(A Long Ride to) Paris

Finally time to leave Amsterdam ... and we had already booked train tickets to Paris a few days ago. Unfortunately, prior reservation did not spare us a few hiccups.
Ten minutes before departure at 9:54, with the InterCity train due to depart for Brussels nowhere in sight, a notification appears on the display board at the platform: delay of approximately 30 minutes expected. Okay. No worries ... except according to the schedule we had 32 minutes to change trains in Brussels. With the delay that becomes 2 minutes. Two minutes to run across a dozen platforms with luggage in tow is ... but never mind. Maybe the train will catch up and manage to make up for the delay. So we wait.
Forty minutes later an InterCity train shows up, stops at the other end of the platform full of "Niet Instappen" (Not stopping - do not board) signs, pauses for a few minutes without anyone alighting or boarding, then promptly drives off again. The notification is updated: 40 minutes delay expected. We wonder whether we would be allowed to exchange our Thalys tickets for the next train at Brussels. Another ten minutes later, the same train drives through the station in the other direction and goes right off where it came from. We wait some more.
Yet another ten minutes later, an overnight train from Eastern Europe pulls into the station and stops at our platform. The display boards go into a minor frenzy. Our train, when it does come, will now stop at the next platform instead.
Finally, almost an hour after it was due, the train arrives. The passengers board and the train departs. As our train leaves we see the 10:54 InterCity for Brussels arriving at the next plaform, the overnight train having already left the station some time before.
It is mostly a smooth ride. At Rotterdam quite a lot of people get on and the train is almost fully-seated. At Rosendaal, the last stop before Belgium, the train stays stationary for almost 20 minutes. We are definitely going to miss our connecting train. When's the next train to Paris?

At Antwerp many of the passengers get off, and the train becomes sparsely occupied and much more comfortable. Then at Mechelen the train stops for a long time again. The intercom starts to crackle in Dutch, then French. Everyone starts getting off. The train is turning back for Amsterdam, apparently. Passengers headed for Brussels are advised to board the train at platform 4. Hey, that was the one that left Amsterdam at 10:54! Oh, well. The train is very crowded, having to bear the load normally distributed across two trips. Standing room only for relatively slower newcomers like us. But no matter, it's less than an hour to Brussels.
We reach Brussels almost one and a half hours behind schedule. The Thalys service crew instantly understand the situation (probably a few people before us were in the same situation; maybe it is a regular occurence: the Brussels - Amsterdam InterCity is apparently not very punctual, because the rail lines it uses are very busy, its rolling stock is wearing down, and upgrading works in the form of a dedicated high-speed line are falling behind schedule); we manage to get a place the next train to Paris, but without a seat. The train is even more crowded than Mechelen - Brussels, with people cramming in even the spaces around the doors and luggage racks, between the seating areas. We end up like them, almost like modern-day refugees, sitting on our own suitcases next to the carriage door. Finally arrive in Paris almost two hours behind schedule and quite peeved with ... is it the Belgian or Dutch railway company which runs Amsterdam - Brussels?

There wasn't really much time left before we had to leave for Charles-de-Gaulle airport ... it almost seems like we were headed for the airport and made a diversion to Paris just to have lunch / dinner at a Left Bank brasserie (it was rather too late for lunch, but early for dinner). Which tasted excellent, by the way. Western stalls at hawker centres here, not to mention the caterers to Tekong, really seem poor imitators by comparison ... but then again that's like comparing a mass-reproduced replica to an artisan original.
After the meal we walked a bit along the Seine up to the Notre Dame ... then it started raining quite heavily and we ducked back into the Métro. The Notre Dame was quite impressive, though somewhat shorter than I had imagined it (strange).

The other buildings around it on the Île de la Cité, as well as those lining the banks of the Seine, were equally impressively grand, and the quays themselves spacious and magnanimous. Magnanimous? That's probably more of a Chinese than English expression. 大方、气派大。To project a sense of ... generosity, with physical space and perhaps in a more general sense too.

The whole city projected a similar sense of grandeur. The Louvre seemed vast even from the outside, and the Tulières looked nothing like the small, cozy garden I had imagined while playing Mussorgsky. More like something on par with one of the imperial 园林 in Beijing. Even some of the underground RER stations were spacious and well-lit, and not at all like the usual cramped spaces associated with subway stations ... the place-names suggest various corners of the Republic and the Empire and Europe--as much the result of Napoleonic and other conquests on the Continent as of European unity, or perhaps even more so--, and of many, many aspects of French history. Its appearance alone leaves one in no doubt that this is a cosmopolitan place with a rich, colourful past, and a city of considerable wealth and power.

Speaking of the RER, the Paris underground transit system is really a labyrinth. A vast, often confusing labyrinth. Imagine more than 14 lines, plus separate suburban rail lines, in a city not much larger, geographically, than Singapore. No wonder the place has the most closely-spaced stations in the world. The individual stations, many of which host two or more lines, are in themselves labyrinths. There are separate tunnels linking the platforms for each line, and between the platforms and the fare gate(s) and station exits. Moreover, to cope with the vast flow of human traffic (4.5 million passengers a day), there are two separate tunnels between some places, one for each direction of travel. Despite the complexity the whole system operates at a very fast pace, or maybe it was just rush hour. Scarcely has one train left the platform than the next one is already arriving.
It was raining the whole time we were there ... in fact, had been all the way since Brussels. On the bright side, a rainbow appeared, briefly, to bid us farewell at the airport. It was so bright, even the secondary rainbow was clearly visible. Magical.