Paris, Day 2

Since M&M wanted to head to the Louvre, which I'd already done, I decided to head to the church of Saint-Pierre de Montmartre atop the highest point in France, since it was close to our hostel. Once I arrived, I realized I'd been before when on tour before my semester abroad. It's harder to notice and figure out where you're going when you're on a guided tour, where others pick out the points of interests instead of you doing your own research. I think I like the security of guided tours in countries where I don't speak the language, but I think I have a greater appreciation for most things when I look them up for myself. I also enjoy the freedom of being able to wander and stop whenever and however long I want to get a photo just right. I still walked up all the stairs to see the view. It was all right, a little hazy, but the church itself is just lovely (and massive).

I'm not going to hark back too much to my previous post about how Europeans think nothing of these seriously old houses and churches that litter their streets, but it does make me wonder a little about what I might be under appreciating at home.

The Arc du Triumphe. I hadn't realized that the Germans were the first to walk through it triumphantly, after taking Paris during World War I, seeing as Napoleon, who began its construction, began losing shortly afterward, never to see it while victorious.

I was lucky in that they were allowing people up to the top for free on Sunday, so I figured I'd give it a go. It was a pretty awesome view, a lot closer up than from Montmartre. They also had a cool exhibit inside that was a miniature Arc that rotated around and talked about the specific carvings.

Many bridges in Paris (and elsewhere)
are covered in locks, often with the names
of lovers etched on, promising to come
back to Paris.

After that, I hot footed it to Le Muesee Oree for the Impressionist exhibit mainly, though the sculptures are always cool. It's so neat to see paintings I've seen pictures of forever in the flesh, so to speak. You can look at the individual brush strokes and know that at some point, the painter was standing where you are, examining it with a critical eye as well. I also really love Impressionism for how they can make a blur of paint look like a person up until you're close enough to see it for the daub it is.

After that, I met up with M&M and we went into the bowls of Paris to find a carosel. It was on a dark scary street and was just as dark inside, though lit with a red light. People were singing along to songs we didn't know in French, and we were the only ones nervously not singing. We kind of left quickly.

The typical Parisian lifestyle. Copyright Marisa Corley 2012.

Alone, With Friends - Paris

The city of lights. The Eiffel Tower glitters every hour, on the hour at night, and our wine and cheese picnic on the grass in front of it lasted for at least three times of sparkles. It's one of those times when you keep looking up and are reminded of where you are. I'm in Paris!

I started the day alone, not sure what had happened to my friends who were supposed to check in the previous night. But I figured I would walk around and see some of the stuff I wanted and hope to meet up with them that night.

Choosing to walk instead of taking the metro was probably the best idea I could have had. I was in the middle of pure Paris culture, not just the touristy area. Everyone seemed to be carrying around a baguette and smoking. I took some great photos of narrow streets, sidewalk cafes and Parisians on scooters.

Our hostel is up near Saint-Pierre de Montmartre in northern Paris, and from there I walked down to the river and the Louvre, and enjoyed the Tuileries. It was a gorgeous day in the city, very warm, and strolling by the river brought a welcome relief from the heat. Even if some of the tunnels smelled faintly of urine.

I crossed over the bridge to the island of the city, where Notre Dame is, and I had no sooner made it to the main square when I heard my name being called. Randomly, in the middle of Paris, M&M had miraculously found me!

We headed over to a cafe and met up with their four other friends who were in Paris for the day before they headed elsewhere for the days before everyone is together in Munich. A lot more walking followed, through the Luxembourg gardens and the University area, passing the Pantheon and finally settling for a nice restaurant where I tried some garlicky escargot and found it strange but enjoyable. The mission to find famous macaroons was also a grand success, and our Eiffel Tower picnic rounded off the evening as we wandered back to the hostel enjoying Paris at night.

First Night in Paris

Different countries are kind of scary when you don't speak the language. I love London, and feel perfectly comfortable there even though they often have confusing sayings or customs that I don't understand. But even if some of the words might not make sense, the explanation is usually easy enough.

However, when you're alone in a foreign country and don't speak a lick aside from some hastily downloaded phone phrases, it can be a bit nerve wrecking knowing that you can't even necessarily ask for help when you need it.

This all became very real as I started to wander down the street with no real idea of where I was, in kind of a sketchy neighborhood, with all my belongings clutched in my hands. Luckily, the little red dot that was me on the gps caught on to tell me I was on the right track, and I was able to remember about where I needed to go with my predownloaded maps, seeing as I have no service in France.

