Paris It’s A Wrap

Two days to catch up on before I go upstairs and try to jam everything into my bag. I really haven’t gotten more than a few postcards and magnets since the package I sent home from Ireland, bug everytime I re-pack that bag it feels like it’s not going to zip shut this time. Probably not folding and rolling everything as well.

I digress (nothing new)….

Yesterday is easy to sum up. I did precious little. It was supposed to be a partly sunny day, but I never saw the sun. Snow flurrries and gray, yes, sun, no. I figured that would make it by proxy museum day, except for one small problem, the main museum I wanted to see, the Louvre, is closed on Tuesday. That’s inconvenient.

So I figured I’d at least get in the musem d’Orsay. Dragged myself down there and was going to check my backpack, as I have at a ton of museums in the past. They asked what was in it. “Camera.”. They asked me to remove it and they’d take the bag. I explained that was the sum contents of the bag, camera and lenses. No reason to remove one thing. I don’t need the big camera for museums. With a few rare exceptions, I’m happy with the point and shoot. So, they wouldn’t take the bag and told me that I had to hand carry it… That’s a lot of weight on the hands. I wanted to cry. I managed two hours give or take before I gave in and left. I’d have totally lied about the contents had I known they’d refuse it! So there’s your warning fellow photogs!

I left and was crawling. I could think of nothing I wanted to do more than come back up here and have a late lunch. After that I wandered around Montmartre for a bit, got a few souvenirs and found a bakery where I got a massive chocolate chip cookie! Heaven! The only thing better would have been oatmeal raisin! So long since I’ve had one.

And that was yesterday. My Brazillian roommates left and were replaced by two more Brazillians. Seriously, the third set of my trip. I am seriously thinking there’s a message here. LOL

Today I tried to start early and managed a bit better but nothing like I’m going to need tomorrow morning. No sleeping through alarms this time. Planes wait for no sleepy passengers. Still, I didn’t have a lot of destinations on today’s list.

First stop was Père Lachaise Cemetery, reputedly the worlds most visited cemetery. It was established during Napoleon’s era in 1804 in what was then a site outside the city. Cemeteries inside the city had been outlawed. The perceived health hazard was the same thing that led to the emptying of the existing city cemeteries into the catacombes. At first no one wanted to go there but the city fathers seeded the cemetery with some of the city’s existing famous dead and it was quickly the place to go. It’s still an active cemetery. I saw one family tomb with a burial last year and there were a lot of burials but a quick scan showed one as far back as 1822 in that very tomb! I wandered here for a couple of hours. Though there are many famous dead, singer Jim Morrison of the Doors was the only one I sought out. I’m not a massive Doors fan but it had to be done.

After the cemetery got old, I moved on for one last sunlight stroll near the Eiffel Tower. I was looking for one of those views you see photos and paintings of where the towers base stretches across the skyline over a Paris neigborhood. It’s possible I missed it, but I’m convinced that view is not possible from the ground but would be from the upper stories of one of those apartments with a view! Darn!

From there, one last Seine walk to the Louvre museum. Wow… Without a map, I would surely be lost there still. I got lost repeatedly WITH a map. Much like the British Museum, it would take multiple trips and I would live to find an actual guided tour as I did my second time at the British Museum. Anyway, I did get an audio tour and did a highlights tour included on it. So saw Mona of course. She says “ciao!” to you all. After that some aimless wandering amongst the paintings and then wrapped it up with near east antiquities highlighting Iran since I distinctly doubt I will see anything closer than that in my lifetime as far as Iran goes.

This was over three hours later when I left. My feet had nothing left in them and I gave up the ghost. I took a walk through the city streets to get to Madelaine metro station so that I wouldn’t have to switch trains to get back to Montmartre. A nice walk and saved me some connecting train stress!

And here I am back at the hostel. I had some “street food” I got and brought back. Not really made on the street, but they have these little food shops along the main street. A few have a tiny dining area, but many don’t. They all have counters on the street so you can order take away. What I got was a hot dog in name only but was good. It was more like two hot dogs wrapped in a toasted baguette smothered in cheese and a dollop of ketchup. That and the last of my chips should tide me for breakfast in the airport tomorrow morning!

