After a two hour flight from Venice, here we are in another country. I'm starting to write this on the first day, without knowing how I feel about Paris. Hopefully by the end I'll have made up my mind.

There's an amazingly studied real thing called Paris Syndrome, where people feel despair that the "most beautiful city in the world" is full of trash, graffiti, etc. It's particularly common with Japanese tourists, and I guess if you come from there you'd be in for a shock. But I found Paris to be surprisingly well maintained for a city of its size, honestly pretty comparable to Shanghai. Also despite their reputation, Parisians have been nothing but polite. Maybe because we throw out bonjours like they're nobody's business, and we try our best to speak French. Ella has been particularly good, what with her knack for languages. We've run into some problems here and there, but with gestures and rudimentary French, we can make it through.

Still, it's not like we're really having conversations with the locals. Except the other night, when we were looking to get dinner. Fun fact, Parisians like to eat late, so a lot of restaurants don't open til 7. We were starving, so we popped into a cafeteria style place. We were trying to think of some French words for things when we noticed the staff spoke Mandarin to each other. We asked if they're Chinese, turns out yes, and turns out white people in France speaking Mandarin is not a common thing. It was kind of a relief to get food without navigating a language barrier though, and they really hooked us up with a pile of food.

Speaking of food, I've found that Paris really lacks any sort of convenient street food options. Everything is a sit down restaurant, which means it's expensive. And while I'm not surprised Paris is expensive, I don't really want to sit around and wait for, well, waiters. I want to get my food and go, cause we have things to see. I mean, Italy had plenty of pizza and paninis to go around. Despite me hearing crepes fill that role, I've found remarkably few crepe stands - they're still often sold in sit down restaurants. Aaaand speaking of restaurants, Paris is a lot like Venice, with a massive discrepancy in the cost of food from the grocery (where both of us eat for about 7 euros) versus a restaurant (where both of us eat for about 30, and it takes a lot more time). I'd like to try more French food while I'm here, but they're not exactly making it appealing. We did carve out time to try the classics like beef bourguignon, duck confit, escargot, and crème brule. And yes, the croissants are amazing, and cheap. But I'd rather limit a big hunk of bread to one meal a day.

But anyway, enough about food, what's going on in Paris? Well, the first day we went to The Louvre. They were completely sold out online, so we considered doing a more expensive bundled ticket, or just lining up. But then Ella was a hero when she checked on Taobao, and sure enough, they have tickets - suspiciously for a little less than the standard price. I assume it's because they buy them in bulk, or maybe resell cancelled tickets? Whatever the case we got in. And even after the art extravaganza of Italy, The Louvre was seriously impressive. We got in as they opened, and decided to go see The Mona Lisa first thing to avoid the crowd. Of course, we weren't the only people to think of that, with some sprinting past us, while we took a more leisurely pace. Still, we had to wait in line under a minute to see it. As others have said, it's really small, and the other art in the same room is more impressive. Still, saw the most famous painting in the world, so, check. About 5 minutes later, the queue was nearly out the door, so it was a good thing we went first thing. The Louvre is a very large place, but I feel we saw about 75% of it. Also as part of the Taobao ticket we got a 3DS to guide us around, so I had fun playing with that. We certainly saw all the famous stuff, so here are some photos:

 Surprisingly though, Ella was not all that excited about The Louvre. She really wanted to see The Musee d'Orsay, known only to me as "The 2nd most popular art museum in Paris." But it has all the artists she knows, and of course some I've heard of, like Monet and Van Gogh. We probably spent just as long there as The Louvre, even though it's about 1/10th the size. I was more impressed with the building, as it was an old railway station. In fact, it reminded me of a renovated version of Bangkok's Hua Lamphong Station, so for me that was the main attraction. But I think Ella said "Oh my god, it's X!" every 5 seconds. So, best look at her photos if you know art. For a bit of fun, we found a blank spot on a wall and stuck Ella's art up there with a description card. So now Ella can say she's been exhibited at The Musee d'Orsay.

