New Family From Cinque Terre

Listening: There's only us. There's only this. Forget regret, or life is yours to miss. No other road. No other way. No day but today.

Just a brief blog. I'm not even uploading pics today. I haven't really touched a computer for more than a couple of minutes since the 24th of October, and the reason why I haven't is because I didn't want to take time out from what I was doing to go and use a computer. I met three very different awesome people in Cinque Terre. We hung out for two days, one of us peeled off to go to Rome, and I decided to go with the other two to Como. Today, I peeled off to come to Firenze. I miss them already. I haven't even left Europe and I miss it already. Thinking about leaving makes me want to cry.

When I get back, I'll finish the real content of the blog. I'll backdate everything and make it all pretty. I guess I have to find something to do at work. Cheers until then.

Cinque Terra

Is the best place ever on this earth. More to come later.

Just So You Know

I left Paris and miraculously found a bed in Lyon. The keyboards in France suck. Paris update to come once I find a reasonable keyboard for a reasonable price. Most pics are in the gallery for y'all who know where to find them. It's gonna rain for the next 5 days. That's gonna suck. I need a good meal and some sun for when I try to hit the beach in Marseille in two days and Cinque Terra in five. Got to go. Gonna try to get my bearings. *bisou, bisou* from Lyon.

Paris Day 4: Le Bleu & More Death

Listening: Celebrate we will. Because life is short but sweet for certain. We’re climbing two by two to be sure these days continue.

When I woke up on the morning of the 17th, I was still sleeping in the bed above the French-Canadian girl. I hadn't talked to her yet upon opening my eyes, and bag man was doing his thing on the sole single bed in the room. When I got out of bed and showered, bag man was doing his thing, one of the Aussies from last night was passed out in his bed, and the two others (the French-Canadian included) were grabbing breakfast in the kitchen downstairs.

When I got out of the shower, bag man was packing up and everyone else came back to the room to get ready for the day. Fortunately, bag man was packing his stuff to high tail it out of the city. After he left, I nabbed his single bed and started organizing my stuff. It was laundry day and I sat on my new bed organizing.

After a few minutes, I struck up a conversation with an Indian-Candian girl who had the other top bunk in my room. It turned out that she was a cook as well in Toronto. She worked at an Italian restaurant called Luce on the fish station. I was delighted to find another cook on the road and we instantly started talking about food and what's going on in the scene and such. She had been on the road for a month and a half and, same as me, had two more weeks before returning home to her restaurant and her boyfriend, the sous chef. It was during that conversation that we decided to meet up for dinner that night. During the conversation, I also formally met Anne, the French-Candadian, who I had been sleeping above for the last couple of nights. So, before I headed off to do laundry and the two girls headed off to see Paris, Michelle, the cook from Toronto, and I agreed to meet back at the hostel at half past six.

Laundry was, well, laundry. Luckily, I was able to get it all done before the lockout and was able to hang it in my room. I think that the gorgeous receptionist at the hostel would have let me go up to put it away even if I had been a little bit late. Good GOD was she gorgeous.

After I had all of my laundry settled and hung, I headed off to the Metro to go cross town where Le Cordon Bleu is. Instead of going to my normal stops of either Anvers or Barbes Rochechouart, I headed to the Pigalle station, a little bit west of Anvers and Barbes Rochechouart in order to get right on the 12 train to get off at Vaugirard Station.

The night before as I had been talking with the Aussies and the German, they informed me that we were staying right near the red light district of Paris. Now, I knew that there was the Moulin Rouge and all that, but I didn't think that there was really a red light district of Paris. Had I completely missed it? Well, I certainly found it when I walked to the Pigalle station. It was right in the middle of all of the cabarets, porn shops and erotic movie theaters. I was thoroughly amused by it. Me, of all people, missed the porn for the first three days that I was in Paris. Weird.

Anyways, I headed off to Le Cordon Bleu. It was tough trying to get there. I got lost a couple of times. To tell you the truth, it wasn't until I got to Strasbourg that I decided to go check out Le Cordon Bleu, and even when I got to Paris, I kept pushing it off in lieu of doing other things. But, being my last full day in Paris, I figured I should go check it out.