Today’s humor. I had another magic golden ring appear in my path. This one was the slowest yet. I totally saw the whole maneuver as she tried to plant it and pick it up in one go. If I were the mean type, I’d just say thanks I must have just dropped it and walk off with the ring. But hey, I wouldn’t have the heart to do that.

And tonight I had someone at the hostel who thought I was from Spain and said he couldn’t detect an American accent. Ha! Too weird! He actually said I could pass as being from “the continent”. Too weird! I think it would take more than a month for me to shed my deep south accent (I wouldn’t even try). But it’s not the first time travelling here and elsewhere that people have had trouble placing it. I’ve no explanation for it and I’m seriously too pasty to be a spainard.

Alright, signing off from Paris. With luck, next stop back in the States!

Paris Beneath My Feet

Oh me, my feet are telling me it’s time to take a load off for a day or three, but somehow I’ll press on. There’s plenty of time to sit on those flights home Thursday. Here’s hoping, I don’t need the poop out wagon at the airport to go between gates.

Had a not so restful sleep last night. Whoever is in the bed above me has a real chain saw snore. I also suspect sleep apneia (sp?) based on the abrupt cessation of snoring followed by stirring and the restarting the snoring. I typicallly sleep like a rock, but that’s if I get to sleep before the offender starts which was not my luck last night.

Still, I got up at a decent hour this morning and it was a lovely partly sunny day as the weather forecast had predicted! Not just plain old sunny, but sunny with massive giants of clouds, full of texture – perfect for photos. The sun came and went as the clouds passed, but I made the most of it.

I first visited Sacre Couer, the massive moorish domed basillica whose doorstep I am calling home for the next few days. Quite a climb, but worth it. You can ride a train up, but then you miss the photo ops! I went inside and it was quite gorgeous. No photos allowed, so just take my word for it or go yourself.

I would have climbed the dome, as I’m want to do visiting massive old churches, particularly ones that are already sitting high above the city. But the ticket machine wanted exact change and I didn’t have it. I decided this was easy enough to return to it’s so nearby so moved on. In retrospect, I’m kind of glad I couldn’t go up. Not sure my body would have made it through the rest of the day!

Next stop was Notre-Dame Cathedral. It was bathed in sunlight and I examined ever inch of it as I wandered down the river side. And then I went inside… Wow! I’m still partial to Westminster Abbey, but this is definitely it’s Parisian cousin. Fantastique!

I had a quick lunch in the square in front and then put on my walking shoes mentally and stood in line to ascend the towers. Oh my, I was NOT prepared. Up and up and up those spiral stairs that never seemed to end. Gasping for air, I finally exited…. Mon dieu! The view was worth it. I know it’s terribly cliché, but I had to do the whole gargoyle overlooking the city picture with multiple subjects and angles. I’ve seen those photos plenty of times, but no one else in the group I ascended with took a one until they saw me doing it. I guess they missed the memo in the list of things to do at Notre-Dame?!

From there. I steeled myself. I felt I had to repeat my walk along the Seine from the evening I arrived. This time sun would be striking those lovely buildings! It was exhausting after all the added walking, but well worth it. Again, I walled from Notre-Dame to the Eiffel Tower. And if that wasn’t enough, I then made my way over to the Champs Elysee and checked out the triumphal arch. Again well worth it, but I had sincerely reached the limit of my walking, pretty much around 5 hours,including the ascent at Notre-Dame. At least. I lost track, so I’m not 100%.

I took the metro back to Montmartre and then found an Internet shop. I have two hard drives with me. One is to copy all my camera cards over to rather than buy a million cards. The other is a backup of that. Both have card readers built in so I can just plug in a card and copy it straight over. The “backup” drive has two partitions and I can only access the smaller partition with the card reader. I need a pc to move files off to the second partition. I had a chance in Connemara to move off some of it, but it was painfully slow, I’m guessing because their PC was Linux and my hard-drives are formatted for windows. Anyway, long way of saying, I spent over an hour and 5€ to get things squared away. I’d done the math today and figured out even if I filled all the cards with me and that drive, I’d either run out of space or have to rely on having only one copy of some of my photos before I left. Yikes! Anyway, all good now!

