As of late, I've discovered a bit of the city, both intentionally and unintentionally, that I had never seen before.
Friday night was another AUP party. Side note: I need to stop going to these functions. They kill my soul. But anyway, this AUP party happened to be at a club next to Montparnasse out in the 15th. Side note again: Montparnasse is perhaps the ugliest thing I have ever seen. Why the city of Paris allowed that to be built boggles my mind. But back to the story. Arianna, Derek and I left the club around 3-something determined to fulfill our plans for the evening, which included finding some food and then finding trocadero and watching the sun come up, followed by Breakfast in America.
I just have to say, the 15th? Not Paris. I was recently in the 20th to go to La Fleche d'Or, and I was thrown off by how different it was from the Paris that I'm used to, but at least it still seemed like Paris. The 15th, not so much. We walked around a bit until we found a map to situate ourselves, and realized if we just walk up this one avenue, we'll hit the seine, probably somewhere near the 7th or 6th, and then it's only an hour walk back to the Marais. No worries. Easy enough.
Not easy enough. As we walked, we soon realized we were in the 14th. Slightly confused, but not coherent enough to think anything of it, we kept walking through what was also Not Paris.
Fifteen minutes later we came upon another map. Turns out we were walking parallel to the Seine as opposed to perpendicular to the Seine like we had hoped, thus putting us in the 14th, walking distance from the Catacombs, Fiap, and Place d'Italie. Not at all where we wanted to be.
That brings me back to my original point, the 13th, 14th, and 15th arrondissements, are not Paris, and I don't know how I feel about the city trying to pass them off as real Paris. I mean, there wasn't even a kebab place open at 3am. If that doesn't set off an alarm I don't know what would. Needless to say, I had to break my no-taxi rule and hop one to the 4th. No cool. I don't like Not Paris.
We were recently more successful in our explorations than we were Friday night. Saturday Arianna and decided to talk a walk around Notre Dame and along the Seine. During our walk we made our way over the the 12th and 5th and happened upon the Jardins des Plantes, Museum national d'histoire Naturelle (in addition to a woolly mammoth and stegosaurus), Gare d'Austerlitz, l'Institut du Monde Arabe (which is holding an expo on Napoleon in Egypt--very excited), Musee de la Sculpture en Plein Air, and perhaps best of all, the mosque from the Quais de Seine segment of Paris, Je t'Aime. Arianna and I were VERY excited about getting to see this, mostly because we just stumbled upon it, completely expectantly
We continued walking and ended up at Bastille. Not sure how, but I find it comforting to know that I can just set off in any direction and end up somewhere that I am familiar with.
I might make my way back over to Not Paris to give it a better, more objective judging at some point. I hear it has its own unique points of interest, as with all the arrondissements in Paris, but I can't say that I saw any of those the other night. Perhaps in the light of day?
My next major explorations will come from London and Rome when I visit for spring break. Totally stoked!!