I went in there without calling or anything and arrived there around one in the afternoon, a time when shops are on siesta and people are generally out of the office. It was just a bad time. But when I got there, the reception bent over backwards to see what she could do. At first, I just got some info on the school and was told that I could try to call the school around three or so to see if there was anyone available to show me around. But after a bit of confusion and running around and explaining that this was my last day in Paris, she found one of the admissions directors who was free.

Before I knew it, the two of us sat down to talk about why I was there and how I could apply. I found out how much everything cost and what kind of paperwork I would need to be able to go to school there. After that discussion, she took me around the school and I observed about a half a dozen classes. It was pretty cool. There were a lot of Asians running around the place. I was surprised. I could tell that there were some Americans in the crowd too. I saw mostly beginner culinary classes and some advanced pastry classes. I spent a good two hours checking out Le Cordon Bleu and decided, walking out, that it was a place that I could definitely see myself at. As I thought about it for the rest of the day, I decided that I'm going to do it. I'm going to save up the thirty thousand euro or the $36,600 to pay for Le Grand Diplome which covers both the Culinary and the Pastry programs. The kicker is that the advanced classes in each of the programs are all taught in French only. This means that I would need to learn French. I think that being in Paris and immersed in the language, I could probably do it. Maybe I would have to start dating a French girl too, something I have no problem with.


Le Cordon Bleu

By the time I finished at Le Cordon Bleu, it was well past lunch time. I was hungry as hell. On my way to see Le Cordon Bleu, I saw a charcutrie that looked like it had some pretty good eats, so I stopped in to pick up some picnic items. It happened to be another leek quiche and a creamy cucumber salad. Further down the street, I picked up a water and a Canadian apple. I had seen these Canadian apples all over France, and they looked like Asian pears, so I wanted to try one just to see if I was right.

With my picnic in tow, I headed over to Les Invalides to eat. It was a beautiful day outside. The sun was shining and it was very warm. I walked around in a t-shirt and jeans and was still warm. With my jacket was packed into my bag and the sunglasses on my ugly mug, I sat in the garden and ate. The quiche seemed pretty standard as I compared it to the one I had in Strasbourg. It was still better than anything that I have had in the States, but I was amazed by how everywhere made these little quiches just as good as everywhere else in France. The cucumber salad was perfectly devine. It was very simply made with yogurt, dill, salt and pepper. Delicious. There's something about European yogurt as well. It's just different from the stuff that we get in the States. The apple, on the other hand, was disgusting. It was nothing like an Asian pear. Instead, it was very mealy and not crisp at all. My teeth just sank right through it, not ripping off a chunk as what happens with some of my favorite other apples when bought at peak ripeness. I was thoroughly disappointed. I couldn't even finish the whole thing. It was just too mealy. Yuck.

After lunch, I decided to take advantage of the sunshine. So, I finished reading On Rue Tatin and wrote postcards in the garden by Les Invalides for a good hour or so. After that I kind of felt like I needed to get something touristy done, so I headed off into Les Invalides and checked out Napoleon's tomb.

Napoleon's tomb was altogether pretty impressive. He was encased in abour four coffins of different materials and surrounded by other family members and French milirary greats. Also, with the price of admission into Napoleon's tomb, I got an audio guide to the tomb included. So for the first and only time on my journey, I walked around a historic building with a phone looking thing pressed up to my melon. It was kind of amusing. I never thought that I would ever willingly look like one of these idiots with audio guides up to their ears, but I guess I'll do it if it comes free with admission.


Napoleon In His Series Of Coffins


Napoleon's Nephew's Tomb


The Alter At Napoleon's Tomb


The Invalides Courtyard

By the time that I finished at Les Invalides, it was getting pretty late. I think it must have been around five or so. I knew that if I went back to the hostel, I would be just sitting around waiting for Michelle. So, I headed off to the metro to get to the Jardin des Plantes. From Les Invalides, to get to the Jarden des Plantes, you have to take the RER, which is another branch of the metro. I find the RER the most confusing subway ever. There are only a few stops and only a few lines, but it seems like a brain teaser when you try to figure out where you're supposed to go. There was only one line of the RER that went through the station that I got on at, but there were all sorts of signs and boards with flipping words and what not, so I didn't quite know where to go. I'm sure that I could have asked someone, but alas, I just decided to return to the hostel. Yes, I let a subway get the best of me.

