Bonjour from Paris!
We've had quite the adventure so far.
On Monday we checked out of the Clink and locked our stuff up in lockers while we spent our last hours in London exploring the British Museum. It was an epic building, modeled after the Parthenon. Inside held artifacts from ancient ages in all corners of the world. Visiting the museum was pretty spur-of-the-moment; we had time to kill before our train and the venture wasn't too far out of the way. It ended up being one of our favorite experiences in London. There were actual sculptures from the Parthenon, amazing and incredibly detailed. There was a series of sculptures from the Acropolis in Athens that portrayed Lapiths combating Centaurs. The sculptures were so intricate that you could almost believe that Centaurs had existed. We were also able to participate in a "hands-on experience" where we were able to touch, hold and learn about artifacts from the early eastern world. We could go on and on about all there is too see (we didn't even get to view all of it), but you'll have to go experience it for yourself.
Our train ride to Paris was pretty uneventful. There was a crying baby and a bratty child near us, so it wasn't as pleasant as it could have been. While attempting to find the restroom on the train, Kaylea came to the realization that she has no idea what she is doing. She couldn't figure out how to open the sliding door, or how to shut it for that matter. Also, the train had buttons on the floor that you pushed with your foot to flush or run water, so she fumbled with that for a while.
We arrived in the Parisian station Gare du Nord, which is apparently not the greatest part of town. Our friend Virginie, whom with we're staying, met us at our stop. From there we made our way to the nearest metro station to buy visitor passes. While Virginie was explaining the system, Kaylea noticed a man inexcusably close to our small group and Kaylea caught him in the midst of trying to reach his hand in Virginie's coat pocket for her phone. When Kaylea moved to stop him, he ran away. Literally ran. When Kaylea mentioned the possibility of breaking the hand of a pickpocketer, Virginie informed us that it is not uncommon for the thieves to sue the victim and win. eeeep. That was our first lesson on petty crime in Paris. Upon more research, we learned that people do all sorts or ridiculous things to scam people. Thing such as asking people to sign petitions that are really "contracts" demanding money of the signer. People tie "friendship bracelets" tightly around a victim's wrist and then force them to handover money. They even offer a lost item and then demand payment. We've been sure to keep our valuables well hidden (though Aaron has already lost a credit card, but we'll get to that later). So far we've already seen group thievery, which almost turned into a fist-fight, and a man obviously running/hiding from the police. We think the later might have been carrying a stolen souvenir bag since we saw him earlier selling trinkets without it.
Monday night, Virginie took us to a French cafe in her neighborhood where we learned a few new phrases in French. Virginie's apartment is not in a tourist section of Paris, so we're really getting to experience life in the city. We're also learning to use the metro system, which is a bit more confusing than London's partially due to our lack of understanding of the language. But we are learning! We've learned to ask for the check at the end of a meal, inquire if a person speaks English, and say please, thank you, yes, and no. Kaylea's accent in better than Aaron's. :)
(-Aaron meh)
Tuesday was an incredibly late starts, so we only had time for the Tour Eiffel. It was actually pretty cheap to go all the way up and the views were phenomenal. Surprisingly, there was a McDonalds in the Eiffel Tower! We both find McDonalds disgusting, so we weren't inclined to try it. After taking the stairs down the final third of the tower we went and laid in grass nearby and watched people attempt to take cliche pictures in front of the monument. There was a lot of jumping and failed inversions.
The city is absolutely beautiful and it smells pretty good for the most part, even when it rains!
After walking a bit, we went to the Monoprix, the grocery store near Virginie's, and found that lunch meats are sold by pairs of slices and that Skippy is the only available peanut butter. There were a few other familiar brands but with different names.
Once Virginie got off work, we went to check out her rock climbing gym. This gym was even cooler than the biscuit gym in London! You could top out, climb up an inclined tunnel and then slide back down, and walk bridges from wall to wall. The gym had a restaurant and bar, and even provided chalk to the climbers. Just like in London, we met some pretty cool climbers, but that's a fact of the climbing culture. This is where we think Aaron might have lost his credit card. No worries though! We planned for a fumble like this by bringing a debit card and Kaylea's credit card. Nothing was charged to the card before Aaron was able to freeze the it. We ended the night making dinner at the apartment and skyping our friend Daniel.
Day 8!
