Different perspectives

I’ve often wondered, while exploring one foreign city or another, how the locals see their hometown. Do Londoners ever stop to admire The Palace of Westminster? Do Parisians ever go up La Tour Eiffel and enjoy the view? Do Barcelonans ever stop while running errands and admire the architectural masterpieces scattered all over the city?

On my trip to Barcelona a couple of days ago, while sitting on the wall of Castell de Montjuïc and admiring the panoramic view, I caught myself wondering how many times I visited Ljubljana castle. How many times I cared to go up there to enjoy the view? If I remember correctly, the last time was a couple years ago when my friend from the Netherlands was here and I was one of his local ‘tourist guides’. A couple of days later, when we came back from Barcelona, we went straight  to the centre of Ljubljana and I found myself standing in the middle of Kongresni trg, admiring the architecture of a building across the street and thinking ‘What is this’. After seeing the bell tower I realized it’s a church and, to be honest, I was quite disappointed with myself for not noticing the beauty of the city I’m living in.

After thorough consideration I came to the conclusion that locals and tourists see the same city from two completely different perspectives; in fact, they may not even see the same city but two entirely different ones. A tourist goes to a city which is, in some way, appealing to him; he buys a tourist guide or googles the facts about the city, reads about its history and decides which landmarks he wants to see. A local, on the other hand, takes that same landmarks for granted, his local history doesn’t seem so very incredible to him.

I still hope though, that Londoners stop in front of The Palace of Westminster from time to time, that Parisians go up La Tour Eiffel at least once in their life and I hope that Barcelonans are at least aware of the fact that they are lucky to be living in such an architecturally diverse city. 

Road trip pt. 4 - Paris

Paris is pretty big, did you know that? It took us more than an hour to find our hotel which was in a suburban area of Paris, called Maisons-Laffitte. We arrived late in the afternoon so we took a walk through Maisons-Laffitte and we instantly fell in love with the town. You should see it, it’s wonderful.

The next day we went to Paris. Of course we went to see the Eiffel first but it wasn’t as romantic and lovely as I imagined it would be. When we came there it started to rain and we waited under some trees until it stopped. Then we figured out we should come back some other day when the weather would be nicer because we didn’t want to go to the top in cloudy weather.

Me in front of the Eiffel tower.

We went to see Hôtel des Invalides but on the way there it started to rain and when we got there we were pretty drenched so we decided to go back to the hotel and change our clothes. But we couldn’t find the metro station and in the middle of searching for the damn station it started to rain very heavily. I have never seen it rain so much in my life. When we finally found the metro station we were completely wet, even down to our underwear. You can imagine the pity looks from the people around.

In front of the Hôtel des Invalides (you can see that my hair is wet)

We went back to the hotel and changed our clothes and Mr. Starlight dried his shoes with a hairdryer (yes, he had a lot of water in his shoes). After an hour or two the weather had gotten better and the sun started to shine so we decided to go back and see Arc de Triomphe and walk through the Avenue des Champs-Élysées. On the way back to the hotel we stopped at La Défense and were totally amazed by La Grande Arche.

Arc de Triomphe 

The view of La Grande Arche from Arc de Triomphe 

Me in front of La Grande Arche

 Me standing in the middle of Avenue des Champs-Élysées looking weird because I saw an Aston Martin (which is my favourite car) standing behind Mr. Starlight

The next day we saw The Panthéon, which is one of my favourite buildings in Paris, it’s beautiful.

Me in front of The Panthéon

We also went to Hôtel des Invalides – this time we weren’t all wet so we spent a wonderful afternoon in one of the most amazing buildings I have ever seen.

Hôtel des Invalides

On the third day we went to the Catacombes de Paris which I regret, because we queued for almost three hours (!!!!) and the catacombs weren’t anything special at all. That’s the only thing I regret about our road trip – seeing the catacombs.

And after the disappointing catacombs we finally went up on the Eiffel tower. It was great! I can’t describe the feeling you have to go up for yourself and experience it.

 Me on the Eiffel tower

The view of Hôtel des Invalides from the Eiffel tower

After an amazing experience on the Eiffel tower we went to the other side of Paris to see Basilique du Sacré-Cœur but some guy in front of the Basilique totally ruined it for us, because he was singing Bob Marley songs and he really really sucked at it.

Basilique du Sacré-Cœur 

I believe that you know from the look on my face what I thought about the singing-guy

The last day (yep it was already time to hit the road again) we went to Versailles. 

The Versailles gardens

The Versailles

Rain

I’m a very moody person and bad weather makes me cranky and sulky. I love the sun and it gives me lots of energy. I’m like a plant which needs sun for growing (though, sadly, I don’t grow anymore). I would say I’m also a summer person since I love hot weather and above 30°C for me is just right.

Today it was raining and I was so freaking happy I didn’t have to leave the apartment. I hate going out in the rain because somehow I always end up being wet.

In high school I always came to class wet up to my knees and I’m still wondering how that happened. It’s a total mystery. It would be ok if this would have happened on rare occasions when I had my crazy moment and I would jump in every puddle I saw but no, this happened every time it rained. That was the reason why I often pretended to be sick on rainy days back in high school so I could stay at home. Luckily, i don't get drenched that often anymore. That’s why I think the reason for always getting wet was that I was wearing bell pants that were way to long, but I’m not sure about that.

It also happens all the time (this actually still happens!!!) that I have one wet shoulder because my umbrella is a small cheap piece of shit. I don’t buy expensive umbrellas because I always leave them somewhere, that’s why I had about a thousand different umbrellas in my life.

But I would love to have a huge colourful umbrella like the one on the picture for two reasons. First, I wouldn’t have wet shoulders if it was big enough. And second, it would make my day less grey and would make me happier. But I want an umbrella that folds, it’s much more practical. 

And the most annoying thing about rain is that sometimes it starts to rain in the middle of the day despite the sunny morning. This happened to me this summer in Paris. The morning was beautiful and sunny so we didn’t take the umbrella with us when we left the hotel. I expected a wonderful first day in Paris but when we came to the Eiffel tower it started to rain so we waited under the trees until it stopped and decided that we’ll go on the tower another day and we went to the Hotel des invalides. Somewhere on the way it started to rain and when we came there we were pretty much wet so we decided to go back to the hotel and change our clothes. But we couldn’t find the metro station and in the middle of searching for the damn station it started to rain very heavily. It never rained so heavily in my entire life. When we finally found the metro station we were completely wet, even down to our underwear. I had to wring my hair and it was like I would just come out of the shower. I felt like a cat thrown into the water. And I looked like one too.

I really hate rain…