Anyway, Paris! I spent wednesday back in Riseley/Bedford. Menna, her friend Katie and i tried to be cheap sods and go to the local swimming pool using tokens off the kelloggs box. When we got there, the buggers had a sign up saying 'only applies to children with a paying adult'. So we paid and swam anyway, fighting our way through hordes of elderly patrons in the 7 lanes that weren't roped off, or slow people in the one that was. Then there was the nasty one who a) had a go for us being in her way and b) had a go for us getting too far out of the way next time.
Back at the ranch that evening we packed for Paris and turned up to Bedford station at 2.30am. Shit that was a fun ride into London... At St Pancras we boarded the Eurostar, which really is a dream. Plus it bloody goes underwater for a bit...brilliant! I may have even slept. Got to Gare du Nord at 8ish and had a cheap breakfast in the vicinity before checking into hotel nearby. Then it was time to hit the sights.
Jumped on an open-air tourist bus that i thought would be crap but wasn't. Ok the pre-recorded commentary was rubbish ("there are over 6000kms of roads in Paris" wow thanks man) but it was nice to be sitting above the traffic but still experience the atmosphere of the street. Sounds cheesey, i know. And it was a ripoff, but it was a pleasant way to get round.
More detailed, humorous and possibly fabricated commentary of the sights will come later with the photos, but for now here's another list thing.
- Cathedrale Notre-Dame: impressive, i kept saying it like an american, people who can't turn off the flash or shut the hell up in churches really piss me off, should have yelled at them in faux Italian or something
- Lunches de supermarche: the only way to not burn money in europe is to avoid eating. At any kind of establishment. With the ready availability of supermarkets in Paris i reinstated if tradition Joe and i followed at camp. Fruit, salad, liquid. €3 yeeha!
- Bastille: a mildly unimpressive statue in the middle of a hilarious roundabout commemorating some kind of revolution or something. When will the French get over their Republicanism? I resisted the urge to remind them that about 20 minutes after libertee, egalitee, fraternitee, they embraced a ruthless dictator who made himself emperor then tried to take over all of Europe.
- Place de la Concorde: was expecting to see a fast plane parked up here but was sadly disappointe. Until i looked round and realised that its pretty much the centre of the republic. With an ever better roundabout, awesome.
- Champs Elysee: Anglo-consumerism is the latest conqueror to march relatively unhindered through the Arc, and set up camp here. Slightly more than mildly offensive, somewhat less than downright outrageous. I guess the French need somewhere to buy touristy tat as well as tourists.
- Arc de Triomphe: large, another excellent roundabout.
Then got the metro back to do battle, once again, with a large service organisation in French. Last time it was La Poste in Lausanne, this time Western Union. I don't know about you but I've always viewed WU with skepticism, what with their claims of zapping money across the globe like that (snaps fingers). I'd managed to transfer half of my downpayment on the rental via their NZ website off my credit card, relatively easy. But for complicated reasons the rest had to be done a la Francais. Take a ticket, then this non-employee gives me a form to fill out with the amount, recipient etc. Lucky for me most of the other customers weren't so good at French either. See, Western Union takes care of most of the non-corporate cash transfers of migrant workers, aka remittances. A humbling experience indeed to be worrying about securing my lease while my fellow customers are worrying about whether they earned enough this month to support a family back home. When i got to the counter i tried to credit card it again, but they don't do it. So managed to communicate a la Gesticulation that i needed to know how much cash to bring back to equal X US dollars. Walked up to the ATM, withdrew a shitload, walked/ran back to WU without getting mugged and it all went fine from there. The non employee guy and i chuckled, he had a prayer book so i think he just stands there most days doing customer information/crowd-queue control. I hope they give him a sandwich at lunch. Obviously after all that i was stuffed so went back to hotel and slept for 12+ hours. That was day 1 in paris, and i already had a great feeling about the city.
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