That Was A Pretty Good Day

by Emma

I woke up the morning of April 1st, 2017, screaming.

At least I thought I had.

In reviewing, I supposed it must have been a dream. It had been a strange dream, and it had been interrupted by a terribly loud noise, like a--

Rrrriiiing!

The telephone beside my bed rang again, piercing the relative quiet of my hotel room. I picked it up, asking a tentative “Hello?”

No answer.

I recalled that last night, Madame Tyler had said that she had asked the hotel to give us all a wake-up call. It had certainly succeeded in waking me up. 

I crawled out of bed, shaking off the last bits of jetlag. I went to the window that I had opened last night to try to get some of the shower’s steam out of the little room. Standing in front of it now, I took in the cool and damp morning, the sound of cars, the fresh city air. 

Paris.

An hour or two later I was on a bus, sitting next to Fiona, staring out of the window in wonder as we rode through Paris. I couldn’t get enough of it; I took pictures of every beautiful building, every interesting intersection, every detail that I had only ever dreamed of seeing. It was incredible. 

Our guide for the bus tour was a small man who was so stereotypically French, from the newsboy cap to the peacoat to the name that was probably Lauren or something like that.

Seeing the Eiffel Tower for the first time was magical. There was the tower that shows up in every postcard, every picture, every movie scene from Paris. There it was. And there I was.

I wish I could show you every single picture I took on that tour of Paris. Just looking over them makes me feel giddy. 

But we didn’t spend all day in the heart of Paris. We also visited the nearby neighborhood, Le Chesnay. There we visited the beautiful Paris temple, where we were able to have a few moments of the ever reliable church wifi. Also in Le Chesnay was the incredible, extravagant, opulent, magnificent Palais du Versailles. 

my attempt at an artsy photo that doesn’t do it any justice

My mouth must have been wide open the whole time we were there. This was a building older than the country I was born in. This was a palace, inhabited by royalty. Every room was dressed to the nines, from the gilded furniture to the elaborately painted ceilings. I dodged through crowds of fellow tourists, phone in hand, documenting everything I could.

Fiona and Rose and I spent the better part of two hours rushing through the palace, exploring as much of it as we could in our limited time. We wanted to see the gardens, but they were closed. We tried though, even working up the courage to ask one of the employees for directions. Fiona and I went back and forth, debating who should ask. Eventually we approached the help desk together.

“Bonjour,” I said, “Où sont les jardins?”

The woman gave us directions, but we only vaguely understood her answer. She asked us if we wanted a map. 

“Oui, oui,” we both answered. 

“Anglais?” She asked us (“English?”)

“Oui,” Fiona answered sheepishly.

We never did get into the closed gardens, but we did find them. In hindsight, the woman probably told us that they were closed but we just didn’t understand her. 

Arguably the best thing to come out of our trip to Versailles was our discovery of La Durée macarons. 

I am a different person now that I have eaten macarons from La Durée. The sun is warmer, colors are brighter, the song of birds sweeter because I have tried these macarons. I’m not exaggerating; they were really that good.

I mean, just look at us with our post-macaron smiles:

One bizarre dinner of couscous and watery stew, and one boat tour later, we arrived again at the Eiffel Tower. It was nighttime now, and the tower was sparkling. I swallowed my fear of heights and took the dark elevator to the top, all 1000 feet.

I gripped the metal bars holding us in and looked down at the glowing city streets. In that moment, I understood why they call it The City of Lights. 

The best moment of my life was an hour later, lying on the ground underneath the exact center of the Eiffel Tower, deliriously tired, singing and laughing next to my best friends. 

It was a memorable metro ride back to the hotel, but I’ll keep it brief. To summarize, a man played his accordion for us, and the train was held up for quite a while as a drunk man threw up (and fell out of his shoes. Remind me to tell you the full story sometime).

That night, I sat in my hotel room, the open window letting in the cold air. I felt like the world was glowing. It was two in the morning, and I was exhausted, but I had never been happier.

That was a pretty good day. 

In l’Île de la Cité, in front of Notre Dame, there’s a symbol on the ground. It’s said that if you touch it, you’ll come back to Paris someday. It hasn’t happened quite yet, but it will.

 Honestly? I can’t wait.