And now for the odds and ends section. Number of people who roused my ire today by grabbing my arms to try to stop me, three. One was clearly some sort of street scam, the others were shop keeps. The number of magic “golden” rings that appeared at my feet, two!

The first one I had on my nice face. I try not to be unapproachable which gets me a lot of moments with homeless preople and scammers, but the alternative is to be sealed to the world, not acceptable. Anyway, this guy approaching me appeared to find a gold ring in my path. He reaches down and picks it up to offer me and asks if I speak English. What do you say when you don’t know what languages they speak? I knew something was up but no one else around so he wasn’t distracting me from someone else’s actions. He then proceeds to tell me he thinks it’s real gold but it was in my path so my luck. I keep trying to push it back at him but finally take it and start to walk off. Of course, he then asks if I can spare some change so he can eat. Sigh… No… I said I had nothing on me which would be more fair than to say all I have is a 50€ on me… There were several attempts finally I manage to get him to take his ring and his luck with him and move on. An hour later, the same story starts with a woman approaching me. This time I clearly see her putting the ring down as quickly as she picked it up. Literally street magic! You had to be wise to it to see it. I didn’t give this one a chance to continue, just held up a hand as I sped past and said “non!”

And the last of my funny moments. And this one is on me. While walking along the waters edge taking photos of the Eiffel Tower, I met a guy who appeared to live in the house boats moored there. Keep in mind, I’d been walking around four hours. Instead of bonjour what do I hear erupt from my lips?! Not hello or hi, oh no. “Hola!”. Oh my… I would have said that at home anyday without thinking, but I was personally mortified as neither do I look like I might be from Spain or Mexico, nor am I in either of those places. Oy vey!

Ah two more days to fill. One must be museum day, but it looks like both will be nice days. Tomorrow appears to be a repeat of today while Wednesday will be clear and sunny. Torture! Museum days are always selected by rain! Le sigh! I’ll make do somehow! LOL

Until next time!

High and Low in Paris

I was up somewhat late last night jotting out my own little love letter to the city of lights as regular readers saw… Having had a not so restful night (I never rest well before flights, worried I’ll miss them), I was pretty tuckered out. I know I said I slept late a few times before, but on my scale, they were nothing. Only when I had my sinus infection did I sleep past 10am.

This morning, I had a real lie-in. I’m talking past noon here. And this was with pushing myself back to sleep thru a room-mate clicking snooze, every 10 minutes for like an hour. One side of me said I could sleep in all I wanted in less than a week. The other side said shut the hell up. The verbally abusive side won.

I finally rose to meet the gray day and over lunch contemplated what I would do with my day. I thought about museums given the weather, but I would have a limited time and hated to commit to a museum with over half the day gone. Then it hit me, the catacombes! It was on my list, and a gray day wouldn’t make a whit of difference.

I got there and there was a long line. Maybe everyone was following my lead!? I stood in line anyway and was in about 10 minutes before they closed the line! Whew! Would have hated to stand there 45 minutes for nothing!

They were simply amazing, no other word for it. The catacombes were originally mines and the first bit had exhibits on the subject that a geologist would love. The vast crowd was after bones. I half read enough to get the gist of it and know that after a disease broke out near an old city cemetery that was discovered to be the source, it was decided to use the old mines as a repository of the bones and all the city cemeteries were emptied. At first they were just tossed in but later they were stacked in designs and patterns. Not quite as artful as the Capuchin church in Rome, but this place made up for it in sheer volume. I’m not even sure the tour includes it all, but I never in my life thought I would see so many of the dead up close like that. It was a ways down, around 140 steps down and 90 steps up on the way out. The tunnel was warm but damp complete with dripping water in places, quite the atmosphere, eh? The steps down were not so bad but climbing out, gravity reinforced who wins.

After, I figured I’d go up the Eiffel Tower this evening. The view with the city lights was everything I expected, but quite cold. I could only handle it for so long before I decided to call it a day. I just might go back up if there’s a particularly pretty day before I leave.

