Second Tuesday in Paris

Late start but at least I'm out. Had my first crepe in France, ordered and served through a sidewalk menu but made in front of me. Pancake batter is poured onto a hot plate, then spread really thin with a tool. Voila, crepe, though it didn't cook as fast as I'd expect given that. Had a bolognese with cheese.

Paris train stations: have trash bins, lots of trashbins. Sometimes more like transparent bag hanging from a hoop but not always. No bomb fear here.

Haven't gotten better since Saturday's breakthrough, functional but still have lingering phlegm and cough and feeling of stuff in my upper chest. In Bloomington I'd totally have gone to the Health Center, which I miss.

Dogs on the subway. Dogs on UK intercity trains too, and possibly city buses and trains.

Got out at Bastile. Some sort of parade. Or strike? FSU 77, SNU/IPP, FSU 93, Lycee stuff. Federation Syndicate Unitaire.
Retraites 60 ans. I suspect this about not raising the retirement age past 60. My sympathy is somewhat limited.
Se syndiquer nuit gravement au Medef - sticker
Boulevard Henri IV
It's pretty big; I stood in place for 11 minutes, and I haven't seen start or end.
Big plaza with stele, people milling around, a cart seeming to offer Revolution souvenirs. I asked a couple who confirmed my guesses. Then I found some big quiet boulevard Richard-Lenoir, very wide walkway between two roads.

Street signs are British style, up on buildings when they feel like it.

Lots and lots of police vans lined up.

11 minutes to Chateau Vincennes on 1, with fancier cars and stations with automatic doors. Surprisingly not crowded for 5pm

Chateau has signs I think saying it's closed today for une social movement - strike?

Went by a Parc de Floral sign, and I think into the Bois Vincennes. Big and late and not that dense, escaped out a side and went back. But not before passing a little collection of tents.

Restaurant customs: you ask for and get a carafe of tap water - no more dinking around with glass refills! At this restaurant, the carafe is actually a wine bottle.

This bar/restaurant seems to sideline as a cigarette store. "Tabac" means "we sell" not "smoking allowed", I take it.

Toilets seem more likely to be upstairs than in a basement... And at this restaurant a urinal is free but a stall costs 50 cents.

ATM gives out 50 euro notes.

Some funky station names. Franklin D. Roosevelt. Stalingrad.
I passed a Rosa Parks... apartments, IIRC, the other day.

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Wednesday -- finally, the Louvre.
Lots of statues. Room of I thought at first ancient statues, but they in odd colors or materials and all in very good condition. Some mix of imitation and restoration, maybe. Then less ambigupus antiquities: Greek Roman Etruscan. Creepy weird pre-Classical Greek stuff. European sculpture, including the rarely shown Northern European stuff.

Having Welsh rarebit -- of sorts, with blue cheese instead of cheddar. And mousse again, though rather thick.

Just realized the trains don't verbally announce their stops.

14 October
Took 2 toward Porte Dauphin; aboveground didn't last long. 6 is also supposed to run high. Trains are older and we parked at station 2 for no given reason. Came out at Passe though and I'm getting views. Eiffel tower! Down again at Pasteur.

Got out at Montparnasse. Took me 4+ minutes of fast walking to get outside, down corridor after corridor, and even so I didn't emerge at where I'd arbitrarily aimed for, just at the first daylight. I'm arbitrarily pissed... Was walking around looking for something expensive (lots of food) but I'll try another crepe instead. Two, actually, sausage and cheese, and banana with nutella.

Retroactive Sunday post

(10 Oct 2010)

Left apartment, tried the Metro for the first time. Had people thrusting pieces of paper at me, I took one, it turned out to be a ticket. Then they came after me demanding payment, I was confused. Got given the opportunity to buy a package of 10 for 15 euros, I think, "1.50 each!" I declined, said I'd just pay for the one. Gave the guy 5 euros since I had no change, he gave me 3 back, I objected, guy in charge told guy 1 to give me proper change. Grudgingly, I was given another 20 cents, not 50, but I decided not to push it.

Online I'd been told a ticket was 1.70, or 12 euros for 10, so I got ripped off 10 cents, but sounds like they were aiming for 3. OTOH I didn't see ticket machines at that entrance, so maybe it's convenience.

Train downtown, walked around, found the Louvre thought it was too late. It's huge! Weird pyramid entrance in the middle, you go underground. Walked through an Arc de Triomphe, into the Tuileries, saw lots of couples stopping a bit short of clothed sex on the grounds, felt lonely. Saw the Seine. Kept walking, found the real Arc de Triomphe. Didn't go up it, but did go under. Walked some more through central Paris, finally found another Metro, got off at Pigalle. Heh, red light district full of strip clubs. I stopped and talked to one barker, she was all "20 euros normally, but now 10 euros and a free drink." "I'll pass." "No, come up, come look." "Ok." (Hey, free chance to ogle strippers for a minute, right?) "What drink do you want?" (Wait, sounds like something I'd have to pay for.) "No, I'll go." Actually this exchange happened at two different places; first one had a cute woman going "Aww, why not?" and pressing for reasons. Second one had an older woman simply gripping my wrist and trying to haul me upstairs, until I broke free.

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Moving on to Amsterdam tomorrow - I think. I have lodging for the next week, but Thalys website didn't want to sell me a train ticket. So I called my card company. Same old exchange: give them my information, get transferred to Fraud, give them my information all over again. They did see the rejected thing, but the woman in Fraud was clueless. "You have a flag, it should go through now". But it didn't, and she said she didn't even see it. And then my phone ran out of credit, even though I was supposed to be calling a collect number. And T-Mobile never really cottoned to my credit card -- well, it didn't like the address, since it forced me to enter a UK address.

PISSED

Tried my other credit card, but that didn't work either. Of course, that one was never notified about being in Europe, so they have an excuse. Guess I'll see if I can pay cash at the station.

Lovely how the fraud computers don't mind my paying $500+ for a hotel in Amsterdam but allegedly object to my trying to actually go there. Same as happened in Paris.

Oh, and while I don't need it right now, seems like my cell data isn't working either, perhaps due to the lack of credit -- despite my having a 20 megabyte allowance for the week.