Paris (Jeremy)

The next day took us to Paris where we had booked a budget hotel within walking distance from the downtown attractions for two nights. We dropped our stuff off and went to see all the normal touristy things. Notre Dame, the Eiffel tower, the Egyptian obelisk, some arches, etc. We stopped by a bookstore and bought a couple children’s books in French (“Charlie et le Chocolaterie” for me, and “Harry Potter et le Chambre des Secrets” for Becky). Our spoken French was good enough to get around pretty well with whatever level of English cashiers, waiters, etc had. The notable exception was when we tried to order some pasta in a box (yummy, and should be in the states) and just continued to say “Oui” when asked about “fromage” because we were trying to order the pasta with “4 fromage” sauce. We ended up with cheese filled ravioli in parmesan cheese sauce with parmesan cheese on top. Cheesy! Still tasty, but not what we were trying to get.

In the evening, we got a couple cheap bottles of wine and joined the many other couple and groups of friends out on the lawn in front of the Eiffel tower to wait for dark and the subsequent tower sparkling (is this common knowledge? I had no idea there were sparkles!) Fairly tipsy, we made our way half-way back before giving up on walking and taking the metro with the help of an English-speaking passerby. The next day was more site-seeing, walking down to the Champs d’Elysees and the Arc de Triumph, searching in vain for fruit stands in central Paris, and a fancier sit-down dinner.

We decided that we wanted to go to the south of France along the Mediterranean next, so the following morning… (the train ride ended, now I’m at a campsite in Arcachon and it’s a few days later) Anyway, the following morning we went to the train station and waited in an exceptionally long line to make our reservation for the fast train to Marseilles only to find out that all the trains for that day were fully booked. This is not something we expected and begs the question, “how do people go on spontaneous European adventures if train rides need to be booked in advance?” So without knowing what to do, we walked to a different train station (the one we were at only provided fast trains that needed reservations, while the slower TER trains that do not require seat assignments left from another station) There, we figured out that we could go to Orleans or Tours, neither of which sounded particularly appealing, so we went back to the first station in search of a train reservation for the next day.

Fortunately, two trains to Marseille still had open seats for the following day, and we made our reservation (only 3 euros, so far better than the 100+ euros that it actually costs to take one of these trains without a rail pass). Then there was the requisite stressful searching for internet access so we could find lodging for the night. By the time we did that, walked an hour to the hotel, awkwardly pulled up our reservation page in the hotel lobby so that the receptionist could see our room type reservation, and got checked in, it was 6:00 pm and laundry+ Indian food rounded out the last day in Paris. Lesson learned: make train reservations in advance!