And then back to the hostel. I took a moment to get a better look at Sacre Couer, the massive moorish looking church. I’m literally staying on it’s doorstep. Really pretty lit up, but my feet said no to going further up the hill this day. Definitely on my list before I go, as is a visit inside Notre Dame.

I’m still no Paris fan, but my heart was a little less hard after a good rest. Today’s only casualty was a few instances of aggressive shop keepers grabbing me by the arm to try to get me in. I think the look of death worked. Maybe it’s a culture thing, but grabbing me crosses my lines. I’m trying really hard to remember if that ever happened in Egypt. So far, those were the most agressive verbally at least. And I know I remember being followed, but if I was grabbed, I blotted out the memory. I hope I can again!

Oh tonights humor, the two room-mates, I’ve met are from Brazil (the second set in the trip, someone trying to tell me something!? Anyway, they were previously in London, where they went to learn English. Their English is well ahead of my Portugeuse, French, and Spanish! LOL. But of course, I throw out a word here and there I need to explain. At least with these, I’ve suppressed my “y’all” moments unlike the last ones! Anyway, tonight, they informed me that I talk very fast. I busted out laughing and told them that people from the southern US have a reputation for slow talking!

Paris or Bust

As I expected, I was first to bed last night and there was a new room-mate in addition to the Italian. Never saw him or heard him so zero details.

Morning came too fast. I woke 20 minutes before my alarm and lay there trying to get that last bit of sleep to no avail. I probably could have slept later, but having come VERY close in the past, I just can’t do it anymore Still, one hour after the bus left I was checked in and through security. Two hours to kill… To rub salt in the wound, the flight was delayed. I wasn’t surprised, the fog was quite thick and still was when we took off. The delay was due to the incomng flight taking longer.

Getting here, I went through a lite version of pasport control. I guess because I was coming from another EU country. I mean lite as in I filled out zero and they only glanced at my passport. Wait, I may not have done much more when I went to Italy. LOL

Getting from the airport wasn’t as easy as others told me. That or I am half asleep. The train was straightforward. Finding the connection to the Paris Metro at Gare de Nord, that was the confusing part. I finally found it, fed my ticket into the gate and had some jackal jump the turnstile in front of me trying to use my ticket! Well, he got in but I steamrolled over him to make sure I made it through the same turn of the gate. The look of shock on his face was worth it.

A few stops later and I was in Montmartre… My thoughts on Paris just from that exposure (trains to here) was cesspool. I try not to have kneejerk reactions but that’s where I was. I had (and have) seen more grafitti than I’ve seen anywhere else. And were not talking pretty murals here, most of it is ugly tagging. I think I saw a Parisian grandmother standing in her garden tagged by the local hoods.

After getting settled in I headed out. Took in a little of Momtmartre which didn’t help my opinion. Crowded, rude… I’ll stop before this turns into a gripefest…

I eventually made my way to the metro with the intent to find my way to the Eiffle Tower. I needed to change stations and somehow missed the correct turn and the next thing I knew u was past the gates. Dang! How did this happen!?

Well I was at the station for Notre dame Cathedral so I figured i’d have a look and walk the River Seine a while. Actually at this point looking at the map, it didn’t appear so far to the tower.. Right, I did walk it but I don’t recommend it for anyone who is not anxious for cardio, particularly in the winter when sitting down isn’t enticing.

So I do have this to say for Paris. At night, when the grafitti mostly fades into the shadows, and the lights come up, it’s fairly pretty. For the only time really on this trip I accutely missed my tripod. I can make do without it, but this is a city it would be outstanding to have on hand.

I did eventually get to the Eiffel tower and it is awe striking. I would have gone up but the top level was closed. Hoping just because it was so late. I’ll try again.

On the way back, I more or less got my bearings with the metro, navigating the stations, by no means to say I know the routes, etc yet. Nor will I probably know much of it in five days from now.

I’ll try to take in Paris at face value for the test of the trip without baggage from today, but I’m definitely getting the feeling at heart, this city and my rhythm are not in sync. Just as some probably visit cities I love and don’t love them, I am not enamored so far by this one. There’s still time.