Paris: Part Three in which our Bastille Day plans crumble

After a battle with two irritable waiters at Marco Polo’s, we left and hastened to the Metro. Because of said irritable waiters, we were running late. We dashed down into the Place de le Nation Metro stop and quickly scanned the Metro map. I quickly suggested we take our normal train (the 1) and transfer over at some point to the six. Mike and Courtney agreed with this assessment and we three started off. We were three steps before Yuan suggested that we instead simply take the six straight from Nation to the Eiffel Tower. This sounded logical enough and by this point we all knew better than to argue with Yuan when he had an idea stuck in his head. So we did a 360 and headed off to the six. What we did not know was that the six had three closed stops and that Parisian metro trains do not whiz you through the closed stops, they deposit you before the closed stops and leave you stranded in a place called Bercy.

The only train available for transfer at Bercy at the 14. This left us with very little choice than to get on the 14 and do what we could with it. After consulting yet another map and time dwindling, we thought it was a good idea to take the 14 one stop to the C train, which looked very much like it looked around conveniently dropping us at the Eiffel Tower. We successfully made it to the connection stop but soon found ourselves hopelessly lost and quite possibly on our way to Versailles. Feeling increasingly frustrated and now stuck at a stop where there were no other connections, we leaped over the ticket turnstiles and ran for the surface (Yuan protesting the whole way). It was 10:20.

We got up into the open air again and suddenly everything seemed desperate. We sprinted for a while until we were all too winded to continue. We were lost somewhere in the 13^th Arrondissement, on the complete opposite side of Paris from the Eiffel Tower. At this moment of supreme frustration, Yuan accosted yet another Parisian. Finally, Yuan found someone useful. The law of large numbers tells us it had to happen sometime. Anyway, this woman spoke fluent English (with the exception of the word “straight” which she didn’t know) and helpfully pointed us the way of the Place d’Italie, which had numerous trains we could take or any number of taxis we could pick up. We thanked her profusely and power-walked on.

It was finally getting dark in Paris and the patriotic people of France were taking to the streets. As we hurried along nearly deserted side-streets, we would come across little bands of Parisians with personal firecrackers and bottle rockets. They had wands that spurted little bursts of colored flame and they laughed as they aimed them at hapless pedestrians. It was eerie as we tried to avoid these clusters and hurry towards the Place d’Italie. The streets would be occasionally lit by bright colors of brief fireworks and sporadically there were loud bangs of a nearby explosion. We hurried on.

As we just kept walking and it just kept getting later, Courtney took up as her mission the task of finding and hailing a cab. This irritated Yuan who was of the mind that if we were still going to the Eiffel Tower, we should take the metro and, secondarily, it was rather pointless to go to the Eiffel Tower since we had definitely missed the fireworks. Mike alone kept a cool head; I was almost on the verge of killing Yuan with my bare hands. Courtney manically searched for a cab, I quietly stewed and Yuan loudly stewed. Mike, I can only assume, was thinking up a rational solution to the problem at hand.

We finally all had it out after a mean cab driver refused to take us to the Eiffel Tower twice. We really had no idea where we were or how far we still had to go. We’d been walking for half an hour and we were still stuck in the 13^th Arrondissement. Yuan and I were the most spirited participants in the decision-making with Courtney taking my side and Mike trying to pacify us three. I argued that we might as well keep walking and save ourselves the metro passes. We were going to miss the fireworks, that much was certain. If we were going to be late, we might as well save ourselves some metro passes. Yuan insisted we get on the metro if we were still hell-bent on getting to the Eiffel Tower but perhaps we should just give up and do something else. Courtney, agreeing with me, said we were more likely to actually see some fireworks aboveground than going down into the Metro.

Still extraordinarily angry with Yuan, I set out walking with the rest in tow. I didn’t even get half a block before Mike stopped us all and pointed out that if we took the Metro right then, we would get there faster and possibly catch the end of the fireworks. It just all came down to if we cared that we missed the fireworks at the end of the train ride. To me, it didn’t at that point. I took a deep breath and told myself I was angry over nothing. Yuan was insufferable, but we were in Paris, France and there was no reason for me to fly off the handle. Thus immediately appeased, I agreed with Mike (a visibly surprised Mike) and we all hastened into the Metro at the Place d’Italie.

On the train we downed the gigantic bottle of water we had bought earlier. I’ve never been so thirsty as I was in Paris. There was just never enough water. We just kept drinking it. We finished this huge bottle of water in probably two minutes. It was lukewarm and delicious. About halfway to the Eiffel Tower, we realized the fireworks were over. The Metro was crowding with people and everyone was heading away from the direction we were going. We shrugged; there was nothing else to do at that point.

We emerged from the Metro basically at the Eiffel Tower and were immediately in a gigantic throng of people, all hastening in the opposite direction. The area around the Eiffel Tower was a like a mix between a war zone and the beginning of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. There were people running everywhere and explosions coming intermittently from all sides. People would just light a firecracker and drop it in the street where, if you were lucky, you caught sight of it and fled before it exploded around your feet. Sirens blared all around as ambulances and fire brigades tried to get through the crowd-clogged streets. It was complete chaos. We fought our way through the crowds and soon the Eiffel Tower was in view. Suddenly none of it mattered. It didn’t matter that at any moment we could be taken out by a ten-year-old with a bottle rocket or that we were a mere ten minutes too late or that we had spent most of the evening at odds and running. We were there, finally, and even without fireworks the Eiffel Tower was a sight to behold at night.

We waded through the chaos and finally found ourselves in a park-like area at the base of the Eiffel Tower. We were all thirsty for more water again and didn’t want to start in on the wine without hydrating first. Mike dispatched Courtney and Yuan to find a place for us to sit and said that he and I would go find water. We wandered towards the base of the Eiffel Tower. Chaos was all around us but I was serene. It was beautiful, breathtakingly so, and the flavor of the culture swirling around us was heady.

Mike and I wandered to and fro trying to find a place that was open and sold water. All the vendors directly under the Eiffel Tower had packed up and closed already. We came out from under the Eiffel Tower and headed towards the Seine. There, strangely, was a small carnival comprised of a concessions stand and a twinkling carousal. The concessions stand was cleaning up since it was the only thing open for blocks and blocks. We stood in line for a while, deliberating the necessity of water at 2.50EU. We were really that desperately thirsty?

Turns out, we weren’t. So Mike and I left the throng gathered at the carnival and started back to where we left Courtney and Yuan. We walked not in any particular hurry, just reveling in the moment and the company. It was completely lovely. We dashed away from yet another prepubescent with a small explosive and went along the little pond next the Eiffel Tower. As we walked, the Tower suddenly lit up and dazzled with thousands of randomly placed white, blinking lights. It was completely magical and unexpected. We awed at it and took pictures and then ogled it some more. Finally, we turned back to the lawn and wandered in search of Courtney and Yuan.