Paris

I have been hitch hiking from Berlin to Frankfurt to Paris to Barcelona to Paris to Lille to Vienna to Sofia and back home to Rotterdam. Why specifically these cities? Well, because in all of them I had friends which I had not seen for a long time. All my hitch hiking I have done in 1,5 months. About every hike and destination I write a short story on my blog. This time: PARIS!

From: Frankfurt Main (Germany) to Paris (France)
Distance: 572 km (actually was a lot longer, because of detours)
Time: 12 hours

Right, right I know I should have updated you earlier on my second hitch hike (is that the right word for it?) but I have not! Well anyways, better late than never.

City people

My second trip, from Frankfurt to Paris, took me in total about 12 hours. It had been a long ride and it proved to be rather difficult to get a hike out of Frankfurt. After having waited for a good 4 hours (read: that is standing and waiting outside for four bloody hours!), somebody finally decided to stop and gave me a lift. If I remember it right, he was a cop (not that, that is a bad thing of course - but I will come back to that later in my Vienna post). Anyways, that day was not one of my luckiest days hitchhiking...

Bastille with arrow

At the German border I found a fellow nice enough to give me a hike from there right into Paris. Wonderful, although he asked me pretty weird question in the beginning. Things like: "did you have a shower today", "are you dangerous ("No, I am Dutch!" I responded)" or " are those clean clothes?" etc. I guess the poor guy was a bit suspicious, though I managed to gain his confidence with my excellent German language skills ;)

After a long hitch hiking adventure I finally made it to Paris, where I stayed at one of my best friend. "Thanks Anne! *Marijn excuses himself for this short personal note*".

Boy playing the violin on Rue Rivoli

About Paris then. Well what is there to say about Paris, so many things have been said before: beautiful, charming, magical and of course romantic (among a million other good things). However, I tend to differ (like always)! Of course Paris is indeed a great city, I should know because I have lived there for a full year. But not all is shining in the "city of light"...

The thing that is most disturbing is the fact that the city has gotten so expensive (it was already, but is now exorbitantly so).

Some examples:

• 1 hour Internet on Boulevard de Sebastopol (I used to live there) - 6 (!) Euro

• An entrance ticket to see a Picasso (great artist by the way) exhibition - 9,50 (!) Euro

Especially the latter (the art exhibition) I find hard to grasp. Was Picasso not the painter who was known for detesting money and who had said that art should be accessible for everybody?! The guy was a socialist for Abdullah's sake! Personally, I find this pretty sick, however I must have been the only one thinking so as everybody else was queuing up and paying the price.

A second and last point (I do not want to bore everybody), comes forth from the fact that Paris has not been developing as much as other cities in Europe did/ do. "Paris Plage" (for those that don't know it, click here) for example has been left by itself and is now even for tourists not interesting anymore. Moreover, Paris always has the same exhibitions over and over and over again. When will the city open its doors for young promising artists? Oops, I forgot those all left for Berlin, because the rent is so darn high in Europe's pearl.

One of the world's best museums, The Louvre

It sounds like I am ranting, but in fact I love Paris. I just wish that there would be more space for innovation and creativity in France's capital.

Your thoughts...?


Marijn