More of being a tourist

Tourists looking off from the Eiffel Tower's second level.

Iron lattice of the Eiffel Tower.

Aww, it's a baby Louvre!

The Louvre at night, as opposed to the day when it didn't lend itself to a photograph.

A European Union and a French flag hang beneath l'Arc de Triomphe.

And for funzies, an animated gif of the tower at night. It would have helped if I held my camera still.

On second thought, not enough money to leave Paris

I wanted to stay in Paris for just a couple of days and then go south to Switzerland and then swing into south Germany until break was ending, then fly back to London. But then I checked my bank account. But also, there really was so much to do in Paris so I decided to stay in the cheap hostel for the rest of fall break.

Notre Dame.

One of Notre Dame's main front doors.

Two tourists light a candle inside Notre Dame.

Light from outside casts a shadow of decorative gates inside Notre Dame upon the tiled marble floor.

Gargi the Gargoyle (not actual name) on Notre Dame.

First days in Paris

La Tour Eiffel behind the Monument for Peace in the Parc du Champ de Mars.

Although getting to Paris was expensive, Paris itself wasn't too bad. My hostel was only €19 a night. And the reason for that became quite apparent. The place was pretty run down, which I really didn't get the impression of from their website http://www.woodstock.fr/ which looks well up-kept. Worse than the actual building were the two clerks who ran the desk downstairs. They were the most miserable, irritable and unfriendly people that could possibly be running the hostel. They were the exact antithesis of the positivity emanating from their website.

One of the kids I was sharing a room with (I think his name was Iku?) in the hostel was from Osaka, Japan, and didn't speak English that well at all, and we sort of struggled talking to each other, as I didn't speak any Japanese whatsoever. But I really enjoyed that. This one girl running the hostel, however, had no tolerance for his broken English. Iku's luggage found its way on another plane during his voyage to France, so he didn't have much on him but the luggage was supposed to be delivered to the hostel when it arrived. When he and I were about to leave the hostel for the day, he wanted to ask this hostel girl to keep an eye out for his luggage, and, because his English was poor, the girl couldn't quite understand him and she was so visibly annoyed and was unbelievably rude to this poor kid.

Both hostel clerks constantly averted making eye contact with visitors, they spoke minimally if you wanted some information and were unhelpful. They just made me really upset in general even though they weren't necessarily mean to me personally.

And in contrast, the visitors I was living with for the week were amazing. The guys there came from countries including Poland, Germany, Argentina, Australia, Japan, Brazil and Mexico. Most of us would hang out in the evening and talk. It was cool. I was initially uneasy about the idea of sharing a room with other people, but I think it was in fact one of the best experiences I had in Paris.

Two Parisians enjoy some freestyle BMX action near the Eiffel Tower.

The subterranean Catacombes de Paris, the well-known ossuary.

It was really dark so not only did I have to use a very low shutter speed, but my autofocus wouldn't cooperate.

Fall Break

Saint Malo Cathedral at night, within the walled city, La Ville Intra-Muros.

I flew from Stansted airport to Dinard, France, near Saint Malo, a walled port city and former notorious home of the French corsairs.

Uh, je ne comprends pas?

Our weekend trip to France went a bit awry. Instead of Grenoble, we accidentally arrived in Rodez, which was not at all close to where we wanted to be. But that was okay. We hitchhiked to Séverac le Chateau, which was kind of in the middle of nowhere, and by the time we got there, and due to the lack of outward bound traffic (and therefore no more hitchhiking) we ended up having to stay the night there. We initially couldn't find a place to stay. But while searching, Andrew and Juliette walked into a hotel at about 11pm and found a key to a room just sitting on a desk by the door. It was pretty sketchy, but we were desperate and considered just taking the key and the corresponding room for the night for free. There was no reception to talk to of course at this hour, and the lobby and halls were completely dark.

Instead, we walked along a back road and found a hotel and bought a room for the night. Not nearly as cool as sneaking into a hotel room at night, but it was more legal.

The next morning when we left, a random donkey came up from a hill beneath to greet us.

We all harass the poor donkey with our cameras.

Our hotel, the donkey on the left, and Séverac le Chateau, which this town is named after, back in the distance.Nice was nice.

With a few hours to kill before taking us to Montpellier where we could catch the main railway, we went uphill and eventually to the castle. There was a splendid view.

Lost, France.

Atop Séverac le Chateau. Click and drag to rotate 360 degrees.

Another location from atop Séverac le Chateau. Click and drag to rotate 360 degrees.

St. Martin Vésubie in the French Alps. Click and drag to rotate 360 degrees.

