Report on last day in Paris, Thursday 7/1/2010 -
I got up early yesterday morning (4 am), and I took a city bus ride by myself (on route 69) from our neighborhood near the Eiffel Tower to the Notre Dame Cathedral and other places. (This bus route was made famous, to us, by Rick Steves’ travel books as one of the more local, “back door” ways of seeing this part of Europe). I got across town fairly quickly on the bus, and I started to recognize places we had seen on previous days on the tour bus, so I thought I could get off and back on the bus fairly quickly without getting lost, and see locations that were now more quiet and cooler (it being about 7 am, and many other tourists were still in bed or getting ready to amass on the cobblestones again soon). I got off near Notre Dame, walked to it, and walked quietly and peacefully among the local Parisians, workers, homeless people, pigeons, etc. I snapped a bunch of pictures, and remembered that being behind the camera is another way of being removed from really being there. I was admiring the beautiful stone work, towers, gargoyles, and other beauty that made this creation famous. I was reading information signs in front of the opening, and noticed people starting to gather around me, and a worker from inside the Cathedral come out, talk to some of the individuals as if they knew one another, and she opened the gate. Being that the gathering group of people was going inside, and I was one of them just by my physical presence, I went with the flow. Besides being able to see the beauty from the inside again, there was a Catholic mass scheduled, which I joined with my own mixed emotions. It seemed that all of the other people were local French people, or French travelers as some of them were wearing heavy backpacks. The language spoken was all in French so I didn’t understand the content, but it was emotional for me because it was so beautiful and it brought me to tears at times. When the priest started doing the ritual of the sacrament (the wine and wafers to symbolize the blood and body of Christ), I got uncomfortable and I left at that time, but I felt something and I couldn't quite put words to my feelings. (Some of the feelings I could recognize was my internal conflict because of my own belief systems and my High Power, and my judgments about the Catholic church, their history, etc. - remember I am a social worker with child protection services, and I read about John Knox ...). I left trying to sort out what my head and heart were telling me.
I worked my way back across the River Seine to the bus, and got back on again, soaking it in. Pedestrian, car, motorcycle and bike traffic was picking up, and the bus starting going into parts of Paris that I didn’t recognize. It stopped and parked suddenly, all of the people got off, and the bus driver indicated (not in English!) that I also needed to get off. I stood on the sidewalk trying to sort out the bus schedule, and then noticed that another, and then another, and then another bus, all with #69 on their fronts, pulled up, stopped, drivers got out, and four of them were left empty! (Rick Steves didn’t tell me about this!).
Thinking about being in this strange foreign city, with Mary and the boys back at the motel, and not having cell phones and not having experience using local phones, I started to worry a little, balanced out with trusting the process. Eventually another driver came and got on one of but buses, other passengers got on, and we started moving through the route again, trusting it would circle back to the Eiffel Tower and the neighborhood we were staying at.
I don't know if you have any experience traveling on the streets of large cities in Paris or not, it is scary! Some places they drive on the wrong side of the road (U.K.), and the streets are very narrow, and they hardly ever go straight. Bus Route #69 ended for me this morning with the driver stopping, getting out, and looking at his huge bus just inches away from a parked Volvo, waving traffic to back up, and trying to back up himself. I sauntered away, as I recognized the streets and knew I could walk back to the motel from here.
Later that morning we checked out of the Paris motel, juggling luggage, boys, currency (this is the last place for us to use our Euros), and the shuttle to the Paris airport (with the driver who spoke very little English). The shuttle picked up 2 other passengers from Scotland, which was very interesting ...
We caught the plane from the Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport to the London Heathrow Airport (quite an experience itself). We took a train from the airport to a London station (the Paddington Station), then hired a classic English taxi for ride to hotel in the Victoria neighborhood, checked into our motel (The Elizabeth), and walked to dinner at the Ebury Pub for fish and chips!
Enough for now!
Todd
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