mindstalk | Entries tagged with paris

(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.

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.

Hey, guess who's sick again? That's right, me! Tired and low energy, then dribbling nose, then sore throat today. So I haven't done much besides explore the neighborhood on foot, somewhat. Still, I've got some stories.

Two days ago, I wake up. "It's dark. Crap, I haven't slept enough. Hmm, it's 7am. Crap, the sun went out. Wait."

Actually, despite being roughly due south of England, France and most of Spain are crammed into the same time zone as Germany. So it was really 6am in normal people time -- or 5am without DST -- which is a perfectly fine time to be dark at this latitude in October, when the equinox has passed and the days are probably getting rapidly shorter.

The Other White People

If you know your US history the way I do, you may be able to think of the major European migrations to the US and even roughly date them. English, Scots/Scots-Irish, Germans, a probably swamped sprinkling of Dutch in New Amsterdam, Scandinavians, actual Irish, Poles and Italians, Russians, Jews.

Notably missing: French or Spanish. Spanish people of course got here first, but mostly to the south, and mostly well mixed with the natives. French went to Quebec and New Orleans, with maybe some spillover into New Hampshire, but you generally don't find French neighborhoods in our cities. So, I figure the US conception of what white people look like, derived mostly from looking at ourselves, has a big hole in it. I'd heard of "Gallic faces" before, and knew a girl at IU who was rather distinctive, and here in Paris... yeah. Oh, plus that Belgian restaurant I mentioned seeing in King's Cross a couple months ago.

Montmartre

So there's this neighborhood. I haven't read much about it, but I could tell it was big from the airbnb postings bragging about being in it. Or near it. My hostess marked it on a map. So yesterday I trudged over. In short, lots of restaurants and art galleries, on top of a hill, next to the basilica of the sacred heart which has perpetual prayers. Also, tiny blocks and windy streets. Basically your super-pedestrian artsy neighborhood, I guess.

But that came later. I first ran into the Square Louise Michel, a small park at the foot of steep steps going up to what turned out to be the basilica, and I checked it out... to be immediately accosted by an African grabbing my hand and twining colored string around my fingers. He had what seemed like good English, but he did not use it on "Please" or "May I" or answering my "what are you doing?" but on "Don't worry", "African tradition", and "where are you from". My traditions involve not being manhandled by strangers, and despite his strong grip I managed to break free and escape, somewhat freaked out. Then it happened again on the other side, and I fled the square.

I wondered if there was some real tradition I was breaking, but the one mention I found online later was http://filharmonica.com/?p=63

sidestepping the French African youths who’ve cornered the market of peddling hand woven thread bracelets to tourists by looping the exposed fingers of the unwitting as they pass, and holding them hostage until the bracelet is completed and the mark feels obligated to pay for it. After our last experience in Paris, when one these guys came just shy of chest bumping Phil and using threatening body language to cow us into submission (it didn’t work), we knew enough to make use of alternate routes and withering stares.

Seems my instincts were good.

Food

Restaurant prices seemed high to me, though I just learned that they include not just sales tax but a 15% mandatory service charge, so they're complete prices unlike the UK or US. Still, I've been eating in, and probably will eat in a lot. I've seen a few of Super Marche, supermarkets, but only one has been close to a US/UK one; another seemed like a hole in the wall convenience store, lined with liquor bottles and bananas, like I kept seeing in the UK. The bread and cheese selections weren't that great; then again, boulangeries, or bakeries, are nigh-ubiquitous, so I guess you go to those. Cheese shops would make sense too but I haven't noticed one. Even the best market selection I saw though... there *are* a bunch of varieties, but they're brands of Camembert, or blue, or washed-rind soft cheeses. I've seen one instance of hard cheese, parmesan, and none of cheddar.

I did get Tropicana OJ. "Maxi Size!" at 3 liters, about the same as 64 ounces. Largest I saw in the UK was 1.5 L.

Almost didn't get here on time! Tube strike in London, I called a taxi at 12:45 for a 2pm train. But it's an international high-speed train, with bag and passport checks. Taxi came quickly, but got stuck in traffic near the station; I got out and walked. Yay for GPS, so that I could! Made it to the train with less than 10 minutes to spare.

Nice wide seats, no fans and kind of hot though maybe that was me running with my bags, cleverly designed table that can fold up so you can get in more easily, plugs hiding under the middle of the table I realized much later. Ride started out very smooth -- at first I thought we were standing in a tunnel while some other train whooshed by, and only careful observation let me see tunnel blur that indicated we were moving. Bunch of tunnels through south England, for a while I wasn't sure if we'd Chunneled yet, until I saw English signs and a chalk horse on a steep hillside, which made me think I hadn't explored England enough after all. Faint smell of urine on the train, I note I was in the Standard Premium class, or middle class, of cars. Later replaced by a rather overpowering smell of perfume or something.

Actual Chunnel crossing was 20 minutes or less, was in England at 14:34 (before the horse) and in France at 14:56. Free meal:
One tiny chicken drumstick with peanut satay sauce, salmon
and potato tart, and spiced caramellised almonds. Rather strong spice.
Oh, and a bun. My introduction to European meal portions, or just a
light snack? Coffee too, and a dark chocolate with Earl Grey tea.
Tray has high friction with the table. I didn't get a chance to look
underneath it.
French landscape: flat farmland with empty fields or cows and treelines.
Oh, plugs seem beneath the table, in the middle. Hillier near Paris. Didn't see houses until 17:23 on an alleged 17:26 arrival, but we actually pulled in 9 minutes late. Took 3 minutes to walk off the platform.

ATM in the side of the currency exchange booth, in an international train station, did not have any obvious non-French menus. Unlike the UK ATMs, which typically asked "what language" right up front. I went out and found a bank ATM which did hold my hand. Got semi-lost from trying to follow a map without being fully online; I'd have had less trouble taking my hostess instructions literally. Nice place, a full apartment to myself as she and bf are staying at a friend's place as the friend is on holiday... musical flats.

Fifth floor, actually the 6th by US standards since they start from 'ground', not '1'. Different plugs than in the UK, fortunately I got a European converter kit.
Neighborhood is very immigranty, but also with random shops scattered
around, like clothing shops. Hostess is very well prepared -- maps,
even travel guide.

Wi-fi didn't seem to work for
eee, like A&L's place, but it did after hibernation. I was going to try
cable next, then reboot to older version.

I found food, though the close supermarket was closed, a further "big" one wasn't where she said it'd be, and what I did find there had no produce. Bread, salami, and cheese! And nuts, and bahklava.

Possible plans for tomorrow: walk around, figure out the Metro, stay in and cram some French.

Oh, I'm a few blocks north of Gare du Nord, the train station that is, and east of Montmartre, some important neighborhood.