Again, another late start. We began our day reserving our tickets to Munich. Word to future EuroRail Pass customers: do not reserve tickets online! It is exorbitantly more expensive that way. Just go to the station a few days ahead of time. Afterwards, we traveled towards the Opera. What a sight! Gold and marbled. On Virginie's recommendation, we went to a macaroon shop near on Avenue de l'OPera. FINALLY MACAROONS. We bought 5 different flavors: chocolate, jasmine and vanilla, vanilla, strawberry and passion fruit, and chocolate and orange. They were rich with flavor, almost overwhelmingly so.
Next on our list was the catacombs! We met a couple from Canada while waiting in line. The husband was far left-wing and had a lot to say, but it was a pleasant conversation. The entrance to the catacombs was underwhelming, but the descent was a tight, spiral staircase for 20 meters! Last year, Aaron had taken Kaylea to see As Above, So Below, a horror film about the French Catacombs, so Kaylea was near terrified the entire experience. Creepy, dark, macabre, TERRIFYING. Just some words to describe the miles of ossuaries tunneled under the city that are filled with over 6 million dead people. On display were leg and arm bones stacked with skulls, some cracked and crushed. Water was dripping from the ceiling and, in some places, you could hear the subways above us.
We finally made our way out of the catacombs and decided to visit the Arc de Triomphe. On our way there, we were serenaded by a crazy Italian who sang Fly me to the Moon a few times. We're fairly certain that's the only English song he knew. The man liked to repeat himself loudly and aggressively. He reminded us several times that he was a singer, he had been so since he was a boy, and Frank Sinatra. Because Frank Sinatra. Shortly after that whole fiasco, we came across what appeared to be a native american playing a song from Last of the Mohicans on a pan flute. Kaylea lost her mind.
The Arc de Trimphe sat in the middle of a huge roundabout. You had to go underground to get to it. Of course, not knowing that, we tried to work our way around the most ridiculous traffic situation on the planet. We got stuck in the middle of a street for a minute. Terrifying as it was, we still managed to make our way to the Arch, which was well worth the risk.
We've got a few more days in Paris, and still so much to see. Sorry to those of you who were worried about the lack of posts, our internet connection can be a little spotty. We had one slightly boring day, and decided to slow down the blogging. But that was followed by 3 crazy days, so we got backlogged. We'll try to get back to daily posts, as long as interesting stuff keeps happening.
We've had quite the adventure so far.
On Monday we checked out of the Clink and locked our stuff up in lockers while we spent our last hours in London exploring the British Museum. It was an epic building, modeled after the Parthenon. Inside held artifacts from ancient ages in all corners of the world. Visiting the museum was pretty spur-of-the-moment; we had time to kill before our train and the venture wasn't too far out of the way. It ended up being one of our favorite experiences in London. There were actual sculptures from the Parthenon, amazing and incredibly detailed. There was a series of sculptures from the Acropolis in Athens that portrayed Lapiths combating Centaurs. The sculptures were so intricate that you could almost believe that Centaurs had existed. We were also able to participate in a "hands-on experience" where we were able to touch, hold and learn about artifacts from the early eastern world. We could go on and on about all there is too see (we didn't even get to view all of it), but you'll have to go experience it for yourself.
Our train ride to Paris was pretty uneventful. There was a crying baby and a bratty child near us, so it wasn't as pleasant as it could have been. While attempting to find the restroom on the train, Kaylea came to the realization that she has no idea what she is doing. She couldn't figure out how to open the sliding door, or how to shut it for that matter. Also, the train had buttons on the floor that you pushed with your foot to flush or run water, so she fumbled with that for a while.
We arrived in the Parisian station Gare du Nord, which is apparently not the greatest part of town. Our friend Virginie, whom with we're staying, met us at our stop. From there we made our way to the nearest metro station to buy visitor passes. While Virginie was explaining the system, Kaylea noticed a man inexcusably close to our small group and Kaylea caught him in the midst of trying to reach his hand in Virginie's coat pocket for her phone. When Kaylea moved to stop him, he ran away. Literally ran. When Kaylea mentioned the possibility of breaking the hand of a pickpocketer, Virginie informed us that it is not uncommon for the thieves to sue the victim and win. eeeep. That was our first lesson on petty crime in Paris. Upon more research, we learned that people do all sorts or ridiculous things to scam people. Thing such as asking people to sign petitions that are really "contracts" demanding money of the signer. People tie "friendship bracelets" tightly around a victim's wrist and then force them to handover money. They even offer a lost item and then demand payment. We've been sure to keep our valuables well hidden (though Aaron has already lost a credit card, but we'll get to that later). So far we've already seen group thievery, which almost turned into a fist-fight, and a man obviously running/hiding from the police. We think the later might have been carrying a stolen souvenir bag since we saw him earlier selling trinkets without it.
