Dragging two suitcases out of the Gare du Nord, I searched for the taxi rank and was faced by nothing that could be accurately described as a queue. Priority seemed to go to whoever was in the biggest rush or had the most outraged older relative. Taxi drivers showed little of the camaraderie often seen in London in their rush for a fare. I wasn’t in Kansas any more.
I was directed to a taxi after waiting patiently for some time. Luckily people-watching is one of my favourite pastimes, and Paris is its home. Moments after pulling away the driver began to talk on his phone. Not long after I was jolted forward in my seat as he slammed on the brakes avoiding a careless pedestrian. “The next one who does that, I will crush them,” he growled down the phone. A staccato journey towards the Seine brought me eventually to where I would be living for the next three months.
Now, almost at the end of my term abroad, I feel in a position to comment on this city. First of all, it has to be said that Paris is beyond fantastic. It is one of the greatest cities in the world; few would argue with that. But it is the things that you notice over a period of time that really stick with you and make it what it is. Things that I do not believe you would perceive in any other place in the world, and which greatly influence the way it makes you feel. Two hours is all it takes to get here from London via the Channel Tunnel. It is something that is easy to forget given the scale and depth of the differences between the two cities.
In Paris it is impossible not to feel like a visitor, as if you are merely passing through. I suppose the obvious history on display in York has a similar effect, although here you feel its unrelenting pull even at university. It is always obvious that everything you are seeing has been there for a long time and will remain the same long after you are gone. The contrast with London is stark. In the English capital I feel as though, despite its enormity, there is the faint possibility of leaving some kind of indelible mark.
This is what could be described as the inward manifestation of Paris’s very nature. In my opinion, the most noticeable thing about Paris aesthetically is that it is all the same height. Obvious exceptions such as the Eiffel tower only prove this when you see the view from them. All the buildings are at the same level, like a sort of impenetrable blanket. The same is true from street level, the almost identical façades hiding what lies behind and creating the feeling that you will never really get to its heart. This is not helped by the feeling that the people who form the soul of Paris have been here for as long as it is possible or relevant to think about. Whereas age-old family businesses are a charming rarity in London, in Paris they are very much the norm. When a restaurant here boasts to have served a million meals, it is hard to imagine ever being part of the history of the city.
Continuing the idea of leaving a mark, think of the blue plaques placed on buildings across Britain. They are often a source of local pride and the buildings which they adorn are fiercely prized and defended. Not so in France. At the end of my street is a crossroads that has existed for upwards of five hundred years. On one corner is a typical nineteenth century block with a barely visible panel of matching stone between the second floor windows. On it is inscribed a rather surprising piece of information: that Molière lived there with his father during his formative years. It seems barely a footnote in history. How strange it is to think that in England, any evidence of his literary cousin Shakespeare is revered to the point of worship.
This may seem like a contradiction of my next assertion: that Paris is, in fact, in thrall to the past and resistant to change. I have alluded to it before and I must now qualify this statement by noting that it was not always this way. The architectural uniformity of Paris is largely a product of the mid-nineteenth century. Baron Georges-Eugene Haussmann was tasked by Emperor Napoleon III with renovating his capital. The homogeneous mass of boulevards is his creation, and Paris has retained almost completely the configuration and aesthetic chosen by Haussmann since 1870. It is the relative lack of recent development in the heart of Paris that gives it its distinctive feel.
The best description of Paris I have heard likened it to a huge museum. I heard this from an Englishman who has lived here for fifteen years, and from him it sounded like a lament. He compared it to the constant regeneration of London and the excitement felt because of it. In fact, I think it is something that is positively fantastic. The near-identical blocks that make up Paris form the backdrop for a perfectly and spectacularly constructed museum. To certain extent you can walk around Paris and predict what it will look like and even what people will be doing when you round the next corner. The familiar portrait of yellowed stone, beggars, chic women and men in double denim is very common. But Paris can always spring a surprise. The Place des Voges opens up like a stage amidst the streets and there is, of course, the occasional view of the Eiffel tower framed between gaps in buildings. On the corner of my road is a building over a hundred years older than those that surround it, a remnant of royal France. It now houses an arts collective.
It is certainly not as eclectic as London, though there are modern touches such as the Pompidou centre. Another recent development is the Nuit Blanche, or white night, on which the population of Paris takes to the streets for avant-garde installations and performances. However, both of these are arguably dependent on their backdrop and the ever-present history of the city. The best bit of the Pompidou centre just might be the view it offers from its rooftop bar, and the locations of all the acts on the Nuit Blanche are carefully chosen to show of all that Paris has to offer.
It is this combination of the predictable and the unexpected that makes Paris such a delight. The man who likened it to a museum seems to have had no problems whatsoever whiling away fifteen years here, and I can see why. Its impenetrable nature makes it necessary to sit back and enjoy the passage of the days. As I said at the start, it is spiritually a world away from London, but I will always be thankful that it is a world that can be reached in a couple of hours. Paris may be a museum but it is alive enough to remain a great city. Vive la difference.