Paris, en route to Kyrgyzstan

Last time I was in Paris I was 15. The major differences are as follows:

• It was about a year yet before everyone got on the Euro;
• The modern incarnation of the EU hadn’t manifested yet;
• I wouldn’t learn the name Osama bin Laden for 3 more months so I had yet to master untying ones shoes whilst removing a laptop, finding a passport and queuing;
• I was archiving my experience with the use of a film exposure camera and smart phones were just a twinkle in Steve Jobs’ eye;
• I wasn’t of legal drinking age (although there is some debate as to what would have transpired if wee little Allie had saddled up to a French bar and ordered an aperitif);
• Oh, and I didn’t have a job. Thank you, Mom and Dad.

In retrospect, the technology is a mighty win. To share a photo 12 years ago I printed triplicates of all 15 rolls of film (all with fixed film speeds and no control over my aperture. Blech. Nightmare) and traded with my tour-mates which, I recall, was primarily spent gaffing at what horribly exposed, framed or timed shots we took. Our thumbs were common features in our photography. "Oh and here's my thumb outside the Louvre...and here it is again at Notre Dame..."

By contrast, today, we spent the Metro ride reviewing each other’s phones, applying more flattering filters and trading via email. Boom. Done. Take that, Sun and Physics! Your oppressive reign over my keepsake memories is at an end! Liberté, égalité, fraternité!

Also, phones can do cooler things now. I give you the Queen's Hamlet at Versailles:

I won’t exhaust the list of socio-political “game changers” from the last dozen years. Your top 5 list would likely be the same as mine, but I think we can agree that much has changed. Irrevocably so.

All that said, the things that haven’t changed a bit are either incredibly fabulous, or super interesting if only because they are absolutely the same 12 years later. 

In the last 48 hours I have seen Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower (lit in all its nightly splendor) Montmartre, Versailles and a myriad other famous structures. They are all unchanged.

 Notre Dame still looks very much like it did last round, and there is still not a single hunchback to be found.

The grounds at Versailles are fairly similar, and ridiculously huge. Honestly, who builds things like this anymore?

And Louis is still hanging out in front like he's always been through World Wars, a moon landing and Lady Gaga, head and all. I've learned to forgive the historical inaccuracy.

And this horse is still like "Da fuq?"

While I was going about my own life, for over a decade these things were protected by vast armies of invested and passionate individuals. And I imagine, for an arborist, Versailles has to be, like, THE show. Immaculate. (see right) I imagine the way arborists and landscapers of the world feel about Versailles is how every librarian must feel about the Library of Alexandria. Or how chili mavens feel about the World’s Championship Chili Cookoff (which is next month in Palm Springs. Can we say ‘Road trip’?)

Other noteables are that there is still graffiti on any fixed surface and the Metro is an incredibly comprehensive transit system, although it does not smell like urine any more. I suppose nothing gold can stay….sigh.

For my part, I still want dates on everything. It is exhausting and frustrating to walk around looking at beautiful old things and be unable to place them in history. When I first landed and had gotten on the Metro, it didn’t feel much like I’d crossed an ocean. But then the age of things begins to creep up on me and I realize I am surrounded, everywhere, by things that predate my own constitution.  Like what is this clock about? (above) What events had to transpire to culminate in putting a giant gilded clock on a random wall in the First District? And who was it that looked at this wall and said to themselves "You know what this wall needs? A big ass clock"?

And this gate at Versailles. This thing is crazy and has more overt and seemingly competing symbolism on it than the walls of a freshman dorm, and yet beyond the fluer de lis, I don't know what any of it means.

I need a permanent historian. This is not a new impulse. I need a historian and a geologist to travel with me everywhere. I always have far too many questions that go painfully unanswered.

Like, for example:

 What is that tiny temple structure in the middle of the Seine? It looks pretty dang important and yet, I am sans info.

And why is this Zues statue looking so darn pimp?

And that dragon beast and his mer-friends are awesome and would be epic in a water battle. But I have no idea why they're in a water feature at Versailles. 

  Or why this fish-monster is so angry with me...

But at least I'm still curious, which I think is a good sign. My personal travel deity and future best friend, Anthony Bourdain, says “all good travelers are relentlessly curious without fear or prejudice.” And when he calls me up to personally ask me to be his travel sidekick (shuttup! It’s happening!) it'll be because I wonder about the temple, the big ass clock and the angry fish-monster.

Talk to you again from Kyrgyzstan