Now that I've been here for a couple of days, I can claim a certain understanding of how Paris feels. There are two salient points: Paris is huge, and Paris is beautiful.

To an American, these points seem contradictory. Huge things may be awe-inspiring, they may be wonderful feats of engineering, they may be testaments to efficient capitalism, but they are not beautiful. Beauty comes from exquisite attention to detail, the laborious arrangement of each part in relation to the whole. What we're used to is either a mess made of the details— the dirty or distasteful— or a trivial order as in the modern skyscraper. The beauty of Paris is one of no shortcuts. And the result of it is that here there is a coexistence of bustle and sensitivity. There is always room to pause, ponder, and rest in the awe and comfort of fine civilization, before you have to take your life in your hands by trying to actually cross the street.

By the way, are any of you readers in Paris? I need some dinner companions. Come on, don't be shy. My treat.

I never fancied myself a devout Jew, but I still didn't anticipate that entering the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris would nearly convert me to Catholicism that very instant. Seriously, I actually thought about entering a confession booth and telling the preist that I had clearly made a mistake early on and really belonged in this church.

Seeing Notre Dame is not like seeing other cathedrals. I've seen a few— the one in Uppsala, Sweden being perhaps the grandest— but Notre Dame blows them all away. First, it is in Paris. Because of this, your aesthetic senses are already aroused before you begin your approach. And you will approach gradually: you begin by seeing its spires over the neighboring buildings and river. Then you start to follow the curves and points of its elaborate ironwork. You enter an adjacent park, where a central fountain is flanked by dozens of benches, each row shaded by a line of trees whose canopies have been trimmed flat on six sides that meet at right angles.

At this point, you will spend several minutes attempting to reconcile the fact that Notre Dame's flying buttresses are just big ass stone supports for big ass stone walls with their incredibe aesthetic effect. You might walk around to the front, where a statue of Charlemagne on his horse will distract you momentarily. And then you'll stare at the doorways. In each of these doorway arches there is more art than the average person will meaningfully take in within twenty years.

But this is all just window dressing for the interior. Outside it is all roughly grey; inside the stained glass streams color richer than Poussin's draperies.

These days, it's easy to avoid being religious, because we see so few miracles. Science and literacy and communication and art have become so ubiquitous outside political circles, that we are hardly touched or shocked by anything. Past a certain age, we've all seen the photographs, read the stories, and heard the music from Bach to Biggie. But long ago, our destinies were not thought to be so much within our comprehension, let alone within our control. To stand in Notre Dame, with its dozen alcove chapels and statues and paintings and carved stone and confessionals and 300-foot vaulted ceilings and, my god, two rose windows that actually literally gave me goosebumps— well, then you start to believe in miracles.

I can only imagine how it would have affected one in the 13th century.

It's my first night in Paris. Ever.

I'm rather tired from travelling, but I'm still very excited to be here. I'm staying with some family in their apartment near the Bastille, which enables the visit to remind me that both my French and my Russian are in tragic disrepair.

After meeting my uncle (technically, my dad's cousin, but they were very close) at the Gare de l'Est train station and taking a shower at his place, we went out for Sushi. Then we took a little walk around the neighborhood and returned home for tea.

But the highlight of the evening was a car ride around Paris. We drove along Place de la Concorde and Trocadero (rue? place? j'ai oublie), stopped briefly by the Eiffel tower, passed the amazingly vast Louvre… it was too much to take in on my first night and after travelling all day, but it was still pretty amazing.

One thing I can definitely take away: Paris driving is insane. It makes Boston driving look like steering a shopping cart through a yuppie supermarket. Paris highlights its hugeness with swarms of people much more than I had expected, and many of these people are driving cars or (more crazily) motorcycles. Thanks to Zurich's walkability, I haven't been in a car in about a week, which is very rare for me; the ride, though fun, didn't exactly give me the best taste of what I was missing.

Personal Service Annoucement – What should I do in Paris?
Readers, if you have any suggestions for what I should do as long as I'm in Paris, send them my way. My favorite suggestion will win something cool and French.