Paris 2008 - 7-8 Juillet

7 Juillet (Lundi) - We went to L'Oisive Thé for an afternoon snack, after which we walked up to Italie2. We started by going to Darty, an electronics and appliance store. We had thought that the prices of LCD/plasma TVs had risen and wanted to check. They have risen a bit, but no where near as much as we thought. Then, Robb, in his quest for the perfect pink shirt, stopped at a few stores, but found nothing to his liking for less than €75 ($118).

We walked out to get the bus, but there were a bazillion people waiting. I suggested walking down to the next bus stop, where I felt we could get a seat before the hoards charged on. One bus came past, but it was full.

Then, I got the idea to walk across the street and get the bus in the opposite direction and ride it back, as we've done before with some success.

The bus arrived and was nearly empty. The ride was a lot longer than I had anticipated, but we got to see a whole new section of Paris and a bit of a suburb called, Arcueil. It wasn't particularly attractive, but it wasn't a terrible place.

Once there, we had to leave our bus and board another for the return trip. There were actually three buses lined up. It seems as though the drivers drive their route and then take a break. I estimated the breaks to be around fifteen minutes from the time we had ridden the 69 to the end of the line and had to wait while the driver took his break. We decided to ride all the way to Nation. We had barely been there for a minute, when it started raining lightly. We had anticipated rain and had our umbrellas with us. While there, I managed to get a shot of a rainbow.

After waiting about fifteen minutes, our bus showed up and we rode to Place Léon Blum.

It was almost 20h00 and Robb announced that he had to get milk, so we stopped into the ATAC SuperMarché. Evidently, everybody else in the area had the same idea. The place was packed. We took our time finding the items we wanted and had only a short wait in the check-out line.

8 Juillet (Mardi) - They've been working on the main entrance to Square de la Roquette since we've been here. The work is finally completed and people can once again use the main entrance to access the park. Until it was nearly finished, I had no idea that a beautiful fountain was hidden from sight just behind the work area.

While we were wandering around, I saw a couple of cute Fiats. I haven't seen a Fiat in the US for several years. I think I prefer the little yellow one, to the the sporty red one.

Plus à venir, mes amis.

Paris 2008 - 5-6 Juillet

5 Juillet (Samedi) - Robb has been chomping at the bit to get back to La Défense, so we bopped on over to Nation to get the métro. For at least the fourth time, we had a problem trying to use our monthly tickets on the turnstiles. This time it was my ticket. The thing is, if your ticket doesn't work, you have to squeeze in behind someone else, and they're not always happy about that because they think you're trying to beat the system and get in without paying. But you can't use the same ticket twice at the same location. We've tried that both with mine to let Robb through, and Robb's to get me through. When we got to La Défense, I went to the ticket window and got a new ticket. I'll admit that it's not a problem to get a new ticket, but the point is, you shouldn't have to get one.

We wandered around Les Quatre Temps simply amazed at the number of people trying to buy out all the stores. Here's a shot of the escalier mécanique to the third floor. It is the time for the second annual sales event (Soldes). I didn't expect that much craziness at La Défense. And we joined right in. Actually, we only shopped in one store, C & A, where Robb bought a really nice jacket and I bought a pair of jeans.

We wandered around a bit more and then stopped at a bistro for a café. Twice, while we were sitting there, water poured down from some place. I never could figure out where it was coming from, but it was like someone had emptied a bucket. The first one was right next to two Japanese girls sitting to our left, who screamed in surprise. The second one was about three tables in front of us.

We left the bistro and wandered to the back of la Grande Arche, where we came upon another neat sculpture and a lot of very modern buildings. It had the feel of being in a science fiction movie.

When we tried to leave, it was Robb's turn to have a ticket problem. Fortunately for him, a young French girl let him squeeze in behind her.

We had dinner again at the Q Bar. It was quite crowded.

