paris, part one

I left for Paris on December 21st from Taoyuan International Airport in Taoyuan, Taiwan, which is a forty minute train-ride south-west of Xinzhuang. You already know about Taoyuan from the previous post, so I won't go into it. I left on time, though, and had an easy flight to Shanghai.

Once in Shanghai, I quickly learned that I could not access the internet because I didn't have an "international phone" through which to receive the password. (Coming back from Paris, I found out that all I had to do was ask about it at the front desk.) My layover was short, though, so it wasn't too big of a hassle, and I did manage to change some TWD into RMB, the Chinese currency, and buy a snack. I needn't have worried about food, though, because I was well-fed on China Eastern's flight.

Oh, China Eastern. I got to know them very well in that week, seeing as I had about three separate flights with them. The planes are very nice, and I was elated to find that I had a mini TV all to myself, on which I could watch movies, TV episodes from select shows, and play games. I immediately began watching movies, some of them only halfway through. I was drunk with power; on my long flight to Taiwan six months ago, the only movies available were four previously chosen ones that were played on screens overhead, automatically, during the flight. To now have the freedom to watch whatever I wanted whenever I wanted was intoxicating.

Fancy screens not pictured here, I took a picture of a shorter flight.

This turned out to be a good thing, because sleeping on a plane without one of those fancy curved pillows to support your neck is, for me, an impossibility. I had people fall asleep upright in their seats barely leaning back and I tell you I don't know how they did it. Leaning back gave me a crick in my neck. Leaning against the window gave me a crick. Curling forwards put my arms to sleep. Pulling my legs up put my feet to sleep. Nothing I did allowed me to sleep for more than two hours at a time, so to say my slumber that night was disjointed and erratic is to put it mildly.

I was still pleased enough to take a picture of my ratty, haven't-had-a-shower-in-almost-a-day-now self.

I also found out the hard way that there was just enough wool in my sweater to make me itch after I'd been wearing it for over twelve hours.

At least I was fed well and had entertainment, so when we landed in Frankfurt, I was tired and a little disoriented and sick of sitting, but not strained to the point of irritability. I successfully navigated this new airport, my third in twenty-four hours, and made it to the gate of my last flight.

In both Frankfurt and Paris's airports, everything was in both the local language and English. However, what I noticed was that even though German and French were both foreign languages to me, the fact that everything was still written in the Roman alphabet was comforting beyond belief. I've been awash in a sea of a language that I cannot hope to work out phonetically based on the writing, and while German and French can both be tricky if you have no experience (as far as I can tell, French likes to ignore vowels and consonants at whim), but at least with these I could make a stab at it. Also, all the food was Western, and I hadn't realized how much I'd missed it until then.

Moving on, though. I survived my flight out of Frankfurt and landed in Charles de Galle International Airport in France. I was temporarily freaked out about using the train system to meet my family, although fortunately Charles de Galle airport believes in free wifi and my family was able to tell me which ticket to ask for. So I bought my ticket, found the train, and got on.

I was really relieved to see this over the doors, because it looks almost exactly like the MRT-line guides on MRTs in Taipei, and when I looked at the map of the Paris metro system, I thought, "Oh, wait, I understand this, I can do this. Thank god." 

The train ride was long and the weather was cold and I couldn't believe I'd forgotten how cold weather could get. It stuck its sharp fingers between the doors and froze my feet, and thank goodness I was wearing a sweater and had a thick scarf as well or I'd have really been done for. I made it safely to the correct station, however, and my family met me at the gate.

There was a lot of hugging. It was probably one of the best moments of my year, seeing them all again, and it was magical. My mother had come from the States, my youngest sister had come from another area in France, and my other younger sister had come from Spain. Yet there we all were, together in Paris for Christmas. That whole week I was in disbelief that "Christmas with my family in Paris" was actually a chapter of my life.

We all hopped another train and arrived at a station near the apartment we'd rented. The building was cute, the elevator up to our floor was adorably tiny, and the apartment itself was so quaint and French that it made me want to confiscate it and mail it back to myself in Taiwan. If I could have a French apartment in Asia, I would be happy. (Partly because indoor heating.)

That very evening we went to see the Eiffel Tower. I have now been to the Eiffel Tower. I have seen it from a distance, and I stood beneath the massive arches of its legs. The enormity of the Eiffel Tower's size is something you cannot be prepared for. You walk toward it, and you have to keep walking toward it, and if you want a picture of it from beneath the center, you have to walk a very long distance just to get there. I was very thankful for my new camera because pictures with my old one wouldn't have turned out half as clear.

After standing under the Eiffel Tower, we went to a nearby cafe that my sisters and mother had researched previously and heard had good food. We were not disappointed.

We then went home, and after going through our various night routines (which included lots of internetting, the place had wifi), we went to bed.

Stay tuned for the next part of the trip!