Archive Paris | Dima’s Corner

Apr 22 2009

12 Days in Europe - Paris

I met up with Christopher at Charles de Gaulle and we took a train to get into the city. He is from Iowa and is spending a year studying in France so he took a day off and came to Paris to hang out with me. Our first stop was the famous Notre Dame de Paris. We took some pictures but could not get inside beacuse of my backpack. I also learned quickly that when someone asks you if you speak English, it is a good idea to pretend you do not. Otherwise they show you something scribbled in English basically begging for money. I thought it was kind of weird. At least learn a sentence, do not write it out for me…

Anyways, we walked along the Seine towards the Louvre. We took some pictures with the famous Pyramide de Louvre at the entrance but did not go inside since I only had a day to spend in Paris. From the Louvre, we walked through Jardin des Tuileries and had a quick lunch there. We kept on walking towards the Arc de Triomphe along the Avenue des Champs Elysees where I took the most expensive dump in my life (I think it was two and a half euros…) and also bought a SIM card for my phone at a Virgin store. The arc was ok, but nothing too special, there is a 8 euro charge to get on top so we decided to skip that since we were going to the Eiffel Tower next.

We took a quick ride on the metro and got in line to go up the Eiffel Tower. After waiting in line for half an hour they almost kicked me out since my backpack was pretty large but then let me through anyways. While we were waiting in line, we were watching cops on bikes trying to catch the African kids bugging all the tourists with cheap souveniers. Another half hour later we got on the elevator and went up all the way to the top of the tower. The view was very nice. I liked the old streets and the buildings, all of the same height everywhere with a few skyscrapers in the distance. We went around and took some pictures, then did another round at a lower floor and got back down. We rested for a little bit at Parc du Champs de Mars.

After that we decided to go walk around the streets of Paris, so we crossed Seine and walked toward the Maison de Balzac on Rue Raynouard. It was already closed for the day so we just kept on walking. It was interesting to see chestnut trees blossoming everywhere, it reminded me of Kiev in May time frame… We walked past Maison de Radio France and finally found a metro station. Christopher had to go to catch his train and I jumped on the metro to go meet up with Jonathan.

Jonathan messaged me on couchsurfing when I posted to the pilots group asking if anyone wanted to go to fly with me while I was in Europe. He offered to take me up and so I went out to Cergy Pontoise just outside of Paris to meet up with him. We flew in a Dimond Star out of Aerodrome de Pontoise Cormeilles. As soon as we took off, he offered me to take control and so I did. D40 has a stick instead of a traditional yoke, but it did not take long to get used to it. The plane was very resposive and simply a joy to fly. Outside the window we watched Paris light up at night and the Eiffel Tower lit up in the distance. Simply amazing!

By the time we put the plane away and got out of there, it was almost midnight and since I was in the mood to get some real French food, Jonathan took me to a restaurant close by the Arc de Triomphe. The food was not anything special, the wine was pretty good, but neither justified the price tage - 150 euros for two is probably the most expensive dinner I have ever had. It was followed by a night drive tour of Paris, but I started passing out in the car so we went back to Jonathan’s for the night.