July 4-6, 2003

The girl next to me on my flight to Paris looked like a model, all self-assurance and perfect makeup and hair she could � and did � toss with abandon. Which made it all the more intriguing to me that she clutched a worn old teddy bear to her lap through the entire flight.

My plane from London landed at 9:50 p.m. Knowing that after my travel odyssey I'd be tired and in need of a good shower and some privacy, I had booked a room at a small hotel run by the Comfort Inn company � a corporate name I figured I could probably trust for bare-bones accommodations, yet known enough that sending an angry letter would be simple if such an act were required.

Ah, but first I had to get there, and Charles De Gaulle airport made me wait as long as it could. We waited forever to get a gate, causing my model friend to pick impatiently at her poor stuffed companion's ears. Then, the bags were an hour late getting to the carousel, which the airline ascribed rather cheerfully to a sudden lack of luggage carts (despite the blatant absence of other flights landing in this terminal). But the oddest thing happened once they did finally arrive: A small, fairly pushy Asian woman muscled her way to the space next to me and proceeded to check the luggage tag on every single bag that passed her. She did it swiftly and sloppily, grabbing the suitcases, checking the tag, and tossing them roughly back onto the carousel. She also did this without an apparent eye for detail, as every bag looked different, yet every single bag was subject to her scrutiny.

Did she not recognize her suitcases? Is she a short-term memory loss case whose only hope was to find the bag that had her name on it? But then how would she know how many to take? It was weird. Red bags, green ones, knapsacks, giant Samsonites, cardboard boxes wrapped in packing tape and rife with Sharpie graffiti � every single one, she pawed and clawed until she confirmed that it didn't somehow belong to her.

We all swapped confused looks as we watched her travails. At one point, she reached for the bag belonging to an American girl standing a few people away from me "That's not yours," she blurted uncomfortably when she saw the woman reach for it. Then she blushed and looked around at us quizzically, as if she'd said too much. The woman ignored her, fondled the bag tag, and let it pass.

The hotel room was wee: A box with two beds, an adjacent bathroom just big enough for the shower, toilet, and sink, and a television set that only seemed to get France's version of the Home Shopping Network. I turned it on just for the comfort of noise, and poked around the beds and bathroom. Clean. Good. After curling up and scribbling in my journal for an hour, I climbed into bed and fell asleep gratefully.

I didn't stay asleep. At 5:30 a.m., I somehow turned restless. I woke up, rolled around, and couldn't slip back into any kind of REM cycle. Thoughts floated through my head without reason or logical flow. And then I further ruined it when somehow I began thinking about Alias, and forgot the name of Bradley Cooper's character. That was the end for me. No matter how hard I tried to fall asleep and not care what the hell he was called, I couldn't. Nor could I remember for the life of me what the damn name was. I tossed around, squeezing my eyes shut, muttering to myself that I should just fall asleep so it would be 8 a.m soon and my alarm would go off and I could look up the answer at an Internet caf� to sate my loud and forgetful mind. Nothing worked until, at 6:15, exhausted and annoyed, I desperately scrolled through the alphabet in search of a familiar letter.

Damn him for having a name that starts at the end of the sequence. When I finally did hit "W" it was with enormous relief and recognition that I sighed, "WILL! Will Tippin!"

The rest of the night, I slept like a baby.

My first view of Paris was of a litter-strewn street between my hotel and the Gare du l'Est � not, perhaps, the most romantic thing to see on the sunny dawn of a big vacation in Europe's most famous city.

The task at hand was to find a youth hostel. Lonely Planet's Western Europe guide identified a few that were popular, and I chose one called Y&H Hostel that was located on the fringe of the city's Latin Quarter, had a nearby Metro station, and promised friendly staff and not-too-crowded rooms.

