Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Since we hadn't gone anywhere in, like, a month, and O and J were kind enough to give us their Eurail pass that they hadn't used up, we decided to head down to Paris to see what there was to see. Jack had Friday off because Tuesday had been a holiday and he switched it. So Friday we went to the train station to reserve our places and then to a lunch spot across the way called Raconte-moi des Salades (which I think means "tell me some salads"). This is a weekday lunch-only spinoff of a popular restaurant in our neighborhood, so we went there to try their recommended cuisine and to avoid having to make reservations at the closer place.

The salads were the type that I like to make: huge, with a lot of stuff going on. Mine had prosciutto, hard-boiled egg, and mushrooms stuffed with cheese and baked. Jack's had cured duck breast on it, among other things. They were both fantastic, and a great way to start the day given that we had skipped breakfast for some reason. Sitting outside, we got to watch the vignettes play out in the plaza in front of the restaurant: the homeless-looking guy with the tiny puppy who inexplicably started shouting at the sky, the business types trying to decide where to eat, the train passengers loitering about while waiting for their ship to come in, the young family with an infant all dressed in olive shirts of different intensities, the police having a chat with a woman who had been shooed off by our waiter moments before for begging among the patrons. We spent the rest of the day running errands and the like. Jack finally got a haircut after much trepidation, and although it was the most expensive one he's ever gotten (20 euros), I think it was also one of the best since despite the language barrier he was able to communicate to the guy not to take too much off--usually the people he goes to at home ignore him when he says this. Plus the barber is this old-school dude who has a single chair in a tiny storefront, so I'm hoping it's the beginning of a beautiful relationship. (I had gotten my first haircut the day before, paying 33 euros, or 8 euros above the stated price, 4 because I had "long hair" and 4 because I had agreed to the conditioner after shampooing. Not the most expensive haircut I've ever gotten, but it was up there.)

Early Saturday we got up, had some breakfast and made our way down the hill to catch our train. The first difference between the Thalys service and the regular train is that there was an inclined moving walkway up to the platform. Why they thought that was necessary instead of a regular escalator I have no idea. We had reserved seats and were glad to find that, in spite of the fact that the numbers were non-sequential, we were sitting across from each other. The whole process was fraught with mild worry that we would be caught out, forced to pay a fine as well as the full fare on the spot. However, the ticket purchasing had gone smoothly, the agent not even looking inside the little sleeve to verify that we did indeed have a valid Eurail pass in there for the country we were in--we could have had an expired pass or one only good in the Ukraine or something else stapled in there altogether. The next hurdle was to not wither under the scrutiny of the train conductor--would he require proof that we were, in fact, the O and J listed on the pass? He just punched our tickets and moved on, not bothering to look at the pass; he didn't even look to see whether we had validated it for the date of our travel, which is a crucial part of the Eurail process, or else you could basically use the pass for unlimited travel instead of the 5 trips you've paid for.

That being over, we spent the rest of the trip watching the countryside roll by. I was told by an English guy living here that, as we approached the border with France, we would be switching from the left side of the track to the right via some kind of underpass so that we could be on the European standard, but that never happened, perhaps because the line was a dedicated route and there was no reason to switch. Or maybe he had no idea what he was talking about.

We rolled into Gare du Nord about an hour and a half after departing. Our first order of business was to wander in the general direction of our hotel while attempting to do such things as eat lunch and buy tea. This eventually lead us by some opera house where we poked our heads in to see the beautifully appointed lobby, then over to Place Vendome to see the column made of melted-down cannons, then eventually over to Place Madeline where the Fauchon was located. The square contained what appeared to be the Pantheon, but turned out to be a church. We went to Fauchon, where we wandered around looking at all the tempting high-end goods (and at one point got treated to a thin graham cracker enrobed in dark chocolate--mmm), got some tea and szechuan peppercorns and then went across the street for lunch.

Lunch was a fairly standard Parisian affair for a touristy area: rude waiter, overpriced food at the wrong temperature, and a loud and chatty Texan a few tables down. It began to sprinkle as we sat outside, and the awning couldn't sufficiently protect Jack from the weather. After eating we checked out the church in the square, which was notable for the fact that it had no natural light aside from three tiny domed skylights. I couldn't envision spending time in there before the advent of electricity, and also couldn't imagine why they would have done a recessed fresco high above the altar that would have been all but impossible to illuminate back in the day.

Once quit of the square we made for the Seine so we could follow it for a bit and then cross to the Left Bank. We took the path alongside the water, which was 10-15 feet below the surrounding area, making the monuments on the Right Bank invisible to us. A nice variety of houseboats sat moored to the side, and in contrast to those in Amsterdam they looked like they could actually be used as boats. Eventually we wandered back up to street level, crossed the river and made the long slog down a dull street to our hotel.

It being August, quite a number of shops were closed and it appeared that a lot of the residents were on vacation, because there was not a lot of vitality on the streets. But who knows--maybe that's the way Paris is. It's no sleepy hamlet, though: we quickly learned that everything is further away than it appears on the map, in contrast to Brussels, where practically everything is within a mile or so of where you are. Eventually we got to our hotel, which was directly above the Montparnasse-Bienvenue metro stop and across from that highrise building that sticks out like a sore thumb.

