Paris travel log for Monday, 2006-12-18

OK, it’s an obligatory Parisian tourist picture, so let’s kick this off right:

Now, about the day…

Completely over jet lag now, Mom, Dad, and I looked pretty fresh at the hotel breakfast at 10am. From there, we headed straight to Notre Dame. Though smaller than other famous cathedrals like St. Peter’s and St. Paul’s, it made a similar impression. Gorgeous stained glass, interior and exterior sculpture, and (something I don’t remember seeing much in other cathedrals) large paintings. Took plenty of pictures, punched my way through the entire audio tour, and still had a few minutes to just absorb the good vibrations before noon mass began.

After Notre Dame, we walked toward Paris’s best and most famous ice cream shop, at least according to Dad’s guidebook. Mom had been politely but firmly mentioning said ice cream shop since we landed, cold weather be damned. Sadly, it was closed when we got there, but we promised to give it another try on Wednesday.

We made a random lunch stop at a small, nearby restaurant called Auberge de Deux Ponts. I had delicious, salty onion soup and some pasta carbonara. Mom spent much of the meal discreetly trying to take a picture of the “world’s politest cat” – as she dubbed him – who was perched quietly on a seat at the next table.

After a brief stop at the stark Holocaust memorial behind Notre Dame, we walked across the small island and found the tiny but beautiful Saint-Chapelle. This is a church whose walls are small slivers of stone between giant sheets of stained glass. An impressive sight, even in the light of today’s overcast sun.

Next, at my suggestion, we took our first metro ride to the Eiffel Tower. Mom and I both agreed that it was much taller than we expected. I can see how astounding it would have been when first erected in the late 1800s.

Having read that the tower was an entirely different sight at night, we stopped into the nearest café to wait for sunset. And this café reminded me of something. Did you even notice when the nerds took over the world? Have a look:

Not seeing it? Look closer, above the door:
Now remember, this is the coffee shop closest to the Eiffel Tower. There can be only one such place in the world. It can have only one entrance. And what’s the most important thing it wants to advertise there? “Internet.” “Wi-fi.” Five years ago, this sign would have been somewhat out of place. Fifteen years ago, almost no one would have even understood it.

The nerds took over the world by making everyone a nerd. My own lapsed-technophobe father sent email from his blackberry in that very café. And he didn’t even need the wi-fi to do it.

Who knows what that neon sign will say in another 15 years?

As for myself, the internet has changed how I live, or at least how I travel, in a really subtle and pervasive way: to a large extent, I’m constantly curating my own experiences. As I move through a day in Paris, something in the back of my mind is composing a blog post, remembering to take enough pictures, noticing things like neon signs and deciding how I’d like to comment on them. And that same little brain-elf is also deciding what’s not important, what I won’t be recording, what can be passed by. Missed.

I have mixed feelings about all of this. An intention to record and process really motivates me to get out and do more. On top of that, my attention stays sharp all day, because after all I’m working on something. (You’re reading it now.) And finally, I do believe that there is a permanence and concreteness in a well-recorded journey that one never quite matches when relying on memory alone. However, I can’t shake the thought that if the tunnel I look through now is so clear and deep, it must also be a bit narrow.

Oh well. These are the life and times of Will Robinson, and I have a hunch that I can file this directly under the heading: “Not Better. Not Worse. Just Different.” I’ll close this line of thinking with a link that says it all much more concisely than I can:

http://xkcd.com/c77.html

(And for those of you who don’t know what Livejournal is, it’s a blogging system like the one I’m using to write this post).

Our last stop after a nighttime Eiffel Tower gawk was dinner at a quaint, 20-seat restaurant near our hotel. The pushy but incredibly jovial hostess yelled to us on the street: “And why not my kitchen tonight?” After some charming descriptions of the traditional French treats waiting inside, we all agreed. Why not, indeed?

The food was delicious, the atmosphere quiet and homey, and we had the good fortune of sitting next to Tracy Bank, a visitor from San Francisco. Tracy was in Paris with family and friends, but everyone had been food poisoned except for her! She overheard our discussion of Christmas dinner plans in Provence, and having traveled and rented a house there herself, she jumped in and offered us some great tips. Thanks in advance from all of us, Tracy.

My biggest failure as a self-curator today? I didn’t write down the restaurant’s name. Oh well, it’s just around the corner. I might jot it down tomorrow and then practice some revisionism on this here blog.

Reader, beware!

Au revoir.