This Friday I decided to leave behind the comfortability of London and head for a brand new urban environment: Paris. While I did spend most of my Friday in trains and airports, I did get the opportunity to explore the city a bit at night and was instantly amazed at just how different it was from London. One of the first things that shocked me was that the metro operated on these paper tickets which had to be read by some kind of scanner while entering and exiting the station. I found this system quite annoying as we were constantly running out as they are only good for one ride and on top of that they are completely useless when they make contact with the magnets of your cellphone. I also noticed just how things were relatively far from each other, and with a metro that is not only slow but also difficult to access, public transportation became my worst enemy. I can’t imagine how it is for other tourists. This made me question whether Paris was in a way combating tourism through these outdated practices. Although it might in fact be making the people of Paris more money due to last minute taxi or uber rides for frustrated tourists. Another thing I noticed about the city of paris is the amount of street vendors selling souvenirs everywhere there are tourists. I also noticed that these vendors would kind of scoop their merchandise up as soon as they saw police or other officials passing by. I am not entirely sure why they were doing that but the whole ordeal made me wonder why things like that weren’t as common in London. Over the course of the night I started to draw my own conclusions about what makes tourism in London and Paris so different and I think the leg difference has a lot to do with what we’ve been discussing in class. I believe while London actively commits itself to catering to tourists, Paris takes a back seat in situations and let’s the monumental attractions and authentic city life speak for itself. While I do think they work on upkeep in regards to repainting the Eiffel Tower for the upcoming olympic games, they really have no interest in going out of their way to devote funds to modernizing the metro or banning the local vendors to put in their own souvenir shops. I would actually be curious to learn where, if they’re not spending it on tourism, are allocating there governments funds? Maybe they have fantastic poverty or homelessness assistance or maybe they have other projects they’re working on. Either way, no matter how difficult the metro might be or how unfriendly the city is to travelers, that in itself draws people in as it seems less centered around capitalism and more about realistically experiencing the beautiful city of paris, something I really enjoyed. My visit was short but mostly sweet and I hope to make it back there soon!
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