On to PARIS

So here we are, back to listening to Lyle go on about our adventures.  I hoped everyone like the last blog I did, since it was the one that took my blogging virginity away.  So I will continue off with the last two days of adventure in Europe.

Wednesday morning I woke up to a very unhappy Heather.  The night before I wasn’t feeling well so we decided we would pack in the morning but do our laundry and let it dry overnight.  So I fell asleep, as I’m sure everyone knows is quite easy for me, and Heather was going to stay up and wait for the laundry to finish and hang it up.  When I woke up to my unhappy Heather I was QUICKLY informed about how we were NEVER EVER getting a European washing machine…so not knowing if I should call the laundry police or laugh, I listened on.  Apparently the hour and 11 minutes that it said it would take to do one load was extended because it decided to add extra spin cycles.  Problem was that there was no way of opening the machine or restarting it until the load was done.  As well, the door remained locked for some time after the load was finished.  All in all, Heather was up much later than expected and because her sleeping pill had now worn off, she had a hard time falling asleep.  And THAT was how the day started off . . .

So in the morning we packed up our gear, finding we had already accumulated a lot of extra stuff, and headed out to catch the tube in order to make our train for Paris via the Chunnel.  We nearly run to the tube station with legs burning only to wait for over 20 minutes with no sign of our train.  We eventually give up and take a different tube line that would require a connection and take longer, but it was the only way.  That line also had delay after delay in its signals which left us even more behind schedule.  After finally getting to the station where the Eurostar train leaves from, we book it in and around people trying desperately to get to the train on time.  With the ticket counter in sight we learn that we need to pass security and customs and there was no way we would be able to make our train.

I’ll give everyone time to go grab a tissue because I know this is a very sad story . . .

So after pleading our case to the ticket taker (or just saying we missed our train cause the %@#&! Tube never came), we were put on the next train.  Not more than an hour later we were happily on our way to Paris.  The Chunnel train is mostly over ground with a little in England, about 20 minutes through the tunnel, and mostly above ground on the French countryside.  I remember coming out of the tunnel . . . it went from dark to light.  Yup, pretty exciting!  It was still really neat knowing where you were and the marvel of modern transportation. 

We arrived at Gare-du-Nord in Paris and I set out to get our key for our apartment while Heather stayed with the bags at the train station.  My first impression of Paris since I was here almost 5 years ago was that it was definitely your typical European city with people everywhere, old buildings, and crazy drivers.  I picked up the keys and returned to Heather where we both set out to our apartment.  We get past the two keypads only to find what might pass as an elevator in Oompa-Loompa land, but is definitely not your typical passenger elevator!!  It claims it can handle 3 people . . . I think it should have read 3 Gabi’s (Brock’s Fiancé of 5’nothing” and 100lbs).  So Heather and her pack crammed in and I took the stairs to the 6^th floor.  FYI: it took me about the same amount of time as it did Heather ;)  We get to our apartment and  . . . you guessed it, an Oompa-Loompa’s paradise!!!  I have seen bathrooms larger than the entire apartment.  In fact, the bathroom and kitchen put together are still smaller than a regular sized bathroom.  Oh, and this was easy to measure because they are in the same room.  If you stand in the shower you can cook on the stove and pee in the toilet at the same time!!!!  Haven’t tried it yet, but now I just might ;)  The kitchen table is more like a coffee table cut in half, then half again, then take the splinters and make a table out of that and VOILA!  The bed is two cot sized mattresses put together to form . . .  two cot sized mattresses with a hole down the middle.  BUT . . .  the window is big!  Yup, spared no expense on a great view of the back alley!!!  Now THAT’S a HONEYMOON SUITE!!!

So . . . needless to say finished exploring after a few seconds and planned out our week and took off on our first adventure.  We went for supper and discovered that 6pm is much too early for supper.  We were told to come back at 7pm when they start serving people.  Well I had to feed Heather soon or the green monster would come out, so we went to a kebab place and ate there.  No idea what language they spoke or what part of the world they were from, but the food was good and we were ready to pack it in for the night. 

In the apartment we tried to get wifi working . . .I could really go on about how wifi SUCKSSSSSSSSSS in Paris, but all you need to know is that unless you have a cord that reaches to the closest adjoining country, you probably won’t be able to figure out their system.  I tried for quite some time and despite having two signals that provide wifi access all over France, neither had any way of allowing me to purchase access.  So we have no resorted to starbucks every other day (or getting a wifi signal from the Buffalo Bill across the street because even the starbucks wifi doesn’t work).  So that was the end of our first day in Paris. 

Okay folks, here we are… back to an entry from Heather. Our lack of internet and trying to keep up with the blog is causing me to feel like time is passing quicker, because I feel as though we are always behind. So our first real day in Paris got off to a late start, I think all of the walking is starting to catch up to us. This is both good and bad: good because my legs are starting to look great, bad because we are finding it harder to get up in the morning… this could also be due to the fabulous bed that Lyle described in the last post.

We left the apartment and headed for the Montmartre Funicular, for anyone familiar with Paris we are just a few blocks south of the Funicular. We made our way up and the view from the top was very nice, and Sacre Coeur was beautiful. We toured the church and then headed toward Dali’s space, just before this we found a fabulous little square filled with artists painting and doing portraits of people. The talent was incredible, we are still contemplating going back to buy a drawing of us. We continued walking through the district as we headed toward Moulin Rouge, I wanted to see the building… however when we got there I was slightly disappointed.  As Lyle said, “It doesn’t look anything like the movie.” I am not sure what year this building was constructed but it looks to me about 1950’s; far less attractive than I had expected. Anyhow across from here was the Starbucks that we sat at to gain Internet access so that was worth it I suppose.

Our next stop was the Pere Lachaise Cemetery, for those of you unsure of why I would visit a cemetery on my honeymoon… see the earlier post about my intrigue of where people are buried, and Jim Morrison is buried here. As it turns out so are Frederic Chopin and Oscar Wilde, we had a nice walk exploring the old cemetery. It turned out to be the favourite part of the day for both of us.

So now back to Lyle.  We decided we would switch back and forth and do two days each for the blog, but Heather found it difficult to count to 2 and jumped the Queue as they say here and started on my day.  Of course I was sleeping when she was doing this so I couldn’t stop her.  So, decided to use what she had wrote. 

After seeing the graves of famous people in the cemetery we came across memorials and graves for those who had been killed in the Second World War.  The memorials were quite descriptive and we were both very touched by how many people died in the war.  There were many monuments to the thousands that lost their lives in the concentration camps and killed by the Nazis.  I only held back the tears so Heather wouldn’t totally lose it.  It was very emotional for both of us.

After finally finding our way out of the cemetery (thinking you’re trapped in a cemetery is a weird feeling by the way), we headed out to see a museum of inventions.  It was in our Paris Pass so we thought we would check it out.  The whole museum is quite old and had early examples of all different kinds of sciences, inventions, and machines used for discoveries.  It was pretty neat.  The highlight for me was seeing the first computers up close.  They were HUGE!  It’s hard to imagine that a computer that massive had less computing power than any handheld device today.

On our way back home we stopped in for a meal at a restaurant with some strange waiters.  I’m not sure if one was training the other, but they always came to the table in pairs (but only our table) and the one had the same expression on his face the entire time we were there.  The food was good though . . . mozzarella and tomatoes for appetizers, chicken escalope (still don’t know what that means) for Heather and a lamb skewer for me.  We finished off with cream caramel for Heather and a crepe for me.  And with that we head back to the shire to find our little hobbit dwelling.