Paris

The night before setting off, I went to the biggest student party in Germany. It was awesome, and I didn’t go to sleep till 3am. And at 5am, I took the train from Munich to Paris. During the period, I slept way less than enough. I’m kind of person who usually sleeps for 9 hours a day.

Well, I travelled to Paris for sightseeing and visiting friends, and I was warmly welcomed and had a great time.

My friend, a high-schoolmate, picked me up at the train station, and we had lunch in a Chinese restaurant. After that we visited Basilique du Sacr é-Cœur. This beautiful white colour church sits on top of the Montmartre highland, from where it overlooks the whole city of Paris. It is said the material used to build the church turns even whiter under years of sunshine. The highland also is the place where famous artists, big names like Picasso and van Gogh, used to work. And now it attracts huge crowds of tourist, artists who sketch for a living.

We didn’t hang around there for long before going to city centre. My friend guided me around and we stopped by at a café not far away from the National Opera House. There we each had a glass of wine and talk about the good old days in high school. There were memories, of all sorts. It was great to have conversations with a friend you don’t meet for years. Dinner was at the Latin Quarter, a typical French 3 course dinner, appetizer, main course plus dessert. French cooks do have something; food tastes way better than that in Germany, and looks nicer as well.

Now some first impressions of Paris. 1) It’s crowded. There are people every where, especially in tourists attractions. But anyway, almost ¼ of the French population is in Paris (more and 10M in Île-de-France, with more than 2M in the urban area). 2) It’s a cosmopolitan city and, naturally, expensive. But it’s said that other parts of France is actually not so expensive. A joke about France: it has only two places, Paris and countryside. 3) The metro system seems complicated but actually works quite well. It takes to every corner of the city. 4) The buildings are all the same. Houses were built to the same height. You can easily get lost in the jungle of 7-storey , cream-colored houses. 5) The people are not very helpful. If you’ve ever been to Germany, you’ll realize the difference.