Jack’s Un-Classic Walk

Our manager, Jack, moved back to Texas a couple months ago to work at the headquarters in Austin.  For Jack’s grand finale, we met at 10pm at the General Joffre statue in between the Eiffel Tower & Ecole Militaire.  Since Jack had never done our Classic Walk tour during his time here, he proposed a Classic Walk route where every guide would switch off talking at each stop, giving their own wheels-off version of the tour.

For example, Travis explained about the statue commemorating the General handing over surrender papers, Simon pulled out a cigarette at the Dome Church to talk to us about prostitution problems in Paris’ early days, and Andre led an in-depth discussion on Louix XIV’s obsession with his own calves and his marital bedroom issues with Marie Antoinette.

Is it ridiculous that these are the settings behind these speeches?

Yes. Yes, it is ridiculous.

Jack gave one of the best speeches of the evening on Pont Alexandre III, at full volume, as if we were a group of 25 people.  He also invited passers-by off the street for this free tour he would not even charge them for!  Behold the sass.

Andre & Golden scaled the bridge wall up onto lion statues, before a security guard started waving a flashlight at them.

They're posing as if for a camera flash...but then realized quickly that it was a security guard/police figure of some sort waving a flashlight in their faces.  Busted.

Ned owned the Louvre speech by declaring “The Louvre is a mystery.” and then ran off at full speed, completely out of sight.  We found him 20 minutes later on the other side of the Seine, freaked out that a strange man had been following him.

Scott rolled up to the group at the same moment Ned was running away, and without missing a beat, began his speech, telling us all about how his ancestors once lived there, that DaVinci actually built the Louvre, and something about donkey fights in Napoleon III's apartments. 

Maybe a shopping cart was found at one point.  Maybe Lisa got pushed around in it.  Maybe it got thrown over the bridge and into the SEINE.  It all happened so fast, just walk away quickly, let’s move on.

We sang with French rugby players, walked around the Latin Quarter, and stopped inside a place to dance a bit before ending the evening.  Overall a huge success, a beautiful evening to walk around the most ridiculously beautiful city in the world, and a fun time with friends.

So just to recap what we learned on our walk…You are NOT supposed to climb the large statues on the Alexendre III bridge, The Louvre is a mystery, it was built by DaVinci, Scott’s ancestor’s lived there, Ned was followed by a weirdo, and the Monoprix is now missing a shopping cart.  We will be offering this new night walking tour, the Un-Classic Walk, complete with statue climbing and shopping cart riding, in 2012.