But the story has a happy ending. I found the hostel, no problem, went upstairs and promptly made friends with two of the other people in the room, who were coincidently both from Brazil, and went out and had a nice dinner with them. And once again felt bad for not really being able to speak another language fluently, like they could with English. But hopefully that will be changing soon enough!

Eek, French!

And...all the control buttons on this blog site are now in French. Here's a good test of my memory skills, or my limited French figuring out skills. Unfortunately, pointing to what food I want and smiling won't post a blog for me. But luckily, I don't need to post to survive. ;-)

Underground v BART

After two years of commuting on BART every day from Berkeley to San Francisco, I have to say that I'm a fan.  Sure, it can be expensive, but so is parking in SF, in addition to the bridge toll.  And for traveling straight from San Francisco to Bay Point, it's just so simple.  The only reasons I've found for not liking BART is that it doesn't go to enough places.  I want to be able to go to Golden Gate Park, or northwest SF without having to jump on a bus for another 45 minutes.  I want to take BART all the way to Antioch, and not take the dinky additional train they're building instead of the electric BART system.

And this is quite simply why the London Underground rules.  You can go anywhere in the city, and I mean anywhere.  You almost don't even need to plan out a schedule, because if you wander off a few blocks in any direction, you can almost always find another glowing red ring signalling another station.

The other thing that rocks?  Trains come every three minutes.  Three minutes.  On BART, they come every fifteen, and for people like me who are crazy about not standing and waiting for the train if I don't have to, that is significant.

One thing that BART does have that the Underground doesn't?  The timed transfer (when it works).  In order to transfer trains on the Underground, you need to travel up two sets of stairs and walk around a few tunnels.  But that doesn't really matter because if the train isn't waiting for you, you can wait two minutes instead of fourteen for the next one.  It's a thing of beauty.

Both systems have their own free newspapers that hit the highlights, and I have to say that I enjoy the crosswords in both.  Both also don't stay open very late, so those who are planning for a long night usually have to catch the night bus or a cab to get back, which isn't so tough in London, but is kind of tough in SF if you're stuck on the wrong side of the bridge, which severely limits your options.

And I have to say that earlier today when I realized that I'd been waiting for my train to France for two hours at the wrong station, the Underground got me there.  There was some panicked leg jingling on the ride over, naturally, but the trip across town was short enough to let me run for the train.  I'm quite positive I would have missed it if I had to wait ten minutes for BART.

There are a couple of negatives to the London Underground that make it a bit sketchy, primarily the questionable fog/smoke that hangs in the air when you look down to the opposite end of the station.  It's decently thick, and when I think about how I'm breathing that in every trip, it makes me wonder.  This may be a BART issue too to some extent, at least in Embarcadero, but it's definitely not as noticeable and there are a lot more above ground stations to clear it out.  And on BART, you don't end up with black snot at the end of the day like you do on the Underground.  If your mucus is trapping all that, what is it missing?

'American' food in the UK

Steve and I went to an 'American' restaurant the other night, so I could be amused by it.  Batman was by the door, and the menus were huge (American sized?) and had all sorts of funny names for the types of burgers that were supposed to have to do with the US.  Here's an example of the American Mac burger...yes, complete with mac and cheese.  Yum!

Regardless, I didn't stop to think too much about it and ordered nachos.  It didn't take me very long to realize this was a bad idea.  First of all, I don't know how they do nachos in the rest of the US, but in California, we've got a lot of real Mexican restaurants that know how to do proper nachos.  This was a sad little pile compared to those, but as I'm a pretty bland eater, I was good with salsa, sour cream and guacamole.  Except it wasn't salsa.  It was marinara sauce.  And for the kicker -- they weren't tortilla chips.  They were Doritos.

Needless to say, I was quite amused, as Steve predicted.  But I won't be ordering nachos in the UK again anytime soon.  Check out some of the other items on the menu, anyway - the names were pretty funny.

On Buttered Popcorn

Movies are strange in the UK.  First of all, we had assigned seating.  I'm not sure if this is to prevent moving jumping or simply to make things more complicated for patrons, but how weird is that?  They also have the first three rows of seats cost more, so you can pay for 'premier' viewing.

Also, you can never be late to a movie in the UK.  Seriously.  We sat through a half an hour of beer commercials and movie trailers for movies that I've already seen because they're out in the US.  Half an hour!  That's a third of some movies.

And then there was the popcorn.  Now, I love me my movie butter popcorn.  Hydrogenated soybean oil or whatever it actually is.  Horrible for you, I'm sure, but that's why it's a special treat to get when you go to the movies.  Not so in the UK.  There was no buttered popcorn to be found.