When I got back to the hostel, I sat down at the computer for a bit to see if I could pin down some accomodations for Lyon. I had been trying for days, but everything seemed to be filled up. I checked hostels and budget hotels, all to no avail. Finally, just as I had given up on the RER, I gave up on trying to find accomodations. On my way back up to my hostel room, I noticed that Jade was outside smoking a butt, so I went out to say hi.

The little going over to say hi turned into a little walk around the block and we just started talking. She had some stuff going on in her noggin and needed to bounce it off of someone, so I obliged her. By the time we had walked up to the staircase leading to the Sacre Coere and walked back, it was time to meet up with Michelle.

I left Jade in the common room while I went to go check to see if Michelle was in the hostel room. Sure enough, Michelle was there with Anne. Originally, we were supposed to go out to try to find some fantastic food, but when I got to the room, I was asked if a change of plans would be okay. I was pretty accomodating, so instead, we went on a picnic.

On our way to go grab the foodstuffs, I saw Jade mulling over her issue and I invited her out for the picnic. At first she was reluctant, but I wasn't about to let her just mull away in the lobby of a dingy little hostel. I don't care how beautiful the receptionist is. Eventually, she relented and off we went to the grocery store to pick up wine, cheese, baguette, tomato, chorizo, chocolate and an apple tart.


Cheese, Glorious Cheese!

The four of us took the Metro to the Trocadero stop and had our picnic as they lit up the Eiffel Tower and made it sparkle. It was a fun time, but somehow I felt a bit disconnected from the two canucks. Jade kind of felt it too. I think Jade felt it a little bit more than I did.

After our picnic, the two canucks decided to go to sleep, while Jade and I sat around on the patio chatting with each other. I learned quite a bit about her life and about how she deals with things.

Meeting Jade was a very interesting part of my trip, because from the moment she opened her mouth, she reminded me of Steph (the one that wrecked me, not the cool one in CT). She's a Chinese-Australian, so she's got the Chinese look with a British based accent. When she started talking, the first thing I thought was , "Oh, boy, I'm in trouble." The thing was that I wasn't at all attracted to her. I was just concerned about the idea that there was a girl who reminded me a little bit of Steph. As I talked to Jade at length that night, I really saw even more similarities between the two, but I was okay with it. I was surprised. I didn't think that I would be. Instead of running away, we really opened up to each other and got to be pretty good friends in the span of a day. I was pretty psyched.

It was after one in the morning when I went to sleep. Jade and I made plans to grab breakfast together before I jetted off to Lyon.

I did get up early the next morning. I had a lot of crap to pack up. As I packed up, I got to say goodbye to Anne and chatted for a bit with Michelle. I left my packed backpack on my bed while I went out to meet Jade. When I got out to the patio, she was already there smoking a butt. Michelle followed behind me and we all chatted for a bit and took some pictures before Michelle headed out for the day and Jade and I set out for coffee.


Michelle & I

After Jade and I secured our coffee, I grabbed the three quarters of an apple tart that we had left over from last night and we chawed for a bit on it in the lobby.

The beautiful receptionist knew that I was leaving that day, so when I went back up to my room to get my backpack adn to drop off the remaining half an apple tart for Michelle to have, she asked me if I had finished the tart. I told her no and asked her if she wanted some. She said she did, so I went back up and cut pieces for her and the rest of the staff. Jade knew about my little crush on the receptionist and I totally think that she was chuckling about it behind my back.

After appeasing the beautiful receptionist, I strapped on my backpack and Jade walked with me to Gare de l'Est on her way to Republique and my way to Gare de Lyon. We hugged our goodbyes and I wished her well on the little adventure that she was about to embark on. I caught the eleven o'clock out of Gare de Lyon to Lyon Part Dieu.


My Train to Lyon

Paris Days 3: Death And Relaxation

Listening: And if I should falter, would you open your arms out to me?

