Paris!
Paris,
Île-de-France,
France
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Continued from where London left off.
2/14 9:55 am
Oops, I guess I didn't write at lunch. Yesterday was a very long day. The first thing I heard when I walked out of the station was "excuse me sir, do you speak English?" Unfortunately I looked, but didn't say anything. So she said "Tu parles francais?" I shrugged and luckily the gypsy left me alone. So I had to go to the bank to get some euros and for some reason my PIN wouldn't work at the ATM machine. Crap. So I'm gonna have to go inside and talk to someone. So I get in there and ask "Tu parles francais?" and luckily the guy did speak a little English, enough for me to get my euros.
So I was off to the Arc de Triomphe. I only got a little lost getting there so that was a big plus. Once again it was much bigger than I had expected. I took a few pictures and it was off to the Eiffel Tower.
I had caught glimpses of the top but was amazed when I saw the whole thing. Wow, it was pretty amazing and on such a beautiful, albeit cold, day. I decided I wanted to go to the top so I paid my 11,50 euros and waited in the short line (50 people or so). The view from the top was pretty awesome. The Arc de Triomphe's massive size was apparent from the top.
Back down and walking home past a few sights. On the way a gypsy tried to trick me but I kept walking. The guy walking next to me then asked if I spoke French and I said "un peut" so he told me to watch out for people like that and their gypsy tricks.
When I was getting close to the hostel I was surprised at how busy it had become. The hostel was right on the edge of where a ton of Moroccans hang out. It sounds like they're saying 5 euro. Kind of annoying.
So I checked in and settled into the tiny room for a two hour nap. It was hard to get up due to my lack of sleep but I knew if I didn't get up then I would have a hard time going to bed at night. So I got up and walked around looking for food. I found a pizza place and for 7,50 euros I got a pizza and brought it back to the hostel. I took it into a small common room where there were already three people hanging out. We started chatting and I learned that they were from Argentina, Australia and Austria. All A's, weird!
After finishing the sub-par pizza the Australian guy asked if I wanted to try a French beer. I said sure so we walked up to the store. When we got back there was another new face in the common room. She was Canadian and had a deck of cards. So we played cards and a couple of Dutch guys joined in later so we were all crammed into this tiny room playing cards. We played until about 1ish and decided we'd better get to bed. Oh the Australian told me that the Moroccans are saying Marlboro. Whether they were selling a pack or just a single we have yet to determine. So I headed up to my bed at the top of the triple bunk. When in bed I took my watch off for some reason and of course it fell down the wall. I said forget it, I'll get it in the morning.
The sleep was great and I feel somewhat refreshed. Today I'm going to see the Louvre. All my new friends are going to the Eiffel Tower so it's too bad it didn't work out to go with them. Oh well, I'm off to the Louvre. Au revoir and happy valentines day!
2/14 7:38 pm
Okay, so I headed to the Louvre on this pretty chilly Thursday. On my way I decided to try the French version of McDonald's - Quick. It was really tasty and much better than McDonald's. I lucked out and the lady at the counter spoke some English.
After Quick I got down to the Louvre at around 12:15 and for once something wasn't bigger than I had expected. Well, the museum and building were huge but the glass pyramid was not. Once again there wasn't much of a line so that was good and I headed in. In the museum it was just piece after piece and it was incredible. I saw the Venus de Milo statue and the Mona Lisa painting which, quite frankly, is kinda lame if you ask me. I don't know what all the fuss is about. Unfortunately I didn't grab a map when I went in so I got lost a few times and saw the same things quite a few times and others not at all. I was at the Louvre til about 2:30 and I was proud that I was there so long. I would've stayed longer if my feet weren't so tired but that's okay.
Finishing at the Louvre so early gave me the whole afternoon to do whatever I wanted to I decided the Sacre Coeur was close enough. It was kind of a festival atmosphere with a carousel and everything. There was a guy playing guitar and playing American songs...pretty poorly. When I was taking some pictures outside my battery light flashed and I decided I wouldn't go inside. That's okay, I was kinda tired anyway. So I headed back to the hostel and took another 2 hour nap and forced myself to get up.
Dinner time, but also crazy Moroccan time outside of the hostel. I decided I'd go to the closest thing...and the winner was - Quick! I got another English speaking person and ordered the fish sandwich meal. Delicious. Time to head back and repack my backpack.
