Not the most flattering blog ever written about Paris

The first thing I noticed about Paris was....how to put this delicately.....

It's kind of gross.

Now some of my perception could be blamed on the fact that I just came from the Netherlands and the Dutch people are stereotypically clean freaks.  The street sweeping truck passed me multiple times a day in Amsterdam.  I'm pretty sure they employ someone just to go around and find all the gum people spit out during the day.  My view of all cities everywhere has been ruined by the cleanliness of Amsterdam.

But regardless.  Paris...

The dead bird.  Not the only dead bird I saw lying around on the sidewalk covered in flies while in Paris.  Ew.

The bridge.  One of the many places where the smell of urine was overpowering.  Our tour guide actually mentioned the urine smell when we stopped to talk about the bridge.  She had to.  Everyone was covering their faces with their shirts.  It was bad.  And you would be walking along and see a puddle of what you were pretty sure was some bum's urine stream.  But only in the morning because by the time the sun had been up a little while, the water evaporated and you were just left with stink.

My room.  Ok my room wasn't actually gross, just nothing at all like what I expected.  Just like the rest of Paris.  You had to bend over at the waist just to get around the room because it wasn't actually a room.  It was a loft.  A loft without open windows.  During a heat wave.  You couldn't stop sweating even if you were naked.

(And there are no pictures of the most horrible hostel I ever stayed in, which was also in Paris, because that is a blog all of it's own.  It was so bad my roommates and I bonded over the dirtiness and wrote a new Hostel movie.  Or rather it wrote itself.  But again, that's for another time.)

I feel like my whole experience in Paris can be summed up by the picture of the statue.

That statue is actually in the Louvre.

So you're walking along in the Louvre and suddenly you see this mound of old clothes.  And you are kind of disgusted and taken aback.  This is not the sort of thing that should be in the Louvre!!  That beautiful statue!

Then a couple things dawn on you.

1. You don't actually know French, so you can't read why they've added the clothing, but there is probably a good explanation.

2. It doesn't actually ruin the Louvre, even if you hate this piece.  You can just focus on the rest of the ENORMOUS museum.

And just the same: I'm sure there are valid reasons Paris seems so much dirtier than other places, and after a day or so, I didn't notice anymore.  There was so much more to Paris that dead pigeons and "ruined" art.  

(But at least now you all know my future entries about Paris are written without rose colored glasses.)