I was the last one out of bed on my third day in Paris. Bag guy rattled bags again, and there were people mulling about, but I was feeling rather laxed. It didn't matter though. I was still out the door by ten and on my way to check out some more sights.

When I opened up my map, I thought to myself that I would like to go to the Louvre. It sounded like a good idea at the time, so I headed off in that direction. Right before I got to the Louvre, literally thirty steps, I was sidetracked by a boulangerie/pastissier. I hadn't had anything to eat yet, so I decided to stop in for a little spot of breakfast. And that's where I found absolute perfection in Paris.

For breakfast, I had a burre croissant, a fraise tarte, and a cafe creme. I sat in that cafe for an hour eating my pastries, sipping my coffee and reading On Rue Tatin. I think that that was one of my favorite moments in Paris. It was a Sunday morning so everything was calm and still around the city. There weren't as many people mulling about and bumping into each other. There were tourists, people in the tourist service industry and some restauranteurs. That's it. The bustle was simply hushed.


The Best Breakfast Ever

After a leisurely bit of time, I headed off to the Louvre. I mean, I was in Paris. How could I not go to the Louvre?


Louvre From The Back Side


The Infamous Pyramid

So there I am, right at the entrance to the Louvre, and I think to myself, "You know, I really don't feel like going into another museum right now." So I skip it. That's right. I skipped the Louvre. A couple of people that I have talked to since have thought that I was insane. I admit it. It could be insane, but this is, in fact, my vacation. I'm going to do what I want to do. I guess, for me, that means eating an hour long breakfast and skipping the Louvre. I felt no real need to look at old art. I have heard that the Mona Lisa is just a little bit bigger than a standard piece of paper. So, really, what was the use?

Instead, I kept walking through the Jardin du Carrousel and the Jardin des Tulleries on my way to the Champs-Elysees and the Arc de Triomphe. That's where I found some interesting sculptures.


I Find This Mildly Erotic


"I Can't Believe I Slept With Her."


Jardin des Tulleries


Arc de Triomphe


The Kind Of Small Eternal Flame At The Arc de Triomphe

From there, I caught the train all of the way over to Montparnasse to go see the catacombes. It had started to rain a little, and waiting in line, I shared my umbrella with a Spanish girl. We shared the umbrella, but didn't say much. I don't know why I didn't strike up a conversation, but I didn't. I've been lame like that for most of the trip.

Once we got into the catacombes, it was a self-guided tour. When I got into the tunnels, there was the Spanish girl in front of me and a family of about five in back of me. The kids in the family were particularly annoying. After about ten minutes, the Spanish girl was gone, as was the family. I was alone in the dark tunnels of the catacombes.

It's an interesting feeling being alone with that much death. It was eerie. I looked at the bones and at the skulls, knowing full well that these were actual Parisians who had died and their bones had either been buried there or their remains had been transported from another cemetary. Eventually, I caught up with some people, only to lose them again and to be alone with death some more. At some points, the rain seeped through the rock dripping on my head, catching me by surprise.


The Beginnings Of The Quarry Tunnels


Street Signs Letting The Public Know Which Parts Of The Catacombes They Were In


Upclose And Personal With The Dead


Alter Among The Bones


Bones That Had Been Transferred To The Catacombes

After spending a few hours in the catacombes, I was ready for some fresh air. So, I walked over to the Jardin du Luxembourg. Now, this was a park. There were a number of different sections. There was a place where there were people playing chess, a place where there were pony rides, a place for kids to play on a playground, tennis courts, plenty of green space, places to sit and relax, and places where kids could rent miniature sailboats and play with them on a big fountain. It was a fantastic place. The sun was shining and there could have been nothing better.

What I wanted to do was to write a few postcards, but the thing was that I didn't have any. So, I wandered all over the Jardin looking for them. Eventually, I left the Jardin to go get them. On the way back in, I noticed a photo exhibit on the outside of the fence of the Jardin du Luxembourg. Here are a few of my favorite photos from the exhibition.







