Combien ça coûte
Trip Start
Nov 14, 2007
1
8
20
Trip End
Dec 01, 2007
Montmarte, Paris,
France
Monday, November 19, 2007
When: November 18th, 2007 - Night
Point of Entry: Sitting on a bench underneath the Eiffel Tower
Quoi de neuf? Combien ça coûte?... .Apparently about €60 for a taxi ride to our hotel in Montmarte. Thats insane!! Our hotel is only a mile away!! But since the metro workers found it necessary to go on stike to protest the recently proposed new retirement age of 56 (the current retirement age is 55), the so called "taxi for hier" French dudes were preying on the unsuspecting tourists that were coming off the Gare Du Nord train station's "sortie".
I'm sitting here on a wooden bench underneath the Eiffel Tower. Trying desperately to keep my fingers from getting frost bite. It's awfully cold tonight - more so, than it was last night when we were waiting outside in the taxi que. The temperature read "+2" degrees Celsius on a marque that we passed by on our way to the tower. Not to mention the wind chill factor - so, I'm not exxagerating when I say its fucking FREEZING!!
Anyway - our day started really late this morning. Angela and I didnt get any sleep last night. Perhaps we're still jet lagged. Or maybe it was the faint scent of cigarettes that wavered in and out of our hotel room that kept us up. Either way, we were struggling to get as much site seeing done to make up for our late morning. We managed to hike up Montmarte; quickly visited the Louvre; attended a service at Notre Dame; ran thru the Champs Elysees; dodged traffic at the Arc de Triomphe; smelled the Seine River; and now, trying to survive the frozen tundra underneath the Eiffel Tower. Phew! I even managed to figure out what was wrong with my lens! As Hiro Nakamura would say, "Woohoo!"
I finally got in contact with my good friend, Sarai - a Parisian make-up artist for high fashion magazines and runway shows. She was back in Paris for a few weeks to work on a photoshoot for Vogue. As luck would have it, we were going to be in town at the same time. As soon as Angela sees the Eiffel Tower light up like a Xmas tree, we're blowing this crepe stand to meet up with Sarai for some drinks and debauchery. A tout a l'heure!
Highlights:
- fixing my camera
- some random chick named Jackie I made friends with at Gare Du Nord who helped us out with the taxi situation
- the super nice traffic cop that help hail us a cab
- the even super nicer cab driver that helped give us tips about travelling around Paris during this God-awful metro strike
- the even nicer Parisian blonde who I thought was flirting with me while I was waiting at the taxi que this morning. Then again, she could've been cursing at me for stealing her cab.
Lowlights:
- Jack Frost, where's this global warmng when you need him.
- And this silly Metro strike.
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