’t know what type of protest this would turn into, so for our safety, we began running in the other direction seeking refuge in the labyrinth of St-Germain.

The place that got stuffed down our throats by our history teacher

“Let them eat cake!!" The echo of those words yelled by Coach Whit, our high school European history teacher still rings in my ears. Being in Paris gives life to the history textbook names of Descartes, Pascal, Joan of Arc, Voltaire, Louis XIV, Marie Antoinette, Pasteur, Marie Currie, Napoleon, and Victor Hugo. Brings to life the characters of Jefferson and LaFayette so pivotal in our American Revolution. The fall of the Bastille, the Treaty of Paris, the Treaty of Versailles, and most recently the Paris Agreement. 

Paris is a cradle of politics, revolution, art, science, and enlightenment. A bedrock of human history. A place of peace, war, and love. 

So many great minds came here. Lived here. Thought here. Invented here. Created here. It’s modern and old. Advanced and outdated. Slow and fast. Happy and melancholy. Bright and gloomy. War yet love. Dark yet light. 

Solitary day in Paris

I’m still sitting at the cafe by the window drinking a frothy cappuccino and munching on a vegan pain au chocolat which was flaking all over my scarf. Matt and Luisa had already left the city so I was just sitting there by myself philosophizing. Someone’s cat had just made itself comfortable on my lap (then perched on my duffel bag.)

Having no itinerary to follow today, no friends to accompany me, and no internet on my phone, I entertained myself by hanging out at a cafe with my own thoughts and just soaking in the city. Is that what it was like when people had the attention span to think? Back when letters took months and news came through newspapers and was still relevant by the time it got written, printed, and distributed? No wonder the world’s best thinkers lived in that time and many roamed the streets of Paris just sitting thinking at a cafe. 

To me traveling isn’t just for pleasure, it’s the reinvention of yourself and turning yourself into a temporary local by immersing yourself in a new place. It clears the mind and creates space for imagination and thinking. 

I love seeing how other people live and how other cities function. The brasserie owners across the street getting their sidewalk patios ready, the baristas slinging shots next door. Cyclist commuters whizzing by. University students huddled in a corner puffing cigarettes in a cloud of smoke. Pastries lining windows and the aroma floating into the street.

Long walks through the city make for quiet contemplation. Seeing Paris, an old city, come to terms with the new. But the new is still war and peace and love and pandemics. 

It was interesting traveling there during COVID-19 too. If any city has gone through its share of pestilence it's Paris. The Antonine Plague, Bubonic Plague, Cholera, Small Pox, Spanish Flu, SARS, now COVID. The city is no stranger to life, death, and reinvention. 

The City of Light

The City of Light was also made for walking in the night. Paris was the first city on the continent to get gas lighting in the streets. This added hours to people’s day and thus was a reason so much of the Enlightenment began to unfold. 

You can still admire the City of Light by night as you stroll across its many bridges, footsteps in a rhythm, and inky black waters below, you’ll see the lights twinkling from the buildings and bridges in the distance. Their brilliance reflected on the water is as romantic as the Eiffel Tower twinkling at the top of the hour each night. 

Dark yet full of light. Dark from war, epidemics, monarchies, dictatorships, and revolution. Light from peace treaties, art, and enlightenment.

One day in Paris we popped into the old famous Shakespeare and Co. bookstore and I picked up a copy of Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises which has a scene of ex-pats living in Paris chatting away in a cafe. I was reading it as I sat in a cafe, when a line from Count Mippipopolous stood out. “Traveling makes you live,” he said. “Makes you enjoy life. Makes you love all.”

La fin. The end.

If you reached this end, thanks for reading. I hope that if you, like me, didn’t have Paris on your travel list, that you’ll add it and visit some day. Maybe travel there with a stranger too. They might end up becoming one of your closest friends and Paris become one of your favorite cities. Au revoir.