The Tourist Gaze Part One

June 1^st : The Tourist Gaze Part One

Living in a foreign country makes even the most mundane occurrences new and exciting.

Thinking we only had a few moments before the train departed, we rushed through the subway doors, pushing past a couple of disgruntled Canadians who cursed us for running over their toes with our luggage; we nearly tripped over a man and woman protectively crouching around three dogs wrapped in blankets. Stepping gingerly over the agitated dogs, I searched wildly for an open seat and squeezed between a large suitcase and the train window. The other American students with me had scrambled onto the train, only to find that it was not about to leave but had been sitting in the station some 45 minutes. The car was dusky and stale. The people looked at us with indifference, and the air was heavy with the hushed whispering and the panting of the dogs. The heat was a shock to my body. Only a week before I had been in chilly, windy, rainy Chicago.

Now I was with some two dozen American students headed to Tunis, Tunisia to study Arabic for the summer. That morning – or was it the morning before? - our flight in Washington D.C. was delayed over two hours, so we had missed our connection in Paris. This gave us a 12 hour layover in Paris. Though exhausted and sleep-deprived, our hearts leapt at the chance to explore the city. We spent the next couple hours frustrated and carting our luggage around the airport trying to figure out how to get from the terminal to the trains to the city. After some minutes, the train doors closed and we lurched forward into the darkness of the subway tunnel. Just as suddenly, we shot out of the tunnel, into the white hot daylight. The crumbling outskirts of the city streamed past: broken tenement buildings, and waves of colorful graffiti rising and falling along the track walls. Then darkness again; then into the light. The sunlight hitting the metal track looked like mercury, climbing higher and higher as the train plunged forward through the countryside. Another train passed in the opposite direction, rocking our train. The train sped along gently and the conversation buzzed pleasantly. I was being lulled to sleep.

In the sunlight on the window glass, I caught a glimpse of my reflection. So this is the tourist gaze, I thought: Seeing one’s own querying expression reflected in train, car, taxi, and bus windows; the sensation of seeing oneself; one’s own gaze suddenly looking back. Millions of people travel by public transportation every day, most from necessity, yet being on the train in France was something serendipitous, mysterious.

When we reached our stop, we pushed off the train and into a damp, crowded tunnel, up some stairs and into the blinding daylight. The first thing I saw as I emerged from the tunnel was a café; then we stood stupidly in the middle of the sidewalk. Frankly, I felt I had surfaced in a Hollywood backlot; this couldn’t be real. And then we turned to the right and there was Notre Dame. Had I been planning this trip, maybe it would have felt more real. Had I slept more the previous week, maybe it would have felt real, less dreamlike. We moved as in a dream, hesitantly, gazing around us. Because we only had a few hours, most of us planned to follow the Seine River from the Cathedral to the Eiffel Tower, which turned out to be a longer walk than we expected. Along the way, I kept thinking about all the history of the place.

A café or two later, a friend and I stretched out on the lawn beside the Eiffel Tower, basking in the sunlight. The weather was as perfect as you can imagine. Near us a group of French-speaking people reclined on blankets, with a spread of wine and cheese before them. I lay on the earth, enjoying the still, blue expanse above. Tunis can wait until tomorrow, I thought.

Looking up at Notre Dame.


Reading by the Tower.


One for the calendar.