Food Diary: Day 6

Monday 10/6/08

I started out the day early to get a chance to explore the Alps a bit. I grabbed an apple tarte from a Pâtisserie and had a bottle of water. Before we left the town a few hours later, we went back to the same Pâtisserie and grabbed two personal pizzas for the three of us to share (the toppings of the pizza were a mystery as they were covered by cheese and only slightly visible, but they were typical vegetables for a pizza – green and red peppers, some meat and the sort).

That evening, lacking money and motivation, and being surrounded by overpriced restaurants in Marseilles, I resorted to McDonalds and had two cheeseburgers and a strawberry milkshake. I’m not proud, but I was a bit hungry. I always have a bit of uneasiness when going into a clearly American restaurant like this. I think it’s because I want to help reevaluate the idea in peoples’ minds that these fast food places are so essential to Americans. I don’t want foreigners to think that I’m traveling all the way to France to go to a McDonalds, but there I was. In other circumstances (having more money) I would have chosen to go somewhere else. But I certainly wasn’t the only one in that position, as many other locals were waiting in line just as I was. They can’t judge me if they’re waiting in line at the same place, right?

Food Diary: Day 5

Sunday 10/5/08

We did a bit more traveling to get us into the French Alps. Before leaving Nice, we found, much to our surprise, an actual supermarket that had quite a variety of food (the first of its kind we found in France). We bought some sliced pepperoni, a couple varieties of cheese, and crackers, which we enjoyed on our train ride north. Cheese and crackers and pepperoni I have always liked as a snack food, and also sometimes as a complete meal (which, this time around, it was). I also bought some Le Petit Ecolier crackers for later (a delicious chocolate and cracker combination that I have enjoyed from time to time back home in the international food section of our local Wegmans grocery store).

Prior to leaving for the supermarket, we ate a complimentary breakfast our cheap hotel provided for its customers, which included a croissant per person, butter and hot chocolate. At this point we had managed to procure jam again so we also had that as an option for spreading on our croissants.

Later that evening, we decided to try an actual French restaurant and, for the first time in France, to eat an actual meal. The three of us shared two bottles of red wine, and I had a generous slice of steak with some unidentifiable (French) dressing coated over it. This came with some green beans wrapped in a strip of bacon, a baked potato with butter, and another side dish that I couldn’t identify (but it had a bready outside and seems to be filled with some cooked vegetables and perhaps some meat, but I really had no idea – it was okay). For dessert I had an overpriced brownie that I thought would be bigger. All in all, dinner was a success, and it was nice to say at that point that we ate at a French restaurant. We certainly felt a bit out of place though. We arrived a bit earlier than most French people go out to dinner (in our defense, we hadn’t eaten well in days) and our French language skills weren’t too great. Undoubtedly we were unaware of some customs that probably go along with eating at a restaurant, although nothing we were aware of – we just felt like we were probably doing something wrong.

Food Diary: Day 4

Saturday 10/4/08

Another day of traveling and not a ton of eating. We left the small French town we were in Séverac le Chateau at 1pm but not before grabbing an apple tarte for myself from a Pâtisserie and a bottled water. We ate outside in the cold as there was no eating room in the shop, and we really didn’t have anywhere else to go. Although not the ideal health option, baked sweets like this apple tarte put me in a good mood, countering the negative mental effects our various travel difficulties were placing on me. All my comfort foods seem to be unhealthy. I do have quite a sweet tooth, so a tarte like that is certainly comforting in that regard, and also I’ve never had any visible negative health effects from eating baked sweets, ever. To go a bit more in depth, I can recall having donuts and bakery items of the sort throughout my life. I enjoyed them more than candy or salty snacks and there was always something home-like about them. My mom had always, from time to time, made cookies and other sweets like apple and pumpkin pies in the oven, so it’s easy to associate baked goods with comfort, without a doubt.

Sadly, that was the last time I ate that day besides some pita bread that we managed to take with us into France from London. Airport security threw out our peanut butter and jam at the airport.

Food Diary: Day 3

Friday 10/3/08

Today I left for southern France with a few friends. We left early to the point where I had no time to grab anything to eat, though I did pour a glass of water for myself. After traveling plans went very awry, the next thing we ate that day was an apple tarte and a small cheese and ham pie/tarte, both of which the three of us shared. This was when we were in France, and between all of us, we only had so many Euros with us, not having found an ATM yet. Water was the beverage of choice, as we already had some on us.

After more traveling incidents, the final thing we ate that day was a pizza we bought in a small French town (cheese, tomatoes, beef and onion). It was that good. The beef sort of ruined it, but due to a language barrier, we felt better selecting that specific pizza than choosing one where we couldn’t properly translate the toppings. Although not too great, pizza was a welcome food as it was very cold outside and we needed something to warm us up. We shared the pizza and a pitcher of water.

En France pour le week-end

Be back Tuesday morning.