Back from Paris!

Hi guys,

Some of you may remember me asking a lot of questions a while back about our first time to Paris during the week of 21 Mar to 27 Mar. Well, we%26#39;re back . . . and I%26#39;m happy to say that all the overplanning and worrying on my part really paid off! Because the entire trip went as smooth as butter. :)

On the advice of members here, I learned as many basic French phrases as I could manage before the trip. We took Air France out of JFK and I used the opportunity to bust out my meager French on the flight crew. They were very nice about it, and it gave me all the confidence I needed to continue using French when we landed. Outside CDG, I told the cabbie in French where we wanted to go, and even though he knew we were tourists he understood me perfectly and got us to the hotel in a jiffy.

Our reactions now that we are back are that Parisiens could not have been any more gracious and patient towards us. Everyone was so nice and friendly!

I%26#39;ve formed an opinion that it%26#39;s not so much that the French are rude (they most certainly are not), but that Parisiens are typical city dwellers. Meaning, they leave you alone unless you speak to them directly. Much like New Yorkers, in fact! We found this very comforting since this is the attitude we ourselves are accustomed to coming from a big city.

We didn%26#39;t find that other American tourists were rude, though, either. For the most part, most of the British and American tourists we came across were susprisingly soft-spoken and well-mannered. If I had to single out any group of tourists as maybe being loud and obnoxious, it would be the Italian and Spanish ones. Not all of them, but on three separate occasions we had a really bad experience due to some Italians and Spanish people joining us on tours or in restaurants. Not enough to totally ruin the experience, though. Just irksome.

Overall, we completely and utterly fell in love with Paris! The weather was a bit choppy last week, but we took it all in with grand spirits. We used the metro almost exclusively, and walked everywhere else when we weren%26#39;t on the metro. Coming from NYC, I must say the metro in Paris is very clean, efficient, and damn easy to navigate! We never got lost, not even once. Chatelet was a breeze! But then, we%26#39;re sorta experts at the whole underground transportation thing. :)

Oh, and I%26#39;ll never be able to eat a croissant or pain au chocolat outside of Paris again. Seriously, not even the best bakeries in NYC can compare to the little boulangerie across the street from Hotel de Lutece where we stayed. The bread there was just TO DIE FOR!

Right now my wife and I are in a state of accute depression being back in NYC. We miss Paris SO much! We didn%26#39;t want to leave. It%26#39;s so bad that I feel like I%26#39;m experiencing withdrawal symptoms now. (haha)

We%26#39;re already trying to determine how we can scrimp and save to go back again as soon as possible. Maybe even as early as this summer!

In conclusion, I just wanted to say that one giant lesson we learned from this trip is this: you get back what you put into the experience. In other words, we treated everyone we dealt with in Paris with kindness, respect, and decency. And this is exactly what we got back. We observed a few cranky tourists going off at their waiters and/or hotel personnel over the most trivial of things, and I have to say it%26#39;s so not worth getting so worked up over stupid things while in Paris. It%26#39;s not Disneyland. You can%26#39;t expect everyone to jump at your beck and call and prostate themselves at your feet.

Take it easy, relax, and just go with the flow. Paris is too beautiful to be so close-minded!

Anyway, a BIG THANKS once again to everyone who helped me out in the months leading up to this trip. It was the best vacation we ever took, and this is no exaggeration.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

--Ryo

|||

Ryo- welcome back and thank you so much for sharing your experience

|||

We got back March 26 from our 3rd trip and I am really missing Paris. Southeast Texas does not even begin to compare!

|||

What a lovely post, and so much wisdom,, it is a shame about your new addiction though, and the PPWD( Post Paris Withdrawal Depression),, it is only cured by one thing,,, planning next trip..

|||

So glad you and your wife had a great trip and fell in love with Paris! I sort of knew you would, from the very clued-in nature of your pre-trip questions.

|||

Well done Roydin ..Just got back from a 4 day trip to Paris. So easy to love this beautiful city and I`ts culture

|||

Yes, the cure is to go back! That%26#39;s how I like to think of it. :)

Whoever it was that recommended the Cafe de l%26#39;Homme for us -- THANK YOU! It was such a great place and location, and the food was extremely good. I used my limited and brand spankin new French to tell the hostess that I had a reservation, and this ended up getting me in trouble because she brought us to our table and then started speaking rapid-fire French to me. So, sheepishly, I had to apologize and admit that I actually didn%26#39;t speak French, and does she speak English? She did, and we all had a laugh. Unfortunately, she left us with French menus and not English ones. We didn%26#39;t even know there was an English version of the menu until an American mother and daughter sat next to us. But we managed with the French one regardless, and it was a grand time.

Afterwards, we walked up avenue Kleber from Trocadero metro to the Arc de Triomphe. It was 22:00 and the streets were deserted! But oh so romantic!

Oh, and the tour Eiffel was lit up and very pretty for our dinner. Forgot to mention that. A very magical night.

I would like to post a link to the pictures of our trip here, but I seem to recall this forum has a problem with posting links. If the link doesn%26#39;t work, I apologize in advance:

www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLanding.action…

There%26#39;s a lot of pics! But you%26#39;ll get an idea of how much fun we had. :)

|||

glad to hear you had such a wonderful time. any other restaurant/bistro recommendations?

|||

Great photos too! And yes I am so obssessed with Paris that I did in fact look at look at all 266 photos!

|||

this is very helpful and i%26#39;m glad you had a great trip. we%26#39;ll be there in 2 weeks and i hope my limited french is enough also. and any other recommendations, please do post them.

|||

Great pix! Thanks for sharing them.