Hello,
I’m sitting here at the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, waiting for my flight to Sweden! I won’t be able to post this until I get there, though, because I can’t figure out how to set up the Wifi they appear to be offering here.
I just wanted to fill you in on my adventures over the past few days while I wait for my plane.
On Monday I went to the heureuxest place on earth, Disneyland Paris. I immediate and ahhed a bit about spending all that money and being there by myself (knitted feline company excluded), but in the end I decided to go, and it was worth it.
I’ve been to Disneyland USA before as a teenager and I loved that. My favorite ride was Space Mountain, but I had heard that to Space Mountain in Paris was even better, so I went on it. It’s an indoor roller coaster which is in darkness except for swirling and flashing lights. The way I remember the one in LA, it was basically completely dark and the lights you saw were little dots like stars. In Paris, Space Mountain had vortexes of swirling red lines and I’m sure lots of other stuff different to its LA counterpart, but I had my eyes closed for a decent part of it. The one on Paris was more for thrill seekers, I’d say, as it went upside down and there were more high- speed downhill bits. I’m not a big thrill seeker but both Space Mountains I’ve been on we’re definitely within my comfort zone for roller coasters. My biggest brother took great delight in my facial expression on a photo of us on a roller coaster in Sydney. I hope he appreciates the photo of me screaming my head off on Space Mountain.
I also went on the Small World ride, Alice’s labyrinth and Sleeping Beauty’s castle. I did enjoy the spinning wheel with the dangerously sharp spindle. If blood pisoning was do rampant in the middle ages, maybe don’t make so many spiky things. Seeing Sleeping Beauty’s wheel reminded me both of my own spinning wheel and my love of fairytales. I wasn’t an extremely girly little girl, but I loved me some fairytales about princesses, and I do enjoy re- enacting fairytales with my babysitting charges, especially when I don’t have to play a yucky boy character. Maybe reading about old
fashioned clothes and tools shaped my love of creating things, or maybe my love of fairytales reflects a love of tradition and not forgetting where we came from. You can buy a knit at Kmart, but so few people have any idea how it was made.
So that was Disneyland Paris. It was fun.
The next day I had planned to visit the Louvre and the Pompidou centre, but was disappointed when I looked at the opening times the night before, only to find that they were both closed on Tuesdays! Boo! But it’s ok. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it, but I’ve actually been to Paris before, and visited
these two places. So instead, I went somewhere I’ve never been, the Musee du Carnavalet (free entry, peeps). It was a lovely little gallery with a beautiful garden and friendly staff. I then went on back to he Arc de Triomphe. This time I actually climbed the arc, something I’ve never done before. It was really cool.
After that I went home and got chips for lunch from a kebab shop (where the guy used the same tongs for my chips as he did for the meat. Can’t he tell by my hippie hair that I’m a vegetarian?). Then in he evening I went up the Eiffel Tower! Yay! I wanted to be up there at sunset, and I was, which was
awesome! Yay for France! I have been up the Eiffel Tower before, but not at night.
So now I’m here, waiting for my plane. I’m very happy with my trip to Paris, especially because I got to have some great new experiences. Disneyland, getting a very inaccurate portrait done, Carnavalet, climbing the Arc de Triomphe, attending Mass in a non- touristy Parisian church, Pere Lachaise cemetery seeing Paris at nightfall from the top of the Eiffel Tower, being in Paris when I can actually speak French, eating French cuppa soup.
