Day 9: Travel to Paris, The Arc De Triomphe, and The Eiffel Tower

Here'a the blog post I was unable to post due to lack of stable Internet service while in France.

Today we took a train to France! It's hard to believe how well thing have gone this far. Our train ride was uneventful for the most part. I spent the time listening to music and watching the British businessman mark up insurance proposals with an ominous red pen. He must have been important, because underneath "expert opinions" he wrote "insufficient data" then underneath "further comments" he wrote in bold "this paper incomplete. Et al." Yikes. Glad he's not my CEO. 

Also, the countryside was just lovely. It looked rather like the English countryside, except no hedgerows and different looking chapels in the villages.

We stepped of the train and walked over to a street corner. It was like stepping into another world, or at least, another country, which it was. We just stood there gaping at the Parisian landscape spread before us for a little while, until we consulted our directions. We weren't able to figure out where the street we needed to find, so Victoria stepped into a little shop to ask directions. Since Parisians have a reputation for snobbery, we weren't expecting much help. But even as she was getting directions, a Frenchman saw us standing about, looking a bit lost, I'm sure, and he immediately asked us, in perfect English, if we needed any help at all. Wow, we were not expecting that! We really misjudged the French population on the subject of friendliness. After getting things straight and thanking them both  profusely, we set off for the Passage de Panorama, a little collection of shops and restaurants we had planned to explore. We had all decided that walking would be our primary mode of travel and saved a lot of Euros that way. Plus, we got an up close and personal look at Parisian culture. You know you are in France when there are wine bottles in the gutter instead of beer bottles!

The streets are narrow, and the surrounding buildings, with yellow and red flowers spilling from the windowboxes, are in the classic French style with little balconies and railings. They drive on the same side of the road that we do in the states, and motorcycles, mopeds, and bikes are the most popular mode of  transportation. We got to the panorama, and had fun looking at all the little shops and eventually got hungry and decided to stop at a little restaurant called the Plat du Jour (plate of the day.) We ordered the poulet biologique (organic chicken) with potatoes and salad. Victoria was a champ and communicated perfectly with he staff. The food was wonderful! Even thought it was a seemingly simple meal, it was perfectly seasoned and well cooked. They keep pots of spicy Dijon mustard on every table like we do with ketchup back in the states, and good gracious, it was good!

We continued on towards a cooking store called la carpe, where we browsed lots of neat kitchen gadgets. Victoria got a rolling pin and some whisks.  Next, we continued our journey in the direction of the Arc de Triumph, and after a few wrong turns, we were standing in front of it! Incredible! We paid around m8€ to go on the top, which was well worth the money, because we got a breathtaking view of he city! After soaking it in for a while, we walked in the direction of the most iconic landmarks of Paris, the Eiffel Tower. We had been warns profusely about pickpockets, but had no trouble whatsoever the Arc, which was a pleasant surprise. The true test would be the Eiffel Tower, where fraudulent folks supposedly run rampant. 

Once we got there, it was about 5:00, so it wasn't too terribly crowded. We got in line for tickets and began to go through security.  The security guy looked in Victoria's backpack and eyed the rolling pin suspiciously before telling her in French that she could not bring it in. After a brief pause, he whispered to her to "Cache don the parc!"  Or, "hide it in the park!" In other words, the hoity toity French official was telling her to essentially "hide that thing in a bush." She obliged, and we all had a good chuckle over it. We were able to go to the topmost floor (VERY high!) The wind was blowing like crazy and we had a clear view of the entire city. Words won't do it justice. You have to see it to believe it! We had no trouble with pickpockets, we did have a lady come up and ask us to sign some petition, but we declined and she never bothered us again. I decided that if anyone tried to do that again, I would tell them off in German. They have lot of good phrases for "sorry, I don't do scams." Or "leave me alone."

I guess that people must be praying for us, because we have has no bad experiences whatsoever on that front. 

Rather hungry from all our traversing, we opted  to stop in at a little French-Mediterranean take away place for some wraps and hydration to bring with us to our hotel. We had planned the only cab ride of the day to be for that evening, when we were headed to our hotel, which was a good distance away from the restaurant Noura, where we were at the time. So, we hailed a cab driven by a sweet little old French guy who was able to converse with Victoria almost the whole ride. I was able to follow a bit of their conversation but didn't had anything to add of course. Our hotel for the night was nice, if a bit small. The bathroom was particularly tiny, and you could literally bump your elbows on either side of the wall while brushing your teeth.

We settled in for the night. I had to rewrite this post today because the iPod ate it that night after I finished writing it. Not fun! :)

French bits:

This may sound obvious, but the French just love their food, and they take a on incredible amount of time to ingest it. I would watch people eat and they would take a bite, discuss for 5 minutes, take another bite, sip some wine, talk some more, etc. They just aren't in a hurry to eat. Now driving, on the other hand, they can be impatient with that, and they can speak their language 50 miles an hour, slurring some words for brevity, but they eat slow. 
Lots of people are into yoga and tai chi. Walk by a park and you'll see lots of people practicing around mid morning. 

How can I put this delicately....they aren't afraid showing a LOT of affection in public. Kissing on the crosswalk? Why not. In the middle of the sidewalks? Anything goes, really. They also don't mind nudity in artwork. Art is everywhere here, hence nudity is everywhere.

You also kiss people on the cheek when you meet them. 

A Petits Dejeuner means a "small plate" meal. They abbreviate this and spell it "PT DJN" on their menus.