Monday night, Virginie took us to a French cafe in her neighborhood where we learned a few new phrases in French. Virginie's apartment is not in a tourist section of Paris, so we're really getting to experience life in the city. We're also learning to use the metro system, which is a bit more confusing than London's partially due to our lack of understanding of the language. But we are learning! We've learned to ask for the check at the end of a meal, inquire if a person speaks English, and say please, thank you, yes, and no. Kaylea's accent in better than Aaron's. :)
(-Aaron meh)
Tuesday was an incredibly late starts, so we only had time for the Tour Eiffel. It was actually pretty cheap to go all the way up and the views were phenomenal. Surprisingly, there was a McDonalds in the Eiffel Tower! We both find McDonalds disgusting, so we weren't inclined to try it. After taking the stairs down the final third of the tower we went and laid in grass nearby and watched people attempt to take cliche pictures in front of the monument. There was a lot of jumping and failed inversions.
The city is absolutely beautiful and it smells pretty good for the most part, even when it rains!
After walking a bit, we went to the Monoprix, the grocery store near Virginie's, and found that lunch meats are sold by pairs of slices and that Skippy is the only available peanut butter. There were a few other familiar brands but with different names.
Once Virginie got off work, we went to check out her rock climbing gym. This gym was even cooler than the biscuit gym in London! You could top out, climb up an inclined tunnel and then slide back down, and walk bridges from wall to wall. The gym had a restaurant and bar, and even provided chalk to the climbers. Just like in London, we met some pretty cool climbers, but that's a fact of the climbing culture. This is where we think Aaron might have lost his credit card. No worries though! We planned for a fumble like this by bringing a debit card and Kaylea's credit card. Nothing was charged to the card before Aaron was able to freeze the it. We ended the night making dinner at the apartment and skyping our friend Daniel.
Day 8!
Again, another late start. We began our day reserving our tickets to Munich. Word to future EuroRail Pass customers: do not reserve tickets online! It is exorbitantly more expensive that way. Just go to the station a few days ahead of time. Afterwards, we traveled towards the Opera. What a sight! Gold and marbled. On Virginie's recommendation, we went to a macaroon shop near on Avenue de l'OPera. FINALLY MACAROONS. We bought 5 different flavors: chocolate, jasmine and vanilla, vanilla, strawberry and passion fruit, and chocolate and orange. They were rich with flavor, almost overwhelmingly so.
Next on our list was the catacombs! We met a couple from Canada while waiting in line. The husband was far left-wing and had a lot to say, but it was a pleasant conversation. The entrance to the catacombs was underwhelming, but the descent was a tight, spiral staircase for 20 meters! Last year, Aaron had taken Kaylea to see As Above, So Below, a horror film about the French Catacombs, so Kaylea was near terrified the entire experience. Creepy, dark, macabre, TERRIFYING. Just some words to describe the miles of ossuaries tunneled under the city that are filled with over 6 million dead people. On display were leg and arm bones stacked with skulls, some cracked and crushed. Water was dripping from the ceiling and, in some places, you could hear the subways above us.
We finally made our way out of the catacombs and decided to visit the Arc de Triomphe. On our way there, we were serenaded by a crazy Italian who sang Fly me to the Moon a few times. We're fairly certain that's the only English song he knew. The man liked to repeat himself loudly and aggressively. He reminded us several times that he was a singer, he had been so since he was a boy, and Frank Sinatra. Because Frank Sinatra. Shortly after that whole fiasco, we came across what appeared to be a native american playing a song from Last of the Mohicans on a pan flute. Kaylea lost her mind.
The Arc de Trimphe sat in the middle of a huge roundabout. You had to go underground to get to it. Of course, not knowing that, we tried to work our way around the most ridiculous traffic situation on the planet. We got stuck in the middle of a street for a minute. Terrifying as it was, we still managed to make our way to the Arch, which was well worth the risk.
We've got a few more days in Paris, and still so much to see. Sorry to those of you who were worried about the lack of posts, our internet connection can be a little spotty. We had one slightly boring day, and decided to slow down the blogging. But that was followed by 3 crazy days, so we got backlogged. We'll try to get back to daily posts, as long as interesting stuff keeps happening.
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