Still getting used to this quirky website -- wrote this story twice only to see it disappear into the ether -- hopefully I can make it as interesting this third time!
It's Sunday afternoon around 2pm, I'm in my hotel room on the 18th floor overlooking the skyline of Paris and watching loaded barges slowly moving up and down the River Seine literally fifty yards away. I've a bottle of French Merlot cracked-open (and by now more than half empty), what's left of a baguette, a few morsels of cheese left from an earlier slab and a few minutes to try and describe my first full day in Paris -- to use one word -- "AMAZING!" I imagine the "honeymoon effect" will wear off eventually but for now, Paris is all that I expected and more!
Arrived Friday afternoon at Charles DeGaulle airport, took a bus into the center of Paris and then a cab ride to my hotel near the Eiffel Tower. The bus ride was pleasant, the cab ride was equal parts fascinating and terrifying -- and those of you who have ridden with me driving can only imagine what that means! First of all, they apparently have no lane markers on many of the streets and so you can instantly go from three cars abreast to five cars abreast merely because two other cars think they can squeeze by you in that section of the road -- reminded me of the chariots races in Ben Hur! And lane changes are controlled only by who gets there first -- cars literally make ninety degree left or right turns five feet in front of you at 35-40mph -- and amazingly they don't seem to hit each other that often! For me, I'm walking or riding the subway! Although walking is an adventure as well -- at an intersection you supposedly have the "right-of-way" on a green light, you can play "chicken" on a red light or if you just don't feel like waiting, or, if you want to feel like a native, you can jaywalk (or run) across in the middle of the block -- just this morning, I watched a little old lady who must have been in her late 80's "run" across in the middle of the block as a car bore down on her at 35mph -- missed her by ten feet, the guy must have felt sorry for her!
Slept in yesterday morning -- needed to get my body used to the time change -- then went exploring. Stopped for a bite to eat at a boulangerie just around the corner from my hotel -- one word -- "AMAZING"! The croissants were to die for -- like nothing I've had in the States -- warm, buttery -- they literally melted in my mouth! And the pastries -- ooh, la, la!! The coffee was a bit different -- it came in a small (2" tall) paper cup -- about one-fifth the volume of a typical coffee you get at Starbucks -- but strong, unbelievably strong!! Sat there for a while on a wooden stool looking out the window with what I believe were locals, watching the tourists rush in, grab something and rush out on there way to where I don't know! Then it was off exploring the neighborhood.
In the neighborhood I'm in, they apparently have what might be referred to as a "hub and spoke" type of layout. There is a roundabout or circular "place" where the streets converge (the hub) and then the six to eight mostly one-way streets fan out in a "spoke" like arrangement. Two or three of the spokes are pretty much lined with eight to ten story high apartment buildings dating from the 1700's to the 1980's -- with the majority of spokes being commercial with small shops on the ground floors (and I mean small - maybe 12-15 feet wide and about twice as deep) and apartments above. On any given hub/spoke arrangement, you will find a half dozen boulangeries, patiseries, boucheries, fromageries (cheese), scattered about with another 15-20 restaurants, cafes, bars and brasseries mixed-in. Top that off with a scad of women's clothing boutiques (Frank, you'd especially like the lingerie shops!), fresh fruit and vegetable stands, flower stands (that are simply unbelievable -- with the quantity and blazing colors of the flowers, you can see these stands from half a block away), travel agencies, cellphone stores (yeah, not everything is quaint!), a few shoe stores, a couple of small grocery stores (with their shelves stocked to the ceilings and only one cash register), a few wine stores (not nearly as many as I expected), maybe a watch store, a puzzle store or a paper/writing instrument store, a couple of "antiquities" stores, a couple of laundrys/dry cleaners and you have what amounts to a self-contained "village". Follow one of the spokes five or six blocks and you'll find another hub/spoke with a repeating arrangement -- but almost all the shops are owner-owned businesses with very few chains. Exploring just one of these hubs took 2-3 hours and I'm not much of a shopper. My big purchase for the mornig was an alarm clock -- apparently not all the electric alarm clocks they make are compatible with 220V current -- fried the one I brought Friday evening when I plugged it into a 220V circuit.
Went back out that afternoon for another four hours of exploring and got baptized into the Paris Metro system. Needed to get my cellphone hooked-up to a local carrier and the store near the hotel didn't have the right chip in stock -- meant a twenty minute walk or a one stop Metro ride-- opted for the Metro which was an experience. Wanted to purchase a monthy pass -- unfortunately, English wasn't even the fourth language the two guys working at the station spoke, which meant bouncing back and forth between them and the ticket machines more than a few times -- let's just say I didn't make many friends with the half dozen people standing behined me waiting to use the ticket machine. Eventually, I got the correct pass and headed down into the catacombs to find the right train platform which was also interesting -- on the maps they name the different Metro stations -- on the platform signs they name the tourist sights you use that train to get to -- unforunately the two don't match-up with most of the sights on the map being between two different train stops -- again, a learning experience! Got back to the hotel around 6:00 that evening -- thought my legs were going to fall off -- had walked probably twelve to fourteen miles that day -- me, who a few months ago was lucky to go three to four miles at a time.
Then, of course, it was back out at 9pm wandering the streets again. The night before, I ate dinner at a French-Persian restaurant so of course last night I needed to top that -- ended up a "hole-in-the-wall" Korean-French restaurant on a deserted steet where I was the only non-Korean customer -- imagine someone speaking French with I can only imagine was a Korean accent -- we both used a lot of hand gestures! Both restaurants served excellent food and the Korean restaurant offered a whole bottle of good wine for ten bucks -- unbelievable, that's what a glass of this wine would cost in the States! The walk back to the hotel was also somewhat interesting -- I was totally lost, had just polished off a full bottle of red wine and it was around 11:30pm -- I made it back but highly doubt I could retrace my steps -- I think there was something about a woman, a dog and a motorcycle involved in the route I took but it's not at all clear how they figured into it.
Thus ended Day 01 in Paris.
