Paris

Hey Everyone!

I'm alive and well in Dublin after my time in Paris. It was a very interesting experience there! I have lots of pictures that I will eventually put up on facebook to correspond with my blog... but at this point, all I can share is through writing!

Upon arriving in Paris I was a bit jet lagged. On Day 1 I arrived at 8:30 am and made it eventually to my hostel, with my first experience on the intricate subway system. It proved to be a very convenient way to get around as I ventured through Paris! I ended up sleeping from 3:30 pm-8:30 pm, which left me awake for the entire night on Tuesday. I was in a hostel room with 2 sets of bunkbeds, so I had 3 other people in my room. One was from Mexico (she snored!), and the other 2 were friends, one from Montreal and one from Maine. The one from Montreal actually plays hockey for Concordia so I immediately had something in common with her. The other one slept the entire time, so we called her snooze-bear (a nickname her friends had given her) and that was the extent of it.

I got up at 6 am on Wednesday and had breakfast at the hostel. It is very difficult to eat well because it costs a lot to eat my regular diet, and not everything is accessible. At 8 am I left on the subway to meet Judi's awesome friend named David. He was gracious enough to offer me a place to stay (in a great location), tell me about things to see in Paris, equip me with a map and cook me an awesome dinner! It was a pleasure to meet him and it really made my stay in Paris a lot more fun! David had to go to work on Wednesday, but he left me with a set of keys so that I could come and go in the city. I napped but only for a couple hours, because I had to adjust to their time schedule. Eventually I got up, walked all through the city on some very interesting streets! It was very difficult to navigate the streets even with a map, so I relied on Judi's awesome compass necklace to tell me directions. I saw tons of old buildings including the Louvre, but I didn't go inside it. I walked all around the island in the middle of Paris. We had dinner together on wednesday night, David prepared an awesome quiche! Early to bed and up Thursday for another day of tourist stuff.

Thursday morning was lazy. I washed my hair, then went to dry it and forgot to turn the dryer to the higher voltage setting. It turned bright orange and lit on fire inside, with a few sparks and a tiny bit of smoke. So much for drying my hair lol. Learned my lesson there. I had to find out where to get a new one, I was directed to Galeries Lafayette. Its such an awesome mall! It's not a mall with individual stores, but rather a massive open place where each designer has their own open section so you just walk through and browse based on what you are looking for. The Eiffel tower was pretty kewl. The 2nd level is open to outside but the very top is all glassed in, so that was kind of disappointing. Lot's of fun though, the view from up there is awesome. Paris is a very appealing city!

Friday was up early because I had to travel to the airport to get to Dublin. Turns out there was a technical difficulty and I was delayed for about 6 hours in a rather small airport. No worries though, I'm on vacation :)

So now you have the rundown of my activities, I'll tell you what I'll think of the next time someone speaks of Paris (eventually pictures will correspond with lots of these points):

1. Fashion and Cigarettes are equally popular, the latter being excessive when everyone is doing it. Thankfully they don't smoke inside, but 90% of the time when you are walking down the street you are inhaling straight smoke. I won't miss that at all!

2. The bums wear nicer shoes than most city people in Canada!

3. The hookers are not on drugs... as a general rule, they are rather healthy looking, voluptuous, and old! I don't think I saw one under 40, and that's being generous! Sidenote: I was taking a picture of a storefront which is quite possibly one of my favourite things to take pictures of... and this hooker thought I was taking a picture of her (won't lie here, I was hoping to catch her in the shot, but it was the sign that made me take out the camera). She started losing it at me, screaming from across the street, throwing her hands in the air, talking to her hooker friends and pointing at me. Unfortunately I don't understand french, but that was the one time I really wished I did lol. I put the camera down and kept walking... I have no idea the big deal but the only thing I caught was "c'est travaille" which I think means "its work!!!!" lol.

4. There are no normal intersections! Each intersection has at least 5 streets and a lot of them function as traffic circles. No one, including pedestrians, obeys the traffic signals. It is absolute chaos. David offered me this card so that I could ride a bicycle from point A to point B for free. There was not a single chance that I was riding a bike there, I was scared enough to walk!

5. Being in Paris and not speaking french, or being with someone who speaks french is pretty difficult. I likely won't visit too many countries on my trip where I don't speak the native language. It sounds close minded, but I understand a fair amount of french and I still couldn't speak to 90% of the people in Paris! I don't have a fighting chance in any other languages!

6. I've seen the true definition of an efficient transit system. The subway (or Metro as they call it) is so convenient and there is a stop within 500 meters of any given spot in the city.

7. Everyone eats white bread with what seems like every meal! I get chubby when I eat bread, I have no idea how they keep their figures with so much bread in their diets!


There is tons more of course but these are the main things that stood out to me! I'll update this when I think of more!

I'm going out to Temple Bar tonight in Dublin, to a couchsurfing acoustic night on Sunday, and on a 3 day tour of the South of Ireland on Monday morning. Thursday will find me either flying to London or Madrid. I'm having such a good time with so much to look forward to :)

Cheers for now