After that, I checked out the exhibition, I kicked it back into the Jardin, plopped my ass down on a chair and started writing postcards in the Parisian sunshine. Oh, man, was it awesome. I sat there, wrote and read some more. It was the best use of an afternoon thus far in my trip.

When they closed the park at seven, the police kicked everyone out, blowing their whistles and motioning to the door. Actually, I didn't know that the Jardin was closing until I saw the guy motioning to the gate. I just heard whistles blowing and was like, "The hell?!?"

From the Jardin, I went to an internet cafe to try to pin down accomodations for Lyon. No such luck. What I thought would happen before I left Boston was happening. In the smaller cities in France, I was having a hard time finding accomodations on line with such short notice. It's the price that you pay for flexibility though. With an hour and a half of internet time and no luck, it was time to give up on it for the day. So, to dinner... Ahh dinner.

I found myself at a random Italian-ish spot in the Latin Quarter for dinner. I tried to find about five places mentioned in Michelin, but they were all closed due to the fact that it was Sunday. That sucked something fierce. I didn't want to eat Italian influenced foods in Paris. I wanted to eat French food that wasn't touristy. This place worked out though.



The first course was a plate of thin sliced swordfish dressed with citrus, salt, pepper, and olive oil. It came with a chive creme fraiche, which was just delicious. The swordfish was tender and almost melted in your mouth, while the counterplay of the citrus and the creme fraiche really worked well. I think I could have had the creme fraiche by itself, but that may be interpreted as disgusting.



The second course was a roasted rabbit in a tomato sauce over penne. The rabbit was perfectly cooked and, though very Italian, really hit the spot. It's kind of like right now, a real juicy burger would hit the spot, but I wouldn't dare order it. I'll have plenty of time to order that when I get home. The acidity of the tomato sauce was just something that I was looking for. Whether I choose to admit it or not, I probably was jonesing for some pasta and red sauce.



For dessert, I asked the waiter what their best dessert was, and he pointed out two chocolate desserts and the one that I ordered which was kind of a caramel custard bread pudding. I have to admit that it was very good. It wasn't something that I would normally order, but I felt like it was a good finish to the meal. I was very happy with it.

When I got back to the hostel, on my way to dropping my bag off in my room, I noticed that there were a handful of people hanging out on the patio outside the rooms. So, I dropped my bag off, got a beer from reception and joined them. We talked about this and that, movies and the city of Paris, Prague and cooking. All sorts of things. It turned out that one of the guys had been staying in my room for the past few nights and I didn't even know. This is also where I met this girl, Jade, who would become a person who I connected with pretty well. After three beers and about a hundred conversations, it was time for bed. It was nice to socialize with people again on my journey. It's so hard to meet people when you're bouncing from place to place and they're doing the same thing. It's just so hard to take that first step, but sometimes you don't even need to try.

Paris Day 2: Modern Art And The Lights Of The City Of Lights

Listening: Always in pursuit of the perfect people. Oh, and I can see that it show. But there's just an innocence in you I wanna wring out. I know it could be beautiflul.

Day two in Paris begins with the sounds of doors opening and closing. Wait five minutes. Opening and closing. Wait two minutes. Opening and closing. It's the fucking snoring Korean dude. Wrash-wrash-wrash-wrash-wrash. It's the weird bag man. Fucking grocery store bags. They need to make them with stealth action on them.

I get up, shower and think about the tips that Jenny had given me on how to work some of the sights around Paris. She seemed like an intelligent girl, so I figured that I'd heed her warnings. At ten on the dot, I was out the door, much like to my day job. One fo the big things that I wanted to check out in Paris was the Georges Pompidou Centrem or Paris' museum of modern art.

I spent a whopping five hours in the Pompidou. It was amazing. I went into every room and saw every exhibit. There was one room with an invisible maze, where you had to wear this headset that would buzz you when you hit a wall. I couldn't get it.

They did have a number of cool inventions there though. First, Motorola had this musical digital graffiti wall. It was the coolest thing. I tried a couple of things and tried to e-mail them to people, but I don't think it worked, because none of my friends have e-mailed me telling me that they got it. Here's the best one that I came up with. The spray can was kind of hard to control, so it wasn't really as effective as real spray paint.