6 Juillet (Dimanche) - We had planned to take the 69 bus to Champ de Mars from which we would go somewhere to eat and then check out la Tour Eiffel after dark. But, of course, being in Paris, you can't make plans like that. Both of the buses we needed to get there were not running today.

Instead, we went for a long, long walk. Down Avenue Ledru-Rollin, with a few side trips to rue du Faubourg Saint Antoine, during one of which I found this interesting place. Then, we caught the 61 to Pére Lachaise where we came upon a large crowd. It only took a few minutes to realize it was some kind of mobile soup kitchen. There were two vans givng out bags of food to anyone who got into the line to get one. Robb saw a guy with a shopping bag in the line. I took a picture and was chatised by a Muslim woman with a bag in her hand. It occured to me later that if I had been a TV reporter, she would had been the first to try to get her picture on TV.

You may have surmised by now that I'm not crazy about most of the Muslims in Paris. Whenever you go into the métro, the people you see begging are Muslim women. Their children think nothing of asking total strangers for money (Robb and I have been approached several times by them since we've been here). They just seem to have no shame when it comes to begging. I know it's not easy to get a job in France. but to come here with no intention of getting a job and just live off the state and begging in the streets, is wrong, and yet, that's exactly the impression I get of most Muslims in Paris. Okay, rant over for now.

After taking the picture, we continued up Boulevard de Ménilmontant to Boulevard de Charonne. We walked a few blocks and then started back toward the apartment. We did stop at the Petit Casino and bought orange juice.

Back at the apartment, Robb was having hunger pains so we popped open a bottle of champagne and spread out some crackers and pâté.

Plus à venir, mes amis.

Paris 2008 - 23 Juin

Lundi - Even though I don't really feel rested, I've done very little for the past three days and so I'm hoping we can have a nice trip over to La Défense on the far western side of the city. We have never been there because it's basically a corporate village with a lot of ultra-modern buildings. But I know from viewing on the internet, that it also has a lot of art work and a nice shopping center, and you know how we love shopping. Also adding to ease of the trip, is the fact that we only have to take one métro, the #1 line (though we do have to take two buses to get to the métro).

We left the apartment somewhat later than planned (so what else is new), but we got the métro at Nation and got seats which we will not give up since La Défense is the last stop. By the time we got to La Défense Esplanade (the next to last stop), the métro was packed and we decided to get off. That is a significant difference from the last stop and requires a lot of walking to get to the major attraction, la Grande Arche. That is not a bad thing, because there is a lot of artwork throughout the entire area. Almost every corporate building has something and they are all rather fascinating and mostly large sculptures.

Other than la Grande Arche, the major attraction for me is Les Quatre Temps, a shopping mall. I have been wanting to go for some time, but I had no idea it was so massive. Kiddies, we are talking at least a half mile long and four stories high. The funny thing was that we didn't even get past the first store (strangely called Pull and Bear before Robb was buying clothes. It was after that when we discovered just how big the place is. By the time we got near the end of the first level, we were hungry and stopped at a chain bistro called Paul, for a Baguette Mixte, pretty much the best I've ever had. It was more than we could finish, so we wrapped the remainders in a napkin and brought them home.

You can see all the La Défense pictures here (click on the La Défense group, of course): Flickr

After our lunch break, we walked out to the main court and found ourselves next to la Grande Arche. There is an elevator to the top, but we didn't go up. We were preparing to find the métro, when Robb discovered he had misplaced his bus pass. We thought he might have lost it in Pull and Bear, so we walked all the way back to the beginning of Les Quatre Temps. It was not there. I didn't really think it would be, because it's good for unlimited rides on the bus, the métro and the RER until the end of the month. That, of course, means that everytime we want to go some place, Robb will have to use a regular ticket. We went down to the métro area, which is another level of the mall, found a ticket booth and he bought a carnet of ten tickets. He will use three just to get back to the apartment.

When we got on the métro, we got a seat, but we had to give them up at the next stop. Let me explain that. All the cars on the métro have seats that fold down, where you can sit until the car gets really crowded, then you are supposed to stand up to allow more people into the car. We had to stand all the way across the city to Nation.

