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| I didn't sketch that Eiffel tower |
Three years ago I went to Paris and I was practically underwhelmed. Pardon me, but who in the world didn't have high expectations when you were visiting one of the greatest cities?
To be fair, I chose the worst time possible. Paris in her early-May was always wet and gloomy. I was four days in Paris; And the only day that didn't rain, was the last day when I rushed to the airport to catch my morning flight. In the end, I refuse to believe the fact that Parisians have ever experienced a sunny day.
To make the timing worse, the other two days on my trip were labor-days holiday. Yes, the two days in the whole year when the shops, museums, or nearly everything were closed.
The streets were full of protesters and I got this nervous feeling that the demonstration would anytime turned violent. Oh yeah.. The other things that filled the streets? Homeless and garbage. Because you know, when the garbage collectors joined the demonstrations, no one else was picking up those big trash piles. I took one rather ironic photo of a tourists couple, who were coming out from Metro stations with its iconic Art Nouveau Metropolitain gate, looked disgusted by the stinking display of 2 meter-high pile of trash outside. The third person on the photo (probably a Parisian), just walked nonchalantly.
In addition to those unfortunate events, I had a few minor incidents here and there, showing how true the common (mis)conception could be: Parisians can be so blatantly rude to non-French-speaking. So yes, I didn't have a good time on my first visit to this majestic city. I also didn't have a good story to tell. It was all just a big "meh".
Anyway this time, I'm giving Paris a second chance. The weather would be so much better. I'm gonna travel in a big group, where one of us is a native Parisian. I'm also planning to meet some old friends. And I've been feeding myself with information about Paris' historical and architectural attractions. I'm excited. I feel that I'm ready to fall in love with Paris.
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| At least for now, the WeatherPro app is promising me some fine Paris sky. |
The only downside of the trip is that I will miss my son's half-year birthday. I'm sure I'm gonna miss the little guy so bad.
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