Experience The Adventure

I like Paris…Its another one of those big city things.

The Eurostar is a great way to travel. It seemed much more comfortable than a plane, and seems so much faster than these other trains to places like Scotland.

When I first arrived, the hostel was overbooked, but I had a feeling it was going to be this way because the website was having some problems. So i went with this crowd of people he called up, and ended up staying in the living room of someone’s apartment. We watched the rest of Team America, worst movie ever, before everyone crashed late.

It wasn’t odd until, i didn’t see the owner the whole first night or morning, but I saw her daughter. I was surprised by her openness and willingness to have strangers stay at her apartment, and lower than normal level of concern about the character of those around her and her family.

The metro is really extensive in Paris, and is rather quick. From the diagrams, it looks like complete and utter disaster in planning, but it works well. People call it ghetto. I don’t think it was bad, and was rather impressed.

First thing to do, was a tour. To the tourist centre! The tour was ok, a very interesting city, a hop on hop off tour would have been a much better idea. It was quite a walk when i got off.

The first thing was to visit Notre Dame. They had a video on to “help you appreciate” Notre Dame. Looked more like a recruiting video from what I saw. Then again, I was sitting there listening to the audio guide, instead of the video, then fell asleep. That video sure was long! got up, did the whole audio tour walking around, and then when I was done and at the end, they finished the video and turned on the lights. Had some common steak frites, with a huge hot chocolate that they served in a soup bowl. Now that was strange. Hot chocolate is a really good comfort food, and so is steak and fries.

I found a skating rink downtown, temporarily built of course. Everyone there was pretty good! Not like these embarrassing Canadians in London! The shopping was still open at this night, they sure know how to shop! busy!

I skipped the Louvre, but will do that next time. Its something that you really need a tour of, or have a good time with some endless wandering through it all day long.

I went up the Eiffel tower on sat, I was debating whether to wait until next time, but when I lined up, i figured there was nothing better to do that night. What a crazy thought, well, i have nothing better to do, so might as well go up the Eiffel tower. The line up was more than an hour, with the entertainment of the complaining couple behind me, the young street vendors walking around trying to sell things, and when something went wrong, the police chasing them around. There were army security patrols. Is that excessive, do you really need a gun that big?

The Eiffel tower has some interesting strobe lights on it. Apparently it was put on the tower for the Millennium, and everyone like it so much, that they kept it. Every hour or two they turn it on for a while, and it makes for some nice video clips. Here’s a useless fact, the Eiffel tower is 6014km away from Toronto, and 5662km away from Ottawa. I spent at least of couple of hours up there, saw all three levels, and eventually got kicked out when it closed.

So sleeping in someone’s living room is odd. Apparently it can be more strange. On Sunday, her son (est. 5 years old) was peeking through the living room doors, running around the house. I got up and he came in to watch some tv and play with his toys.

Picasso Museum.
Now that’s a weird museum. Apparently Picasso like to sculpture, and even more funny, like to make collages. Really bad collages. One picture that made me laugh was one called the kiss. Two heads with GIANT JAWS, and teeth like SHARK! Yikes! If anyone is a kiss like that, stay the heck away from me!
I think it may be surreal art. Sometimes it was easy to see some things, other times, you might as well be looking into the sun.

The catacombs – why do people touch dead people? I didn’t take but a few pictures, not focused on bones either. They’re coming out of the film! Ahh, burn it! BURN!!! In fact they search bags at the end, in case people try to steal them. The large bones like thigh bones are stacked at the edge, with the end protruding out to form the wall, neatly stacked, with mud virtually concealed in the human bones wall, to form a very uniform and interesting wall. Add a few skulls to the outside of the wall, and you have yourself, the walls of the catacombs. All the other bones are placed inside the wall, between the bones and the edge of the tunnel.
In some places, you could see them cleaning up, big piles of bones, with rakes and pitchforks sitting around. The were a number of places that they were doing some cleaning up. It is a sacred place, and mass graveyards like this should be closed to the public. Its like having the biggest graveyard, with open graves, and letting people wandering through it.

Arc the triumph – if you build it, they will come. And he was right. Nothing over spectacular except for its sheer size, and a few well made carvings. The hypnotizing traffic and people kept me staring out down the huge street, while I waited for the sunset.

Well, I’ve had enough baguettes for one weekend. Geez! MacDs was a refuge, for some breakfast and someplace quiet, but only in the early mornings. Back to London, and to finish that bloody puzzle on the way back!

This entry was posted on Monday, January 15th, 2007 at 11:04 am and is filed under London, London Trips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.