And yet it was MUCH colder than the past two days. I love the cold and was fine through the early afternoon, but as the sun started heading toward the horizon and the cold started to wear on me, I actually shivered. So I did a lot of strolling after heading across town on the hop on/hop off bus, but my mid-afternoon I decided to hop on and not hop off again till I was back near my hotel. Of course, the bus did not have a single heating element and there were two open staircases to the open upper deck, so it wasn't especially cozy but I did get to listen to almost a full loop of the audio guide on "The Paris Grand Tour" line. There are three other lines I need to bang out in the next couple of days.
Quick aside: if you are ever putting together an audio guide for a city, don't fill it with "local" music between major attractions. There is so much most of us could learn about other places - fill the air in between "sights" with history, current events, amusing anecdotes about the area. Anything! Just giving a blurb about each one of the stops is lazy. Just sayin.
Anyhoo, I finally saw the Eiffel Tower up close and personal. I did a lap around it to see what the lines looked like. The security line on one side was much better than the other so I went back to that and sailed through security. Then I saw the ticket line - ugh (though I'm sure it is far, far worse when it's not 24 degrees). I was in the line when I saw an announcement scrolling on a screen: the top is closed. WTF?! I'm not waiting in that line to go about as high as my office. At least I was going to today. Maybe tomorrow. There are other high places from which to get a panoramic view of the city, but the ET has that "I was there" thing going for it. The effort seems a lot more reasonable when you can go all the way to the top, but we'll see.
 |
| I'm at the Eiffel Tower!!! |
After that, I hopped back on the bus for a ride back over towards the Louvre. Did some wandering there. Checked out the Hotel du Louvre (ladies room). If I had to give just one piece of advice that someone new to traveling might find valuable, it would be this - if you're out touristing all day, don't use icky public bathrooms or buy things you don't want at a restaurant, go into a big, fancy hotel! They tend to be crawling with people so the staff doesn't know/care if you belong, they may have lobby bars which make you belong even if you don't, and they almost have lovely bathrooms! I'm talking fancy soaps and real towels. The good stuff. I'd think twice about this if you're really casually dressed, especially in Europe, but if you have a decent coat on in the winter, you're probably good enough.
Ah, then lunch after more wandering. I wasn't sure about this one. I wanted to try something new and didn't want beef (which is harder to avoid here than I anticipated) so I got a chicken dish. According to Google Translate, the chicken was going to be minced and that had me worried about whether it would be cooked. I've seen a lot of piles of steak tartare around here and did NOT want to see a chicken-style pile on my plate. Luckily, Google Translate sucks! It was chicken medallions in some sort of mild curry sauce, I think, with veggie rice that seemed a lot healthier than the fried rice you get with Chinese takeout. Not nearly as good as yesterday and just one course, but pretty good.
 |
| I don't know what they wanted me to do with the ketchup and mustard. |
Another aside, it seems I have succeeded in not looking too American and strolling with casual confidence because people keep asking me, in French (!) for directions. I assume that's what they wanted because they each pointed to or looked quizzically at a phone or map. Twice yesterday and FOUR times today, women speaking pretty good French (I can't actually vouch for quality, but it was fast so I think it was good) stopped me to ask questions. And no, they were not part of a roving band of pickpockets - no one else approached me at about the same time and none of my stuff has been touched. This happened to me a lot in Germany and Austria, but I figured I just looked Aryan. I need to learn these language so my apparent approachability could prove useful to someone.
By the time I wandered back to the Louvre, I had made my decision to semi-permanently hop on the bus for the trip home (which was more than an hour ride/tour, a half hour or more of which I was all alone - creepy). I had to switch buses near the end and ran into three Brazilians with whom I froze and waited for the first bus at the beginning of the day. Poor things were a lot colder than I was. They kept saying, when I went to the airport it was 35.... 35 is Celsius for hot. I hope they have a nice warm hotel room.
 |
| Views from the frigid bus: Notre Dame |
 |
| Arc de Triomphe |
 |
| The Paris Opera - gorgeous building! |
I dove under the covers when I got back to mine until I could stop shivering. Then I had some work to do - yup, I made money in Paris! A whopping 56 bucks for some editing, but it's better than nothing. Given my work assignment and the cold, I had a couple of crepes delivered to my room for dinner and am now about to call it a day. More to come tomorrow!!! :)
No comments:
Post a Comment