me donnez la vie simple
One of a tourist’s obligations (others include: gawking, dressing inappropriately, and speaking his native tongue very slowly to the locals) is to visit every marginally-notable building in as short a time span as possible.
This I’ve done dutifully. Already, I’ve been to Notre Dame, the Paris Catacombs, Sainte Chapelle, Versailles, the Pantheon, Les Invalides, the Louvre, and several other minor museums.
I haven’t written about them. I’ve taken very few pictures of them. Because, really, what can I say about them that hasn’t been said? Little. And what can I say about them that hasn’t been said and is worth writing? Nothing.
If you want to see a picture, well, all of these places have been photographed by people with better artistic instincts and much better equipment. If you’re reading this, you’re already on the internet, so, you know, I’d suggest starting there.
Don’t get me wrong - I really like going to these sorts of places. I’m a little bit of a history buff, and I love art. But I resent and resist the urge common to tourists (myself included) to so feverishly document everything. Everyone follows the same pattern; enter, find a point roughly in the center of everything, take a picture, walk out. Choice scarcely inters into the equation – it’s as if we’re required by law to return to the states with identical, symmetrical pictures of every historical site we pass by.
I’ve found that, interesting the many museums of Paris may be, there’s something I prefer infinitely – finding a sandwich shop, or a gyro stand, buying lunch, and eating it in one of the city’s many beautiful parks. Yesterday, I didn’t go to a single tourist trap: I bought a chicken and curry sandwich (my current favorite) and an Orangina, and sat in le Jardin du Luxembourg for an hour, admiring the different colors of the leaves, listening to a nearby busker play the bongos, and watching with some horror as a pigeon sexually harassed several birds of various species.
It was fantastic.