There were a few other sites thrown in there as well. We went a little north of town to see Sacre Coeur Cathedral, which is nice but the view of downtown from the steps is far more impressive. It has a funicular to get to the top, and while not too expensive I guess (2 euros), it's probably the shortest funicular I've ever seen. Actually I'm pretty sure our apartment stairs are just about as tall, so I found the long queue for it a little weird. Instead we walked up, which I realized was the same spot they filmed that last fight scene in John Wick 4. Fortunately for us, it was a bit easier to make it to the top. After avoiding all the hired assassins and seeing the church, we went to a bakery which the internet claims is the best croissant in Paris. And yeah, wow. Probably the best croissant I ever had for sure. While we were stumbling about town bread-drunk, we saw a giant torch that is a copy of the Statue of Liberty's. Neat enough, but also it also sadly marks the tunnel where Princess Diana was killed, so there was a little memorial to her.

Now, this was totally unintentional when planning this trip, but as we discovered when fighter jets flew over downtown, it happened to be Bastille Day. We went down towards the Arc de Triomphe to see a ton of military vehicles, with people just hanging out talking photos. Turns out you can just hold their gun for a photo if you ask nicely. So umm, that was something! It was pretty crowded, and we saw most of the parade before it started to move, so we decided to escape to see The Eiffel Tower. Gotta get that obligatory tourist photo, after all. Also since it was Bastille Day, Napoleon's Grave was free admission. So. There he is. He's certainly got a grand enough tomb, but I guess when you're emperor you can do that sort of thing.

The next day we took a day trip to Versailles to see the palace there. The way Google suggested was kind of dumb, taking us way out of town and then back on a regional train. I couldn't understand why, so we just took the commuter rail line. And then I realized when no trains were available, that the reason why Google suggested that weird path was because for a month, that section of the line was closed. So instead we metro'd to the other side of the maintenance, and got there only about 20 minutes later than normal. Which, I have to think going to a train station, buying a ticket, and waiting for the train would take longer than that. Take that, Google. Anyway, turns out I like to talk about infrastructure a lot. How was the palace? Honestly pretty underwhelming. Part of that reason was because it was packed with people, but also because it's pretty empty inside. Sure there are some paintings on the wall, but mostly you just go from room to room with one thing in it. Oh, here's an old bed. Here's an old desk. Okay. There were some very impressive halls, but I think if you've seen The Louvre, you've seen a more impressive version of Versailles. To me, it's not worth the trip, unless you're a big fan of French Royalty.

And that's a good segue into my final thoughts about Paris. This is gonna be a weird train of thought, but stick with me - I remember when I was in business class on a long flight, and how it made me feel really uncomfortable. Because I was constantly being checked on, and given so many options for food, drink, whatever, it made me feel guilty. Like, there were people in economy who had far less legroom, and I would feel better if I could switch with them on occasion. I guess my point is that I think there are a lot of less fortunate people in the world, so when I'm treated as above anyone else, I don't like it. But yet, I feel that's what a lot of what Paris is. The service everywhere is incredible. I'm constantly being called monsieur, stuff is really fancy, and waiters wear nice suits even at corner cafes. I remember when I wanted to get to Pyin U Lwin in Myanmar, and the options available were a bus that left in an hour, or a guy with a tuk tuk full of milk would take me now. And I opted for the milk truck, because it's how a local would travel, it saved me a dollar, and most importantly, time. So I'd much prefer to eat at a place where the waitstaff greeted me with a fistbump and a "Hey dude". But that's definitely not Paris, as everything is quite luxurious in my opinion, with a price to match. I do like a lot of things about this place - the people have been unwaveringly kind, the metro is great, they have so many bakeries and grocery stores with amazingly fresh food, and it goes without mention, but there is a lot to do here. But I wish it was a little more chill, because I feel like I'm always being doted on. Still, I wouldn't be opposed to moving to Paris at some point. Though I'd need to get good enough at French to say the equivalent of "What's up bro?" to take the formality down a notch.