We had dinner at a Thai restaurant, the Q Bar, that Robb had thought was a gay bar , because of the Q, I suppose. If you drew a line from the Q Bar to l'Artiste Café to l'Angela and back to the Q Bar, it would form a nearly perfect triangle. Once again, we were the last to leave.

Plus à venir, mes amis.

Paris 2008 - 9 Juin

Lundi - After all the cold, miserable days, we have a day that is warm and beautiful. Temp around 24C.

Friday (Vendredi), Robb got a letter from BNP Parisbas informing him that his debit card was ready for pick-up today for the acount he decided he didn'want to open. Unfortunately, he didn't get that mesage to the people in the US who were sending the necessary funds to open the account, so he reluctantly has a French bank account. Sort of. We hopped on the bus(es) and went to the bank. After several clerks, he was finally told that the card won't be ready until next week. On top of all that, he still needs to deposit another €500 into the account because by the time they got the funds and deposited them, the exchange rate had risen so it wasn't enough Are you beginning to get an idea of what it's like to deal with the French? Nothing is easy and very little is logical. I can now fully understand what he meant, when someone told me that dealing with the French when you want to get something done in a reasonable time, is absolutely frustrating. We left the bank dreading the return next week.

We tried something with the 20 bus that we had done with the 69. That is, we took it to the end of the line (Gare St-Lazare) to ride it back without getting off. It didn't work this time. Then when we were looking for the place to re-board, we couldn't find it, but in the process, Robb noted that the 26 went to Nation, so we hopped on and had a nice ride all the way across the city. Not only was it a great sightseeing tour (some of which one might not want to see), but it dropped us off at the exact location to get the next bus, from which we could see these columns, but very close-up.

While we were waiting, we decided to cross the street to several restaurants we saw. The first we tried was the Marco Polo. We were comfortably seated in a table in the corner of the café terrasse and the waiter brought the menu. Oops. Talk about expensive. I mean, okay, they had some nice decorative touches, but not enough to qualify for those prices. We had wondered why there were so few people there. We collected our things and left.

Practically next door was the Chez Prosper, which was crowded. We have to learn to start reading these signs. Crowded restaurant = good food, resonable prices; empty restaurant = food may not be too good, outrageous prices. We had a full meal of moules (mussels) and frites (fries) with une biere (a beer) for less than it would have cost for the entrée at the Marco Polo. I don't normaly eat bread with my meals, but their bread was so fresh and good, I ate several pieces. If you've never been to a French restaurant (even the cheap little local places), they always give you a basket of bread, which is usually, but not always, a sliced baguette. It will amost always be great. We stayed quite a while at the restaurant, even having another biere (if you've read my posts for any length of time, you know we rarely drink beer). We were, technically, sitting inside, but they had all the doors wide open, so it was like sitting on the terrasse with all the amenities of people watching, but without the extra cost. You do pay more if you sit on the terrasse, but it's mostly worth the extra cost. The only problem now, is that all the smokers sit there because of the new "no smoking" rules.

We left the restaurant and were going around in circles for the next hour or so. Literally, since the Place Nation is concentric circles. There is a large sculpture in the middle of the inner circle. I probably, shouldn't have done it, but I wanted to walk all the way around before getting the bus back to the apartment. It was a really nice walk and we saw a lot of neat stuff. I had forgotten to bring my camera, again, so until we get back there, I can't put up any pictures, except whatever I can find of the internet. We stopped at one wine cave where Robb asked about getting a bottle of absinthe. The owner told him that they used to carry it but it's difficult to get a good quality anymore so they stopped selling it.

We came across a Casino and followed two English speaking people, who had just left the Irish Pub, into the store. Just as they entered, the guy asked, "Do you think they sell beer?" I said, "Absolutely." They were surprised to hear someone speaking English. We saw them a while later, but they still had no beer.

We walked back to the bus stop and returned home.

Plus à venir, mes amis.