Parisian Dust

When a friend of mine, who had travelled to Paris, said he didn't like the city, I thought "but Paris is the most beautiful city in the world". My friend said it was dirty, not very friendly and ultimately he had expected much more.

Still Paris to me seemed to be the city of love, where romance was born. I had seen the image below on my aunties wall for years and had been consumed by Parisian dust.


The Kiss

Parisian dust is the term coined by two friends I met in the hostel I stayed in. Both had been very dissapointed by Paris and we had all admitted that at some stage we had felt like crying and going home. Alex, the very passionate Brazillian had actually admitted that he had sat at one of the hostel tables crying his eyes out. But he also had relationship issues.

I had two very tramatising experiences in Paris one involving a small black boy being dragged back into a store and pinned against the wall for stealing a tube of smarties. The other was a guy in my hostel room, so drunk from a night out vomiting all over himself then the floor then waking up the next morning to find it all over the floor.

The areas of Paris are quite poor and my friend was right it is a very dirty and sometimes miserable town. It also seems like everyone goes out of their way to be as unhelpful as possible. The metro ticket machines would only accept coins as payment and the store keepers would not give change even when you bought something. It became a struggle just to do the smallest of things like get internet access without having an arguement. All in all Paris felt like the older kid in the street, a bit of a bully who doesn't want to hang out with you and will charge you 30 euros for the priviledge of walking to your house.

The one redeemable aspect of the four days in Paris were the people I met there. All tourists like me who were so open and ready to give helpful advice. There was the large group of Australian exchange students, who we had shots with at the bar and told us about the Australian bar where you could get Cooper's and meat pies. They were really good to be around on during Australia day. Then there was Alex and Anneska, two very lovely Americans one from the south and one from the north.


Having flamming shots on Australia day

They got me out to see many sites and sit down to enjoy some nice Parisian food. It's amazing how good company can change your outlook. I'm very thankful that I met them both for so many reasons but mainly because I would have no idea just how better this trip could get...


A very beautiful Church we found