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Paris part Deux - Scam Artists and Champagne
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Hi Everyone,
It's still pretty rainy, but the temps are warming up so it's sorta tolerable. I've taken over 700 photosalready, and have about 100 decent shots - astounding isn't it???The most exciting events for the week occurred along the Seine River. On Thursday I was walking along theriver with Heather's friend, Sam, who is in Paris until Tuesday before he goes back to NYC. We weretaking photos near the Eifel Tower when some random guy comes up to us and asks us if we lost this goldwedding band on the ground that he just picked up. After telling him no he said that it was our lucky dayand he gave it to me. I told him I didn't want it and that its finders keepers and he should keep it. Heinsisted that I take it. So I was like fine and we walked away. Then he runs up to us and asks us formoney for a sandwich. So Sam gave him 2€, and the guy of course asked him for more saying that he just gaveus this ring and basically not to be so cheap. I told him he could have the ring back and sell it if hewanted more money, he was like "no I don't want it." So we didn't give him any more money. I figured thering was totally fake but Sam points out that there is a stamp inside the ring which said 18K. So at thatpoint I was trying to figure out how we could find the person who lost it, and thinking how this guys wife isgoing to kick his ass for losing it. We decided that there was no way we could possibly find the owner ofthe ring and Sam kept it.Fast forward to Saturday morning. I'm near the same area again taking photos. As I'm setting up my shotwaiting for the cars and people to move and trying to coordinate my filter so that my finger doesn't coverthe lens this gypsy looking woman walks in front of me and bends down, picks up a gold wedding band and asksme if I dropped it!!! First I was pissed because she was ruining my shot, then when I saw the ring in herhand I totally could have belted her with my camera I was so mad. I told her to take her ring and leave mealone. But she still kept pushing the ring on me. I yelled at her and told her if she didn't get lostimmediately I would take the ring, beat her with it and throw it in the river. She scampered away at thatpoint - wise move on her part.Ok, so the other scam the gypsies have going on here is these women come up to you and ask you if you speakEnglish. They totally sound like they are going to ask you for directions or something. If you stop and sayyes then they hand you this small piece of cardboard where they have their sob story written out and askyou for money. The way to get around it is either ignore them or respond and say No when they ask you ifyou speak English.Then yesterday I met up with met up with my friend Karina who lives here in Paris. We did the typicalFrench thing and went to a cafe to catch up on old times. After that we went to the Carnavalet Museumwhich has all this info on the history of France. All the exhibit info is written in French, so I used theopportunity to have her translate stuff for me.After that we met up with some of her friends on Pont des Arts which is a nice foot bridge that goes overthe Seine near the Louvre. There she surprised us by pulling out a bottle of champagne and strawberries outof her purse, so we had a little happy hour picnic on the bridge. It was evening by this time and the lightswere coming on all the monuments so it was really pretty. After that we took a short walk through the courtyard of the Louvre. It was totally amazing. There was amusician playing some sort of instrument as you walk in, because of the accoustics the sound carriedthroughout the courtyard. The building was lit up in a soft orange glow, it literally felt like I was in adream, it was so surreal.Today is also a very sad day for me. Frenchie's golfish is dying. I woke up this morning and saw himfloating on his side, his tail was all chewed up and I thought the big goldfish attacked him, but after doingsome research on line I discovered that fish can get this disease called Fin Rot and that it can attackthem overnight. The little guy is still hanging on, but barely. I don't know what to do for him. All thestores are closed today so I can't get him any medicine even if I knew where to find a pet store.It's so sad because he is really a nice little fish.Homeless guys - the other morning I woke up and saw the cops taking the homeless guys who live across thestreet away in their cop cars. But apparently they only kept them for a few hours because they were backon their mattresses by nightfall, and they brought friends with them! So now there are like 7 of themliving there when before there were 4. They still haven't bothered me though.That's all for now...
Where I stayed:
Sacha's apartment
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| 2. | Paris part Deux - Scam Artists and Champagne - Paris, France Mar 30, 2008 |
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