Hence my trek to Gare du l'Est, one of the city's major train stations that also boasted the very pink Metro line that passed through my destination, Place Monge. As I strolled, I was struck by how mundane a neighborhood I was in � the 10th Arrondisment, or district, neither central Paris nor a trendy outpost. I had chosen it for convenience to the airport, and that's about all it boasted. The buildings lacked the specialness of most Paris edifices, and the streets seemed as littered as any I'd seen. My backpack particularly appreciated being wheeled (look, no judgment � you'd have wheeled it, too) through suspicious puddles, bird crap, and rolling hills made of cigarette butts. It's a little depressing that Parisians aren't taking better care of their city, but it's sort of reassuring to know that even a city so often labeled the world's most beautiful, the gem of the continent, has its ugly side. We haven't cornered the market on slobs.

The "Y&H" in my hostel name turned out to stand for "Young & Happy," which is completely appropriate. Located on a bustling little street off Place Monge with bars and restaurants and the all-important creperie, the hostel was all narrow blue staircases and slim orange doors, opening into four-bunk rooms that were surprisingly spacious. Downstairs, the check-in desk doubled as a bar that sold cider, beer, and wine at cheaper prices than the nearby establishments � meaning that as people came and went in the evening, they naturally congregated at the tables there. Groups were formed, plans were made.

Mine started with my roommate Gemma, an Australian from Melbourne who was preparing for a semester in Lyons, and then a guy called Brian who goes to school in New York. Then two more Aussies gravitated toward our table, and that's when I first realized that a very basic truth in this world is: Australian male backpackers are HOT.

Daniel had tan skin and bleached hair, and used to ride Motocross until he blew out his knee. Now he runs his own shop in Melbourne. He was gregarious and funny, and approached us first. Later he drew in his best friend, Pavel, so named because his mother is Czech. Now, Pavel is more than good-looking. He is an Adonis. His smooth brown hair fell into his eyes, which were a clear, deep blue, and his smile was gleaming white. When he stood up to join us, Gemma and I swapped giggly, girly glances, because he had gorgeous arms and a really broad chest. Basically, he was physically perfect, he spoke fluent Czech � which is surprisingly sexy � and was as charming as could be, if a little more reticent than Daniel.

We tacked on an Austrian girl named Jasmine, who lives in Pasadena now, and we hit a couple bars, guzzling drinks and working up a really pleasant buzz to kill time until hitting the Eiffel Tower.

Paris' most emblematic landmark is a curious thing. During the day, it seems almost plain, a dull metallic pile that's not so much beautiful as striking � it's tall, it's familiar, it's intriguing in shape, but it's undeniably mundane. But nighttime transforms the Eiffel Tower. It lights up top-to-toe, a glowing golden beacon that's breathtaking to behold and borders on being a heavenly object. To put it in highly inappropriate and juvenile food terms, by night the Eiffel Tower is the sugary side of the frosted mini-wheat.

We crossed under the tower to the lawn that stretches before it. Vendors move between clusters of people hawking beers and bottles of wine, one of which Pavel purchased after haggling the man down to five euros. We chose our patch of grass and sat back to await the newly started light show, which Gemma cautiously warned us was more of a light glow than a spectacular display.

Promptly at midnight, the tower started sparkling. Tiny blue lights, almost like Christmas bulbs, blinked at variable speeds so that the already-gleaming tower twinkled against the night sky. It was totally understated and totally perfect, and as we swigged wine from the bottle and relaxed against the grass, we all agreed it was a damn near perfect night.

My first day in Paris, I was really eager to get into the walking. I love subways, but my favorite part of traveling is doing new cities by foot, getting to understand how they fit together and familiarizing myself with their look and feel and smell � all the things that you carry with you later and make you feel like somehow, you own a small piece of a place.

I started by The Louvre and strolled through the arch and the park toward the Champs-Elysees. When that dead-ended into L'Arc Du Triomphe, I decided to climb the 284 steps to the top of the famed arch and ogle the panoramic views of Paris. Twelve streets spike out from L'Arc, making being up there a pretty incredible feeling of being in the center of everything.