Ugh checkout is at 9 in the morning L. Alarms are set for 8. Tomorrow should be interesting heading to Notre Dame and the Pantheon before my night train leaves to Barcelona. Checking out that early will give me a lot of free time tomorrow so hopefully it isn't cold again.
2/15 8:15 am
So as I was writing my last passage in the tiny room my friends from the night before trickled in. No Dutch guys this time but three German guys. The Australian guy wanted to go for a walk but two of the German guys wanted to go to the Discoteque! So we let them go and went on our walk. The Argentinean gal brought a Swedish girl who was staying in her room so we had an Australian, an Austrian, an Argentinean, a German, a Swede and me. What a mixed bag. It was funny listening to everyone's English.
So we decided to walk through the red light district to see Moulin Rouge. It was definitely interesting. I was surprised how clean the area was considering the things that were in the shop windows. After walking through there the guys bought some French wine and enjoyed in on the streets. An interesting concept. They convinced me to try some and it wasn't too terrible. We continued up to the Sacre Coeur because the view was supposed to be amazing at night. Sacre Coeur looked awesome but it was foggy so you couldn't see the city very well. We were up there for about 20 minutes before heading back to the hostel due to the cold weather.
Our mini room was taken so we took a little part of the hallway. We made fun of the Argentinean's inability to pronounce a hard g sound. It hit midnight and I said my goodbyes.
Woke up at 8 this morning and now I guess it is time to check out. So Notre Dame and the Pantheon today followed by the train to Barcelona tonight at 8:30. Long day so hopefully I will be able to sleep on the trains. I think they have beds.
2/15 2:12 pm
Unfortunately the events for today weren't extremely time consuming. Notre Dame was very cool. The stained glass there is enormous. For some reason most of the visitors were not following the no flash photography rule but I was. While not marked well, it was marked.
From there I walked to the Pantheon where a lot of famous French people lay to rest. The Curie's to name a few. That was all I had planned for the day so I looked at my map to see if there was anything else close and decided that the Bastille Monument would do. So walking there and to the train station took about an hour. Showing up at 1 is way too early for your 8:30 train. I found where I was supposed to go no thanks to some rude French lady. She was the only rude French person I've run into and seemed irritated when I asked her, in French, if she spoke English. Maybe she is just a grump.
I decided I'd get some Euros so now I won't need to get money for the rest of the trip...hopefully. That walking excursion to find the bank dot on my map took about 45 minutes. So here I am at good ole McDonald's...I know, I know, eat French food! It's too expensive here. This big mac meal cost 6,10 euros so over 9 US dollars. I might try to find an internet spot now. Bye.
2/15 6:44 pm
Here at the train station and have been for the past two and a half hours. When I left McDonald's I thought it would be easy to find an internet café. Not as easy as I'd hoped. It burned up some time finding one but put more miles on my legs. It was 2 euros for thirty minutes. At first I couldn't get logged in because on a French keyboard the numbers on the top are secondary to the symbols...odd. So I signed in and couldn't find the @ symbol so I had to ask and that burned up 5 minutes of my time. Glad to see we beat Oregon State and that Stanford lost.
So I got back to the station at about 4 and waited in the cold for about an hour. At 5:15 I walked in by the stores in the station and found a standalone heater. Unfortunately there were two bums hugging up against it so I couldn't get too close. Close enough to catch a wiff unfortunately. Some Spanish looking guy came up to me and asked me something in French and I told him I didn't speak it so I motioned for a lighter. I told him I didn't have one so he walked away only to return a minute later. "You want some weed white?" Surprised I said no and he left me alone. When he left I wondered if he said white or right like it was so obvious that this tourist guy right here wants some weed. I didn't have a lighter!
After that incident I figured I should probably go back where I was. While walking back there I saw a sign for a waiting room. YES, it's heated. I checked the weather at 3:30 and it said it was 36. It must be in the 20s now. Stupid food costs too much here. I just paid one euro for a lunch-sized bag of lays chips. Tasty though. Train leaves in an hour and a half, phew.
2/15 10:50 pm
Train came and I'm on it. I'm rooming with guys from Spain, Wales and Luxembourg. The guys from Luxembourg and Wales gave me tips about seeing Barcelona so that was cool. I got some food with the guy from Wales. Just a ham and cheese sandwich (very basic) with cheetos and a small can of coke (maybe 8 oz) for 6,50 euros. Ouch. The sandwich was plain white bread, one piece of ham, one piece of cheese. Kinda weak. I think I'm gonna hit the hay now.
