Decisions:
John and I spent one evening arguing over where to go in the spring of 1999. He wanted to drive to Death Valley and I wanted to go to New York or drive up the East Coast of the US. We ended up settling on somewhere in North America, got out my huge map, laid it on the living room floor and started throwing pennies at it to get ideas. We played this fun game for a while and gave up since nothing landed anywhere we wanted to go. I decided that we need to change venues, so we both got 2 pieces of paper and wrote our choices on them, put them in a hat and picked. I picked first and got Virginia, one of my choices. We put it back and he picked Virginia as well. There ya go!
But then he accused me of putting in 2 Virginias. I said no, that my second choice had been Paris (so much for North America). He took out the other papers, which were Paris and Hawaii, his choices. So we ended up with 2 Parises and decided that was some sort of a sign. So we went to Paris.
Germany came about because an internet friend of mine, John Neale, lives in Freiburg, about a 6 hour train ride from Paris. He is a good friend, and insulin pumper and had invited us to his wedding last December. We had almost gone, but couldn't get a decent airfare. We decided we should give Germany another go.
John and I had been to Paris, and Germany, once before. In 1992, we did an escorted (read - bus) tour of Europe. We were in Paris at the end, for 2 days. We sort of liked it, had a good enough time, but Paris wasn't the highlight of that trip - Venice was. Venice has been our place we always talk about returning to but have never managed. It was therefore quite a surprise to me that we both would have picked Paris as a place to visit, since we had never even discussed it.
Because the trip was semi- last minute, I decided that we should do a Trafalgar "Paris Week"tour. My mother and I had done a Trafalgar "London Week" on our way to Ireland in 1996 and really enjoyed it. All it consists of is one week accommodation with breakfast, a city tour, a Seine cruise and a tour of Versailles. We had a hard time getting space at the hotel, but it worked out in the long run.
Pre trip insanity:
Getting ready for this trip was a huge trauma in itself. I had 3 fish tanks and had been having problems with the big one. To make a long story short, I decided to spend a lot of money on a CO2 system and HAD to have it running before we left. After a series of delays, I had it. We then spent a week trying to set it up, with me getting more and more tense as time went by. My mother showed up in this time, as she was going to house/dog sit. It turned out that we had bought the system from an incompetent, who sold us the broken display unit. We wrestled with fish problems (all the neons got sick and had to be moved to quarantine) and tried to get ready, making me into a basket case that John just rolled onto the plane.
We took British Airway to London, then to Paris. By the time we got to Paris, we were exhausted, having been awake for more that 24 hours. The taxi ride into the city was a bit worrisome since I had totally forgotten what the exchange rate was. As we watched the toll rise, I was mentally calculating how much I thought that was in Canadian and shuddering. Then I started to worry that John had packed the French francs in his luggage. But we got to the hotel eventually and paid up FF270. Seemed like a lot and now I realize that it cost $60. FYI, you can reserve a shuttle into your hotel for FF89 per person (2 or more people) via the Airport Shuttle Service in Paris.
We checked in to the Nikko de Paris and were taken up to a room on the 14th floor with twin beds, a connecting door (so you know exactly what your neighbors are doing) and a generally dingy effect. So much for "Deluxe". We stood there for a moment, waiting for our bags, trying to decide what to do. We are both very bad at complaining and usually just put up with things and be miserable politely. John was up to that game plan, but I visualized us being stuck in this dank little room and decided to speak up. John called the front desk, and we went back downstairs, accompanied by an annoyed porter. We were told they were full, blah blah blah, but just stood there looking stubborn. It was actually fatigue but whatever works.
Back up again to the potential new, smoking, room. Hmm, 23rd floor, that's good. The porter seemed quite shocked when we told him the number, hmmm again. We entered the room, and before I was through the door, I said it was fine. He dropped our luggage, was grossly over-tipped (damn exchange rate business again) and left. Our new room was a corner suite, with a sitting area, mini-fridge, huge bathroom with a similarly huge tub (John is a bather), king size bed and 3 large windows, with once facing the Seine, which was the other side of the road from the hotel. Ahhhh!!!!! I think I will speak up more in the future.