God, it's a beautiful city. There's just something about its buildings � almost all of them seem like art, little bits of craftsmanship with pleasant balconies. All of Europe's like that, really, just with slightly different little touches here and there that make each city stand apart. My eye's not trained enough to tell exactly what that is, except that every building seems to know it's part of a near-perfect whole. The city seems proud of itself but not soaked in arrogance. It knows how to flaunt what it's got without letting it get to its head.

It's intimidating, at first, but after two nights and two days in Paris, I felt part of it. The walking helped � on day two, I did Musee d'Orsay, Montmartre, with Sacre Coeur and the Moulin Rouge, and then Notre Dame and a stroll along the Seine � but it's also just such an easy city to grow to love. It's cosmopolitan and sprawling, but with a quaint feel.

On my second night, I dined at a silly little steak-and-frites restaurant near the food market Les Halles. Armed with my journal and an issue of The New Yorker, I opted to go it alone � all of our group except for Brian and Jasmine had departed, and I wouldn't have wanted to drag anyone else to this place, as I couldn't vouch for its food. The only reason I even went was because of a cute little piece of symmetry I only remembered when I unexpectedly stumbled on this place: When I was thirteen, I ate my birthday dinner there. So on this night, about as close to the thirteenth anniversary of my thirteenth birthday as I was going to get, I couldn't very well not eat cheap steak and frites at this silly neon establishment. If nothing else, I knew my mother would giggle delightedly at the concept (and, indeed, when I later told her, she did just that).

A steak, fruit-and-chocolate plate, and half-bottle of wine later, I sat and luxuriated in my content buzz, staring at the scenery and listening to the faint strains of an open-air concert coming to a close. It was a gorgeous night in Paris, the sun just starting to set and the air sweet with flowers and violins. Couples were wandering in and out of the gardens, which hugged a large, lovely church. A breeze ruffled the leaves. It felt peaceful, and for a second, I wished I had someone sitting across from me.

That's just what these cities do to you, though. They spoil you with their beauty and make you want to have someone there to marvel with you at everything you see. Still, in a sense, it was better to have it all to myself � I could stroll slowly back to the Metro station, down part of the Rue de Rivoli, weaving through a few side streets, ogling the mix of bright commerce with pretty, quiet alleys and their cute apartments. I could stop and stare and cook up my own little fantasies of living in the cream building with reddish detail and the wrought-iron balcony whose windowboxes frothed with color.

I hated to leave. Two days and nights in Paris isn't enough � yet paradoxically, it also manages to be the perfect length of time. Paris is the type of city I want to know well, but not all at once. When you really get familiar with a place, sometimes you stop seeing its mystique. You get too accustomed to it and, while you're not paying attention, it becomes almost... regular. Not in a bad way, but just enough that the stars leave your eyes and then yen to explore and own it fades little by little.

Living in Paris would be wonderful. But I'm not sure I could ever actually do it, for the simple reason that I don�t ever want this city to lose its sheen. In my mind, it's all romance and beauty and the grace of a foreign language that's among the world's most musical. On this trip, I claimed part of it for myself, but only a miniscule one, because I plan to return countless times � and each time, I want that mystique there, that feeling that there's still a corner I haven't rounded, a hill I haven't scaled, a view I haven't seen.

I wasn't worried about getting back � in addition to being a wonderful city, it's blessed with being relatively accessible, unlike some of the other gems that are tucked away deeper in the continent (Prague and Budapest, to name merely two). But at the same time, I felt a pang at leaving so soon.

So it was with both sadness and total satisfaction that I set off on the third morning and caught a train to Belgium. I'd fallen for Paris again, as predicted, but hadn't so immersed myself in it as to dilute my yen to return.

Someone got here by searching for: man with no hair penis Drinking:Two bottles of wine with Lauren, because that's sometimes how we handle things in this apartment Eating: Pop Tarts. Yeah, I know. But they're good, and they sop up a lot of the booze when you need them to � and Lauren totally did, what with having a job to go to and everything.