They had a number of other cool things in the display too, like a Technics turntable with a USB port on the headshell.





A strange body case was in another exhibit.





There was also, as Eugene and Lindsey saw, a dress of meat.





All in all, I loved the museum. I had so much fun walking around and looking at everything. There were still some things that made me think, "The fuck?!?"

By the time that I got out of there, it was around four o'clock. Jenny had told me that to see the sunset from the Eiffel Tower, I should try to start heading up at around five. So, I hurried my ass to the public transit and busted on over to the big ass pile of metal. Now this was not without incident. Though I had mastered the Metro, sometimes things weren't always as they seemed. First of all, Metro stations can be hard to find, because there is a lack of standardization in signs telling you that there is a station there. Let me show you four of the Metro signs that I took pics of.









Note how different they are. There were times that I knew that there was an underground Metro stop, but I couldn't for the life of me find the entrance. It was impossible.

This time, anyways, was one of the many times where I couldn't find the underground. I, instead, found a bus stop. So I took the bus towards the Eiffel Towerm but then it started veering away. Luckily, it ended up coming back to the Eiffel Tower, but it had taken me much longer than I anticipated. It was already a quarter to five when I got there and the lines were GIGANTIC. I couldn't believe it. And to make things worse, they were only operating two of the four lifts!

To add insult to injury, I was hungry as hell, since I hadn't eaten anything besides a pastry and a cafe creme in the morning. The prices at the Pompidou for food was nothing short of highway robbery, so I just stuck it out. But when I got to the Eiffel Tower, I needed something in the tank, so before I got in line to get to the lifts at the Eiffel Tower, I spent twenty minutes in line for a cheese sandwich (on a real baguette, mind you) when there were only a couple of people in front of me.

Here's something that I have learned about French culture... They are not service oriented. They don't know how to bang through a queue. Everything even remotely resembling service is done at a "ho-hum" kind of a pace, no matter when someone's train is leaving, when someone has theater tickets for or how bad they have to drop a deuce. If you're in line, you're stuck... for hours... upon hours.... I hope you've dropped your deuce before even thinking about a French queue.

I stand in line for about an hour before I get to the ticket booth. As luck would have it, the woman at the booth has to help some other guy get thirty something tickets. It wasn't too big of a deal. There was this cute little four year old girl playing in line behind me. It was cute as hell. She would run around the polls, bump into people and just smile at them as if it was the answer to everything. For this little girl, it really was.

When I finally got helped, I bought a ticket to the second tier. I didn't go all of the way up to the top. Jenny had told me that the view from the second tier was just as good and three euro cheaper, so I opted to go the cheaper route. By the time I got up to the second tier, the sun was beginning to set. There were some fantastic views of the city. As I waited for the sun to set, I wrote a postcard to my parents as the wind tried to carry it away.


Champs de Mars From The Eiffel Tower


Trocadero From The Eiffel Tower


Me At The Eiffel Tower Before Sunset


The Sun Setting Over Paris

I spent a good deal of time at the Eiffel Tower, probably a couple of hours up top. I checked out every view and just sort of breathed it all in. As soon as it got dark enough, they lit up the tower and at eight o'clock, they set it asparkle for about hour.


The Tower Lit From The Second Tier


The Sparkling Tower

After mt time at the Eiffel Tower, I decided to hunt down some food. As I have come to find out, in Paris, all of the best restaurants are closed on either Saturday, Sunday or both. I searched the entire area around the Eiffel Tower for a restaurant in the Michelin guide, but ended up having to walk all of the way over to Le Invalides to have dinner.

Dinner was good, but a little bit slow. I was seated outside, so as dinner dragged on, I got colder and colder. The restaurant was renound for its Provencal cooking. I wasn't planning on eating anything Provencal until I (big surprise) got to Provencem but it was late and I needed fuel in the tank.

I ordered three courses. The first was a tomato cake with celery sauce.



It was basically a very light tomato panna cotta with a mild, creamy celery sauce that was garnished with some outstandingly strong basil oil. I can totally see Chef Bob putting something like this on the menu next August. The texture was smooth and creamy. The creaminess of the celery sauce balanced out the acidity of the tomato really well.



