France Day 1

Today started of course with the flight out of Logan first into Dublin then into Paris Charles De Gaulle. I should mention at the outset the same bartender from Houlihan’s was there and she remembered me yet again. I ordered burger which they did provide rare but I didn’t end up finishing it. The flight to Dublin left on time and turned out to arrive about a half an hour early. The flight itself was uneventful with only a couple small bumps here and there. Nothing to write home about. I sat next to a retired British ex-pat who lives in Vermont. She was going to visit her family just outside of Cornwall. It was also her first flight on Aer Lingus. The plane was an Airbus 330 and seemed very new. All the seats had monitors but I only watched the GPS for the flight and read until they turned off the lights but I wasn’t able to sleep. The food on the flight was better than I expected (not gourmet but palatable) however I didn’t eat a lot of it due to having the burger in the airport.

When we landed in Dublin I was quickly able to check that the Bruins won 4-1 and was happy with that. I picked up Meteor as the service network. Dublin’s airport was a weird sort of maze and it took a bit of work to get through passport control and security rescreening before finding my way over to my gate for the flight to Charles De Gaulle. For reason I cannot fathom the temperature of the gate was probably around 40F. I didn’t bother to wear my jacket on the planes because it is usually not necessary. I sort of froze a bit as I read waiting to board. To add to this we had to board the plane directly from the tarmac and the doors were open to the weather without gates, both front and back. This meant the plane was also freezing until they finally closed the doors and the climate equalized. The first flight was about 5 hours and small change the second was about 1 hour and 20 minutes. We also landed in France ahead of schedule by about 15 minutes.

The sky in France was pretty grim when we landed and the airport seems a bit old and tired and is even more of a maze than Dublin was. Nonetheless getting through passport control was easy enough. Finding the train station was a bit more work and required the services of an airport shuttle tram to the end. From there I had to wait a few minutes before getting my ticket and boarding a train to Gare du Nord (basically north station). The train ride was a little bit more than a half an hour and I used the time to program the GPS so I could find the hotel easier than I found the hotel in Sweden. The GPS directions were a bit strange to get used to but I had found the hotel within 10 minutes so it had to have worked. The bad news was the hotel didn’t check in until 1pm according to the desk so I left my suitcase in a storage area and went out and found lunch at a café a few blocks away.

I had cabbage stuffed with French sausage (chou farci) with aligots (which I have no idea exactly what is but it seemed like a sort of cheese fondue. Unfortunately my choice was a tad salty but good nonetheless and I ate the non-aligots stuff but left most of the aligots behind as I was far too filled up. I couldn’t tell if the basic service fee was included in the bill so I hope I didn’t undertip them. Ah well, based on the salt I likely wouldn’t eat there again. Apparently lunch places don’t start serving until noon by the way.

One instant impression of France/Paris is that it is not as clean as Sweden was so far and there was a heck of a lot of graffiti going along the train route, even more than in Boston. I am sure the grey skies didn’t help make things look clean, but it sort of had a New York City feel by way of tidiness which is a bit unfortunate.

After eating lunch (déjeuner) I managed to get back to the hotel and check in. They put me in the back section on the third floor. The section doesn’t have a lift so far as I can see. Fortunately the luggage doesn’t go with me everywhere while I am here. The room is more sizeable than I expected and has to sub-twin beds in it. I guess I can use one to keep the suitcase on anyway. Probably the one near the window. The bathroom is again a converted closet but it will certainly suffice.

After getting in and writing this part I opted to take a shower and get cleaned up so I could do more for the day it still being fairly early. Unfortunately this hotel will be sans internet it seems but it at least appears clean. I called home to say I was ok and then got on my way.

I have always believed that if you want to learn a city you must walk it. That’s exactly what I did for more than four hours today. My path was neither planned nor logical. I merely started walking towards what I thought would be the direction of the Seine and was correct in that regard. From there I did what I could to find the various major points of interest as I walked around. I didn’t have the benefit of a hand map and GPS on the phone really didn’t state where the points of interest were either so I had to sort of wing it by signs. They don’t really put a lot of signs that say in general go that way if you want to see the Eiffel Tower or Notre Dame Cathedral but if you start to get close to it then you’ll start to see the signs. Of course with the Tower it is already in site by the time you see the signs, I think so too with the Cathedral. In any event I didn’t record my track like I should have so you won’t be able to see the goofball path I took directly. The picture progress may give you some hint of it when I am able to post those though. For its height, the Eiffel Tower is not really visible a lot from range. I could understand the Tokyo Tower not being visible from range due to all the tall buildings in Tokyo but there’s really nothing tall in Paris aside from the Tower so I found it strange it was not easy to see until I realized it is on the other side of the world from everything else important.

I have done the walk through London and realized it is huge. I’ve been around NYC and know that it is inconceivably big on a scale like no other. Stockholm was spread out but no so gigantic. I didn’t get an impression of size from Copenhagen or Dublin or Cardiff or Edinburgh and I know that Boston is moderately sized but not huge. I was unprepared for the actual distances involved in Paris. That said I did manage to get around to everything from say 2:30pm to 7pm except the Champs Elysees and the Arc du Triomph both of which were able to evade me. By the time I got under the Eiffel Tower I really needed to rest my feet though so I sat there for about half an hour and people watched. If you really want to see some interesting things sit and watch people underneath the Eiffel Tower on a long weekend with decent weather. I hadn’t realized until just before I left that May 1 is France’s Labor Day and they all have it off. Due to that the entirety of Paris was super crowded. The lines to go up the tower or to go into Notre Dame Cathedral were both gigantic on a scale that really defies description. Needless to say I have opted to leave those tidbits for another day here.

After resting for a while there I started in the general direction of the hotel and looked for someplace to eat. I found an outdoor/indoor restaurant named Le Carousel and chose to eat outside there. That was partially a mistake because EVERYONE in Paris smokes including the nice 2 Italian couples that sat next to me not long after I ordered. The breeze did carry most of it away at least. In starting to order the waiter corrected me in both beer selection (he told me to get the Belgian) and main course selection (he told me to get the lamb knuckle). He was right on both counts and the meal was superb. When the Italians saw my plate the two gentlemen also ordered the lamb and they and I repeated “C’est Bonne” to the waiter a couple times. I decided I needed a tad more rest before starting out again so I ordered a double espresso (Lavazza) and the crème brulee and enjoyed both of them. This receipt did not appear to have a service charge and the waiter was very appreciative of what I left for a tip. He steered me right so I was more than happy to leave something. Oh, while I was waiting for the food I called in to Peter and the group and chatted until the food came then sent email pictures of the meal and the dessert. As I was getting ready to go I programmed google maps on the phone to guide me in. I was still 2.9km from the hotel but it worked out a bit better than the nokia maps because I had better judgment of where I was on the map and it took me maybe 45 minutes or less at a slower pace to get to the hotel. That’s where I wrote this in word to be posted. It being about 9:30 I will probably just kill a few more minutes then go to bed for the night for a very well deserved rest after being awake and about for a fair bit over 24 hours straight. My feet really need the rest right now and I’ll definitely have to use the second pair of shoes to relieve some of the tough points caused by the first pair.