View from the hotel room: the Seine, Mirabeau bridge and Radio France Building
Over our week in Paris, we did a lot of walking and a lot of stair climbing. We got a Carte Orange Metro pass, which I highly recommend. For FF80 each, we got unlimited use of the Metro/buses/RER lines for seven days, valid from Monday to Sunday, which was perfect timing. In order to get a Carte Orange, you need a passport size photo, which you can get in most Metro stations. So we took the metro everywhere and climbed all those stairs. Not a very wheelchair friendly place, I think. One thing I do regret about using the Metro so much is that we were underground. I think next time we shall make an effort to use the buses and see a bit more scenery. The Parisian transportation system is excellent, very easy to use and felt quite safe.
Of our "free" things that came with our "Paris week", we only really took advantage of the very nice breakfast. We started the City bus tour, but got off at Notre Dame in order to escape our very loud bus mates. It was then we found out that the Trafalgar rep had made a mistake the previous evening that would cost us our trip to Versailles. She had forgotten that Versailles was in use by the government at the time we were supposed to visit it and sold us a day-trip to Bruges, Belgium at the only time the Versailles trip was running. Frankly, Bruges interested us more that Versailles, which John had visited before, but it was still annoying. For the Seine tour, we got as far as the bateaux mouches docks but decided that we were just not in the mood. I bought a lovely painting of the Tour Eiffel instead and we wandered through Paris. It was a good choice.
There are not many pictures on this page, because I only took three. We really did not feel like carrying the camera and what, more pictures of the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, Louvre? Most people have seen some pictures of these things. Next time, I will take pictures, because I regret the lack of pictures of the real Paris, the cool buildings, lovely streets and particularly Pere-LaChaise cemetery, which was a definite highlight.
Look, it's the Louvre (in 1992...)
We spent most of our time wandering around, taking the Metro. We went to the Porte a Vanves flea market, which was huge. We explored much of the area around our hotel, which is in Grennelle, just south of the Eiffel Tower. I did less shopping than I expected but really enjoyed stopping in cafes, despite the omnipresent smoke. Watching John attempt French was also interesting. I took 4 years of French but have never thought I could speak it well enough to try it with Parisians. Written is no problem, all those Canadian food packages that are required to have French included, as Canada has two official languages, really has helped! But forget speaking it.
However, one day John went to the Louvre and I went off on my own because I hate gallery crowds. I managed to get stuck in the turnstile at the Metro since one part closed behind me, but the next wouldn't open. I tried to get the attention of the attendant, but failed. A man and his wife saw me and the man started to shout at me to push, in French. His attitude annoyed me, because I had pushed, Duh! but he just kept talking to me in French. I basically had a shouting match with him, while his wife also shouted at him that I knew what I was doing and he should just reswipe my ticket, which I was waving at him. She came over and did it, we exchanged the typical "husbands!" look and I carried on. As I waited for the train, I realized that I had spoken French the entire time, was understood and hadn't even realized I wasn't speaking English.
When it came to Paris and shopping, because of my fishy obsession my only shopping goal was to look at aquarium stores. I had found a couple online and had a list of plants that a friend of mine was interested in, if I could find them. We found several stores, most of which are along one block facing the Seine, intermixed with garden stores. The fish were nice and very expensive, but I didn't find the plants I wanted and many were unlabeled. I looked in the phone book and found another fish store, this time out by Pere LaChaise, which was already on John's list of must sees. We went out and found the store, AniCash, down a bit of an alley. They had an excellent selection of fish and plants, and had two Echinodorus Aflame, one of the plants I really wanted to find. It is quite rare and not available in North America so I really wanted to get it. Unfortunately, the staff spoke no English and the store was quite busy so we waited for quite a while, as new people came in and got served. I was annoyed but really wanted the plants. We eventually got to use the point and buy technique and I had my plants! They lived in bottled water or ziplocs full of soaked napkins for more than a week. I was very worried about bringing them home, but they survived the trip and customs and one is in my main tank and the other is at my friend Steve's.
I've definitely got more to say about Paris, but that is one more thing I need to get to.
Some interesting Pere-LaChaise websites:
Pere LaChaise: some nice pictures, but that's not Victor Hugo's grave, it's Oscar Wilde's.Metropole Paris - The Cemetery Pere-Lachaise: one person's day at PLC, with some history and pictures.
Find-A-Grave by Cemetery: Le Pere Lachaise: pictures and information about graves in Pere LaChaise.
Pere-LaChaise Cemetery
Paris Links
In the middle of our trip to Paris, we took a day trip to Bruges, Belgium. After Paris, we went to Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany, a lovely place.