The second dish was a fillet of breen with braised fennel. I have to say that there isn't much to say about this dish. It wasn't really remarkable in any way. It just was. I was hungry, so I ate it. I would have eaten it if I hadn't been hungry too, but it just wasn't all that exciting of a dish. The only reason that I ordered it was because they were out of the duck and the lamb.



For my third course, they moved me inside. They could tell that I was cold and the other couple who was seated behind me opted out of dessert, they claimed, because they had to get up early in the morning. My bet was that they were cold too. So, I had a quince crumble and a cafe creme for my dessert. It was yummy. I had never had quince before. My pastry chef described it as crossing the best apple I have ever had with the best pear that I had ever had. I have to say that the crumble was quite good. I think that I have an fixation with acidity, because I always keep thinking that the apple/appleque desserts that I have been eating have needed a bit of tartness in them.

Anyways, after dinner, I hauled ass back to the hostel, as I think I was about a half hour from when the Metro closed. I ended up not finding the Metro stop near Le Invalides, trucking my arse across the Seine and finding another Metro. As hard as these places are to find during the day, they're even harder to find at night.

Finally, back at the hostel, the snoring Korean dude was replaced by a French-canadian chick. I tripped over her bag a couple of times on my way to the bathroom and to bed. Little did I know that in two days I would be having dinner with her.

Paris: Big City Relaxation

Listening: But I'd rather not have seen. And I'll hide away for another day.

When we last left our hero, he was on his way to Paris...

So I'm on the train going to Paris. I have my first class seat reserved and when I get to the compartment, it looks as if there will be no one sitting with me. The train pulls out of the station and then a rail worker comes into my compartment. In broken English and my "oui" and "non," we establish that there is no one else sitting in the compartment. Now the compartment comprised of two sets of three seats facing each other. After a little bit more broken English and my "ouis" and "nons," he lays down on the three seats opposite me and goes to sleep.


This is what I looked like on the train.


This is what he looked like on the train.

When I finally get to Paris, I'm off the train before the dude's even awake. I have a places to be and people to meet up with!

Earlier in the week a girl that I had been e-mailing with and I had decided to meet at the Shakespeare and Company books store in the Latin Quarter between three and half past three in the afternoon on the day that I arrived. My train got in at noon and I had no clue how the Metro worked or where exactly my hostel was. I had pretty straight foreward directions, but I was still rather unsure of myself.

So I fumble through the Metro thoroughly confused. I still don't quite get the whole RER lines. And to make it even worse, Paris must have at least twenty some odd subway lines, plus busses and the RER. It's just a public transit mess.

After only a half an hour, I arrive at the Village Hostel. The first thing that I think is "ghetto." The station is at the foot of the Sacre Coere (which I never got around to going up to), but the neigborhood around it is severely ghetto. Put it to you this way, the red light district is about four blocks away or one metro station away. I didn't know this until my last day and had to be told because I always ended up going the other way to catch the Metro.

So I go into this ghetto hostel and the lobby is ghetto as well. Not a good sign. There's Portishead playing on the stereo and that's when I fall in love for the first time in Paris. The receptionist. Ghaaa... So pretty. Listening to Portishead. She's tall and her hair moves from blonde to brown depending on which way the light hits it. She reminds me of this girl I knew in college who was a few years older than me. I believe her name was Hillary Barnes, but I digress.

Since the lock out period at the hostel (yet another first for me at hostels) was from eleven in the morning until four in the afternoon, I drop off my bag in the luggage room and head off to the Latin Quarter.

It takes a lot less time for me to get to the French Quarter than I expect. I'm there a good two hours early. Since I finished Ethan Hawke's Ash Wednesday on the ride to Paris, I decided to browse the bookstore. They didn't have the book I wanted which was One Year in Provence, so I just left and walked around the Lating Quarter some more.

From the beginning something irked me about Paris. In all of the other cities that I had been to thus far, I had been able to walk everywhere if I wanted to. Maybe Vienna wasn't as walkable as the rest of them, but once I got from Westbanhof to the middle of town, everything was at my fingertips. Paris, on the other hand, felt like it was large, expansive, gigantic. I felt like the districts and the sights were all like floating on their own orbits around Les Halles and that I needed to shoot myself like a rocket from one sight to the next. I couldn't just walk it. The urbanity of Paris got to me quickly.

