The Man of Bastille

"History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies."
- Alexis de Tocqueville

Traveling from Pamplona by train may have been the most scenic passage in all of Spain, but if it was I have no clue. All the way back to Madrid, Chris and I slept like stones. The long night of being awake left us needed a long day of being asleep, and thankfully our insightful trip planning lent itself to such. For we arrived in Madrid at one station (Atocha) and then took the Metro to a more Northerly station (Chamartin) where we then camped out for a few hours and waited to leave on a sleeper train to Paris. Sleep was the order of business, and our overnight train was designed to accommodate. Our cabin contained four seats that, upon request, were folded away making room for couchettes to be let down. Chris and I were joined by a quiet Frenchman named Pierre and a Mexican on holiday whose name I have forgotten. However, he was infinitely useful in dealing with our train attendant, who spoke in the most rapid-fire Spanish that without a go between, he and I would have not been able to communicate.

Once again, I am sure the views of the Pyrenees and what-have-you were spectacular, but the inside of my eyelids was of far more intrigue to me at the time. I did manage to catch a glimpse of the rocky, cattle field area around Valladolid, and it was quite peculiar. I finally awoke in the morning when our motorboat mouthed attendant came to return our passports and tickets, and I glimpsed the pastoral countryside of France leading into the Gare D'Austerlitz in gay Paris--on the national holiday of Bastille Day.

Stepping out of the train station into Paris was a strange, welcoming feeling. We emerged right out onto the Left Bank of the Seine and were struck by the gorgeous view of the city with the sun just rising above the rooftops. Paris was nothing if not a sight. We did not have far to go from our train station to the hostel, but when we arrived at the Hotel du Commerce, there was no one at the reception. After waiting for fifteen or so minutes, a middle-aged French woman came tottling in with an armful of flowers she had obviously just picked up from the market. A polite French/English mix conversation began and I learned that our room were not ready yet for another hour.

Not wishing to waste any time, Chris and I dropped our bags and walked down the street to visit Notre Dame Cathedral. The place was already crawling with tour groups in all manner of languages, but we managed to get a good look around, outside and inside. The most striking thing about Notre Dame, other than its architecture, size, and flying buttresses, is the stunning hypocrisy of the Catholic church that is still on full display. Visiting Notre Dame, one is immediately reminded of the precise reasons for the Reformation. Case in point: as you enter the cathedral you are asked to kindly remove you hat, as a gesture of respect and piety (which makes sense), but you are then immediately presented with literally hundreds of ways to spend money inside the church. From purchasing candles to light, to twenty euro DVDs, to a machine where you inside a euro coin and an image is smashed onto it. As Chris pointed out, "I'm pretty sure this is why Jesus turned the tables over in the temple."

By the time we finished up with Notre Dame, we had killed the needed hour, so we walked back to the hostel. As we did, the military parade on the Champs Elysee must have just started because jet fly-overs began. The first three jets zipped by leaving three lines of red, white, and blue smoke (for the flag) hanging in the sky. I was a bit upset that we were missing the parade, but it was all the way across town.

We got checked in no problem, our rooms looking like the quaint sort that I expected from France with doors (we had two, single bed rooms) that opened out into a small, outdoor lane inside the building. Settled, we made for the Rive Droite and the sights of the Louvre and Touilleries (the art museum was closed, but we wouldn't have gone in anyway) and made out way towards the Arc de Triomphe. The sun was out the whole time, and everything was strikingly beautiful. There were Parisians and Tourists everywhere--it being the big holiday--and the whole city had a celebratory atmosphere. There was a carnival on in the middle of the mall that leads up to the Champs Elysee, but the attraction that garnered our interest was the mob of protesters that the police had fully encircled. Some fifty or more Gendarmes had wrangled a group of people in clown make-up and masks and were slowly moving them towards police buses. We have no idea what they were protesting, or why they were being arrested, but it certainly was an entertaining sight.

On the Champs, we saw the aftermath of the parade, as part of the street was lined with bleachers and soldiers of all sorts were still milling about. At one point, in a head-turning moment, we passed two German soldiers, in full uniform, walking side by side down the street.
Flags were everywhere to include an enormous flag hanging under the Arc de Triomphe, just above the grave of the unknown soldier. France was very proud of herself that day.

Having walked nearly the width of the city, after the Arc de Triomphe, we decided to duck into a theatre on the Champs Elysee to rest and catch a film. We found an American movie in English with French subtitles, and went for it. The film was called Jeux de Pouvoir ("Power Games") in French, but State of Play in English. It stars Russell Crowe and Ben Affleck, amongst others, and is about political and journalistic intrigue in Washington D.C. It had come out a few months prior in the States, but we had missed it. The film was good (I mean, come on, Russell Crowe) but it was more fun to watch a movie about our capital in the capital of another country, subtitled in their language.

The movie let out around six, and we figured we had better head towards the Eiffel Tower to get good seats on the Champs de Mars for the fireworks display that evening. We had thoughts of going up the tower, but that dream was soon proven foolish as the near vicinity of the tower was entirely blocked off. We joined streams of people as they coursed down the boulevards into the Champs de Mars where we were deposited in the seething, cigarette smoking, wine drinking, baguette eating mass of humanity that had already accumulated in the lee of the tower. Then we played the waiting game.

There was an enormous concert put on, by French pop artists who must be quite popular, but it didn't mean much to either Chris nor I. They played a few American rock songs (some in English, some in French) but for the most part it was just noise. Then, after a few hours, the sun finally set and the tower went dark in preparation. The fireworks display and light show that followed was unbelievable. It lasted for thirty consecutive minutes and blew out enough ordnance to level a small Russian city. The show was worth the wait, to say the least, and I felt validated in our decision to visit Paris on that particular day. A video will surely follow.