charismatic megafauna since 1985

Paris

Day 1

It was already suppose to be a 14-hour train ride from Madrid to Paris, the longest of my trip. It was 90 minutes late getting to Paris, though, making it a gnarly 15.5-hour train ride. It’s also on this train ride that I figured out that I lost my cell phone. I think I left it in the Cinque Terre, but I haven’t heard back from either of the hostels. I’m not too upset about the phone; I am upset about the 2 days of pictures that were on the memory card inside. It took me a little while to find the tourist office, since there wasn’t one at the train station I arrived at (de Lyon). I had to wander across the river to the next closest station (Austerlitz, which I always think is a concentration camp). When I asked about hostels, they gave me one right by the train station which isn’t where I wanted to stay. I decided to wander into town to another tourist office, hoping that they’d be able to tell me where a more central hostel was. It took me a while to find the office, since it’s not labeled and it’s not actually where it says it should be on the map, and they weren’t actually able to help me. They pointed me to another office, but at that point I was done with the tourism offices. I pulled out my laptop and, lo and behold, there was free wireless there. I’d ended up at the Centre Pompidou, a modern art museum that happens to provide free wireless. Free wireless that for some reason crashes both Ubuntu and the OLPC version of Red Hat. It’s the craziest thing; I’d connect, use the internet for a minute before the mouse and keyboard lock up. This has never happened with any other wireless network, and it’s not the computer since it works fine with other wireless networks. I ended up just going to an internet shop and using their computers for 15 minutes to find a couple hostels nearby in the Montmartre district (18th arrondisment). I went to the cheaper one first and got myself a bed for 4 nights. In retrospect I wish I’d only done it for 2 and gone to the other hostel for two nights, but at least it’s really close to the train station I’m leaving from.

After settling my stuff in my room, I took the Metro back downtown to follow Rick Steves’ Historic Paris audio tour. It’s about a 90-minute walk through the area around Notre Dame and Ste. Chapel. It was nice to get a feel for actual Paris instead of just wandering around aimlessly. I didn’t actually go into Ste. Chapel since the line was too long, but I’d go back to it later. Notre Dame was very impressive, more so from the outside than the inside. I’m always impressed by structures which take longer than a human lifetime to build.

I went to pick up a Paris Museum pass after I finished the tour. All of the places I wanted to go were covered, so I figured that it’s probably a good deal and it’ll get me into the museums much faster. I opted for the 4 day pass and started with the Archaeological Crypt of Notre Dame. It’s a series of ruins of previous structures found underneath the grounds of Notre Dame. After wandering through, I took the RER (not sure what that stands for) back towards my hostel. I picked up some groceries, made dinner, chatted with the various people who were also having dinner, and went to sleep. This was probably the longest day of my trip; I got up around 700 and went to sleep sometime around 0030 the next morning: 17.5 hours.

Day 2

Museum day, number 1. I hit the Louvre, Orsay and Rodin museums. I had audio tours for the Louvre and Orsay, so I just followed those around the museums. I could easily have spent a day at the Louvre (it’s the biggest museum in the world), but I just spent a couple hours. One of the cool things about all three of these museums is that they let you take pictures, at least without a flash. Generally museum days are low in pictures, but I got lots, at least the first two. At the Rodin museum, my (really, my mom’s) camera freaked out and shutdown. It’s not the batteries, since I tried replacing them. I ended up buying a cheap disposable camera, but it means I don’t have many pictures of the Rodin museum. I’ll have to steal them from my parents’ pictures of Paris. After finishing my museum tour, I wandered over to the sight that everyone has to see when they visit Paris: the Eiffel Tower. It’s a pretty cool structure, and I took some pictures, but I didn’t feel like paying more money and waiting in line for an hour to go up to the top. I’d have plenty of views of the city (and ones that include the Eiffel Tower) from Notre Dame and my next stop, the Arc de Triomphe. It’s not as big as the Eiffel Tower, but it’s still impressive. It also houses the tomb and memorial flame to the Unknown Soldier. The flame hasn’t gone out since the memorial was created. After that, I strolled down the Avenue des Champs Elysees; basically a big, ritzy tourist strip. I watched all the people, and glanced in at the stores, but generally tried the avoid the urge (not difficult for me) to go and shop.