Before long, it was time to meet this girl at Shakespeare and Company. I was still a bit early, so I looked at more books. I ended up purchasing Susan Hermann Loomis' On Rue Tatin, which is about a woman and her family moving to a small town an hour outside of Paris. It's great because it includes recipes and such.

So I begin reading while waiting for this girl, Jenny, to meet me. After a few pages, she gets there and we begin walking. It turns out that she has already done everything in Paris that she wanted to do, and I hadn't really planned on doing much that day, so walking was perfectly fine.

She actually wanted to find a place to sit and relax, so we headed over to Le Pure Cafe, a filming location in the movie "Before Sunset." I explained to her that I was a fan boy and she was fine with going to see this cafe. But we sat, I drank a cafe creme and she had some form of a mocha. As we got to know each other, we found out the interesting fact that we have a common friend. She went to college with a guy that I trained and worked with at the Corporation, Kosuke! It was an amazing display of how small the world really is.


Me In Front Of Le Pure Cafe.


The Area Where Jessie And Celine Sat.

Before long, she's getting hungry and I'm always game for food. The thing was that it was probably five o'clock at that point and places don't really begin serving dinner until half past seven or so. Instead of going for a meal, we pop into a boulangerie or pastissier to pick up a snack. She has a chocolat pain and I get this amazing little cake.


The Amazing Cake.

It was a white cake with a raspberry mousse on the top and inside with a raspberry gelee coating and fresh berries on top. I was so surprised when the mousse went all of the way down into the cake. It was soooooo yummy.


Mousse Me, Baby.

After our snack, we walked back to the Seine from the Bastille area of town. Notre Dame was right there and it wouldn't be the last time that I saw that cathedral. The really funny thing was that I stopped by there a number of times, but never actually felt like going in. I think that was my theme in Paris. "Yeah, I walked by there and was right in front, but when I thought about going in, I was likem 'meh, I don't need to.'" I did that to a couple of sights.

From there, we walked out to the tip of the island where Notre Dame is in the middle of the Seine and watched the sun set. It wasn't nearly as romantic as it sounds. The girl's got a boyfriend who isn't me. It was nice nonetheless. Sunsets in that city are fantastic.


Sunset Over The Seine

Before long, it was time to get dinner, so we returned to a restaurant that was across from the pastissier where we got our snacks. For dinner I started with the Soup de Poissons.


Soup de Poissons

The soup wasn't exactly what I thought it would be. It was all broth and no real substance. It doesn't mean that it wasn't good, it just wasn't what I expected. I expected real pieces of fish to be in the soup as opposed to all broth. It was very fishy, like fume, but it had some elements of a light tomato broth to it as well. It came with croutons and some cheese as well. The croutons soaked up the soup nicely adding body and substance where I expected the fish to before. Still I would have liked to have had some fish in there.


Leg Of Lamb

For the plat, I got the roasted leg of lamb with white beans and jus. It was okay. Nothing really special. It wasn't all that I had hope, but then again, neither was Paris. It doesn't mean that I didn't enjoy the lamb or Paris, it just wasn't what I had expected.

For dessert (sorry, no pic), I had a rather mediocre Tart Tatin. It was lacking in sweetness and in acidity. It all of the flavors just seemed really flat. At the time I was okay with it, because I was still in shock that I was in Paris. Looking back, I have had much better desserts in many different places.

After dinner, I walked Jenny back to Bastille, since she had to get up early for a flight and we took a picture that we're going to send Kosuke when I get back to work.


Me and Jenny

It was an easy ride back to the Village Hostel from Bastille. By that time I had gotten a hang of the Metro for the most part. In my room was a crazy bag guy and a Korean guy who snored worse than anyone in my family ever did. There were other people in the room, but none of them were of any consequence at the time. Since I was the last one in, I had the shitty top bunk that was hell to get into with no ladder. Oh well. Life goes on. And that was my first day in Paris.