A Scenic View of a Life Left Behind

The City of Lights has been but a mystical dream built by moving pictures of Le Tour de France bouncing down the storied cobblestones of les Champs and around le Arc de Triomphe during the last stage of the great race. The historical bounty of the city filled my brain with visions of crimson streets, Robespierre manning the guillotine and mighty, mini Napoleon achieving the greatest highs of French military might.

But when booking for the trip began, my romanticized view of the city did not develop a desire to visit it. The tales of Parisian pride, to put it delicately, had put me off to ever visiting the great city. I suppose I feared a renewed Reign of Terror, where prejudiced Parisians would sniff out my non-oppressive scent and send me to the blade. While its beauty was unsurpassed, the pictures I had seen would suffice, because I just couldn’t shake El’Equipe’s headlines that have routinely beaten down the American who had the audacity to repeatedly win their bike race, and in the process, take a shot at the rest of us.

However, while my fears were not exactly assuaged by those who have visited here before, they assured me the sights and views I would enjoy would outweigh the snooty looks and comments surely uttered but not understood by my uncultured ears. So, with London in our rearviews and the tourist signs attached to our backs with all of our belongings for the next few weeks, Maggie and I arrived in Paris this morning and set off on the Metro for our Hotel.

Crammed in with overstuffed bags on our backs during rush hour, we come upon the first stop, where Maggie and I needed to exit to transfer to the line that would take us to the hostel. I stood at the door, anticipating its opening and freeing me from the glances of harried commuters, when I felt a jabbing in my ribs. It was an elderly lady, pushing her way past me to the door. Off to a good start, I thought to myself, as the famed attitude towards tourists shone through not 10 minutes into my stay. I let her pass, and she taught me my first lesson of the trip; Parisian metro doors are opened by the passengers, not the operators. As she flipped the knob I had failed to notice before and the doors swung open, I chuckled to myself while stopping in my tracks. It was karma, and it had me by the trousers.

It is not unusual for me to come across a befuddled fanny-packer fumbling with a metro gate, and my response is to push past and mutter something disparaging about the state of Kansas and how the machine doesn’t take soy beans. Or to roll my eyes when walking down the street at one with his nose in the map, only to realize he’d been circling the attraction he had been trying to find for a half-hour.

But the truth is, tourists are people too. Sure they stand on the wrong side of the metro, take pointless pictures while driving that cause traffic and insist on stopping in the middle of walk ways instead of moving to the side out of everyone’s way, but God love them. Whenever I travel, I try to put on an air of confidence, use my city savvies to avoid the tourism pitfalls that drive locals nuts and just simply blend into the crowd. But when you don’t speak the language, have a huge, orange, protruding bag on your back and are forced to consult the map before taking each step, its hard to mask your identity as a traveler.

Having spent the past two days as such, I’ve reflected on my own prejudices against the wheat farmers of the U.S. In all honesty, it is a great honor to call a place home that is a must see for so many, and gives me a little boost when I can lead them to their destinations with ease. Tourism is a bounty to any local economy, and it is an opportunity to inflict a little local culture into everyone that comes into your local land.

But, this trip has proven to be a greater lesson. It has resonated with the homily I heard this past weekend at mass. Father preached on the reading from Genesis that reflects on the Jews’ trip through the desert, and their complaints to Moses about the lack of food, water and shelter. Conditions had become so bad that some openly longed for the Pharaoh’s whips, because at least he fed them after he worked them near death. Father spoke on the idea of exiting one’s comfort zone; the Jews had become comfortable with their lives, even though they weren’t very gratifying. They’d wake up, be handed breakfast, and head out to do work against their will, but it had become so ingrained in them that they began to associate it with life. Even when a good change came into their life, they rebelled against it, because it was different and new and forced them to their differ their habits.

This trip is much like that. I am in a strange land, do not speak the language and don’t possess a great grasp of the land until it is time to move on to the next city. At home, I have left the apartment I lived in for two years, have moved on from college and am seeking a career. Great changes are abound in my life, and this trip is pushing me to accept and adapt to them, albeit in a beautiful, once in a lifetime opportunity. Change is hard, but it doesn’t have to hurt, right? Au revior!