After some recharging, we hit the streets again, this time heading for Notre Dame and its famous towers. First, though, we went to the Montparnasse cemetery, a lovely spot that contained some big names and some very original grave markers. One was comprised of a bunch of pitted stones cemented together to look like a large craggy rock, although this effect could only be achieved from a distance and through very squinty eyes since there was no top coat on it to give it a uniform appearance and so it just looked like rocks in cement. Baudelaire seemed to be the most popular, more so than Sartre or Sontag, as demonstrated by the number of pebbles and notes and used metro tickets on his grave. Given that it was constantly threatening to rain, we scoped out the place for nice spots to take shelter should we need to. I could easily pass myself off as a mourner of some variety, as long as I'm distraught enough to be burbling incomprehensibly (in a French accent, naturally), and in a downpour who's going to look that closely?

Back in the land of the living, we stopped for a beer and then for croissants in which by some diabolical sorcery the baker managed to cram twice as much buttery goodness as normal. We checked out the real Pantheon as we passed by. We crossed over onto the Ile de la Cite and Jack stole me a mimosa flower from the park behind the church. Once we got to the front of Notre Dame and noted the length of the lines to go up into the towers and into the church itself, we quickly lost interest. We'll just have to come back during the winter at some point.

We checked out Pont Neuf to see if any of the faces carved into it resembled us, but they were all grimacing so it was hard to tell. Later, using an outdated Washington Post article as a guide, we selected a restaurant in the Latin Quarter for dinner. It was a nice spot: a pedestrian street full of restaurants and people, but not enough to make it noisy or crowded. The weather having cooled off a bit, and having brought an inadequate number of layers, we sat in the restaurant's open front window rather than on the street itself. We surveyed the street scene and listened to the roving musicians from our perch. The restaurant featured cuisine from the Southwest of France, and we both got the fixed price 3-course menu. Our waitress spoke decent English, but for some reason my brain couldn't take that much switching back and forth so I continued to address her in bad French while she replied in English. My salad featured what I think was supposed to be pate, but it smelled exactly like Fancy Feast and didn't taste like anything special, so hid most of it under a piece of lettuce. My lamb was good, but not terribly exciting. Jack decided his rump steak was not a cut of meat he'd order again, given its toughness. All in all, a rather pedestrian meal but a good time hanging out. The wine was good, too.

We decided to end the evening with a visit to the Eiffel Tower, so we got to the metro just in time to see a young woman about to be married being paraded around by her friends in order to, as far as I could tell by the large poster around her neck, be kissed by strangers. (We had seen something similar at the Parthenon earlier: a young man being dragged around, his friends announcing his impending marriage and, inexplicably, lifting up his t-shirt to expose his chest. If these two getting married to each other, then I must say their friends are made for one another.) After procuring tickets (it was somewhat of an ordeal since they didn't take paper money and we didn't have change, so we now have a 2.80 charge on the credit card), we hopped on the train and made our way across town.

I'm sure you all are familiar with the Eiffel Tower so I will forgo a description. There were a bunch of lines snaking up to the ticket booths, where they were charging some god awful amount to go up to the top. It was rather like being at an amusement park in high summer--motorized carriages that would occasionally take on a handful of people, causing the people in line to shuffle forward a few feet. There was even a sign telling us how long it would be from a certain point in line, and one of those sandwich boards with a funny pelican in a hat saying "you must be this tall to enter -->" (fortunately the line was a couple inches off the ground--probably trying to prevent birds and preemies from going in ). They were also nice enough to tell us, in English, that the 3rd level could close unexpectedly at any time. Surely they wouldn't do this unless there were some strong winds or something, right? Wrong. They probably close it when they're just tired of it being open, or someone gives them guff so they want to punish those waiting in line, or whatever. Needless to say it shut down after we had been in line for about 15 minutes, so we left.

Jack had the misfortune of taking an interest in how much the light-up Eiffel Towers were being hawked for, and was told 8 euros. As he walked off, the guy went down to 6, and Jack then reluctantly offered 5, to which he was told there was no way. So he walked off again and, lo and behold, it turns out the guy was willing to accept 5 after all. Go figure. Somehow the thing he was given wasn't as cool as the ones they were carrying around, but that should surprise no one. I'll probably give it to my parents so they can add it to their collection of light-up monuments, which currently consists of one lonely item.

We returned to the hotel by way of the UNESCO building, where they had a large illuminated sphere. As we were pondering that, we looked back in the direction we came and the Eiffel Tower was sparkling all over, as if it had just come out of the dryer and was full of crackly staticyness that needed to be discharged. It was quite a sight to behold, and behold we did.

When we got back we were fortunate enough to catch the weekly Daily Show that's shown on CNN International and features the best bits from the previous days, and then settled in for a deep sleep that was aided by a good bed and total exhaustion from lots of walking. The periodic vibrations of the trains passing 3 floors below were faint and somehow comforting.

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