Instead, they have salty and sweet.  Salty is just what you might think, but I had to ask what sweet was.  Surprisingly enough, it was also just what you might think -- sugar added to the popcorn.  I'm normally pretty big on sweets, but this was just too much for me.  Maybe it's an acquired taste, one that I'll probably be better off not acquiring.

Cricket

The team had been batting for three days to reach 470 for 2. The fielders and the crowd were rapidly losing interest when a voice called from the boundary,  'Oh for Gawd's sake come out, even if it's only on strike!'

Don't get it?  I think I kinda do.  It's a cricket joke, and for us Americans, only the crickets are chirping.  (Haha, see what I did there?  I bet you wish you hadn't gotten that one!)

But, I've now been to a cricket match (okay, half of a cricket match) and I understand what they're all about.  Mostly.  They last for hours or days, depending, and scores can go up to over 400 runs scored even in the professional leagues.  And, for the people who watch baseball and say it's boring, I can now say, "Well, that's only because you haven't seen a cricket match."

I'm not totally hating on cricket, mind.  It was very calming to watch, quite relaxing.  But that might be part of the problem.  There's no excitement to the game, except perhaps toward the end.  When one team is getting points in the first innings (it's always plural, for some reason), they don't even know if they're close to what the other team will score later on.  And even when they hit the ball, they can choose to run to try to score or not.

Watching the guys bowl was cool though.  They kind of act like crazy windmills when they throw.

Warwick Castle

I've never been to California's medieval times, but if I had, I would imagine it would be something like Warwick Castle.   However, where Medieval Times is only a replica, Warwick Castle is the real deal, at least construction-wise.

A lot of the traditional components are open to public viewing, like the dungeon, the battlements and one of the towers.  It was pretty awesome going up the narrow stone steps to the top of the tower and wondering what it would have been like to have been a soldier back then doing his rounds on the guard tower.  I'm kind of amazed that there aren't more stories about soldiers stumbling on a step and doing a whole domino effect down the spiral staircase, mail shields clattering.  That was probably the coolest part, and the part that I remember most from the first time I came in 2005 with my Arthurian English class after graduation.  Again, it's the history of all of it, and knowing that ages ago the footsteps over the grounds belonged to ladies, knights and princes instead of the tourists it draws today.

What I did get to do this time which I wasn't able to last time was go to some of the shows.  We saw the trebuchet launch as well as a show on birds of prey.  The first bird was a bald eagle, and don't worry, I represented the US well when they asked if there were any Americans in the audience.  I was exactly as they expected me to be, loud and rambunctious.  Steve was quite amused.  They flew the birds around for a bit anyway, and the show ended when one of the great falcons didn't come back.  I guess last time this happened, they got a call from the police saying that the giant bird was perched atop a petrol station leering at people.

After that, we saw a joust!  Knights in combat!  I was kind of surprised how quickly they set up France to be the bad guy and had everyone booing along, ready to cheer England to a noble victory.  It was kind of hard to guess at how predetermined everything was.  England had to win, of course, but they actually did things that required a lot of skill, such as lancing a small fiery ring, spearing a target, and also stabbing peasants' heads (probably feather-filled bags in this example).  And then they did actually joust with shields and lances and then fought with swords at the end.  It was very cool.

Oh, and I almost forgot my favorite, archery!  They had a guy outside the walls firing a longbow.  It was really cool to watch, and very different from the archery we think of today, just because the bow is so big.  It takes a lot of strength to draw, so the archer sights while he's drawing the bow and fires almost immediately.  There's no Hunger Games drama of stretching the bow taught and aiming carefully, it's just pull and release.  They were smart not to let me try it, I think.



Toward the end, we walked though peacock laden gardens and watched the final battle, which was actually kind of an explanation about how the sword fights you see in most movies is nothing like how things would have actually gone back then.  It was still neat because they had massive huge swords and axes that they hit one another with.  The little kids around us were impressed, anyway.  After the show, I overheard one head off saying, "Let's play knights!  I'll be Scotland, you'll be England and Derek will be America."  So the US is such a world power now that we're credited with having knights!  Despite the fact that in those days, the only men running around America were definitely not wearing suits of armour.

And at the very end, the kids were playing some type of game similar to basketball where you have this hoop instead of a basket, and rats instead of a ball.  Yup, you heard me, rats.  I guess they were pretty common back in those days.  Anyone could find one to play with.

And lastly, even girls can be knights!  If I had a little girl who wanted one of these, I would totally get it for her.  There's a matching pink shield with a unicorn on it too.