Last Thoughts on Paris

So now that we're home and I've had a whopping 12 hours to sleep and refresh...here are some last thoughts on Paris:

• People say that "everyone in Paris speaks English" and at the same time they gripe that "the French are rude". What I found is that it is untrue that all of the Parisians speak French, and if they are rude, it might be that you've assumed wrongly that they understand you when they do not. Take the time to learn as much of their language as you can and you will see how friendly they really are!
  
  
• Always, without fail, greet people properly. "Bon Jour Madame/Monsieur/Madamoiselle" or "Bon Soir" if the sun has set will always set a conversation on a good foot.
  
  
• The French are not as casual as we are in speaking and greeting. Pepper your sentences with "please" ("s'il vous plait") and "thank you" ("merci"). They will notice and they treat you with the same courtesy and respect.
  
  
• The french are terrible about using appropriate stemware. Most restaurants will serve red wine in tiny little glasses. I find this irritating. They might not even have the proper stemware if you even ask for it.
  
  
• Learn to use the metro. Each line has a "start point" and an "end point" on the map. Figure out where you want to go, then which lines you need. Head in the direction of the endpoint that you need. Buy a carte orange (about 15€ for 7 days for areas 1 & 2) - take a small picture to Paris with you for your ID card so you'll be ready to go on arrival. The pic is required for your metro ID card. Max size is 1-1/8" tall.
  
  
• Pack lightly. Stuff a duffle into your carryon for purchases on the way home. Air France WILL weigh your carry-on bags (esp at SFO) so make sure yours is compliant.
  
  
• The French eat HUGE dinners. Breakfasts as we know them are hard to find. The French tend to eat a light breakfast as they're still STUFFED from the night before. Get used to this, or you'll pay top dollar for American style meals. Every block has a bakery. Maybe two or more.
  
  
• American style coffee is nearly nonexistant. Ask for a "cafe grand" if you need a lot of java in the morning. "Au lait" gets you some milk with it.
  
  
• Yes there is dog "merde" in the streets as well as urine. Watch for it. If you're lucky, you'll find them identified and tagged as we did.
  
  
• The pickpockets aren't as bad as you think, but the most unlikely will try to get into your pockets and wallets (ie, older women, children, etc). Put small locks on anything of value and keep the keys around your neck or deep in a pocket. You don't have to be paranoid of this fact, just be aware.
  
  
• Use ATMs to get cash. Your PIN might not work or it might be the last four digits of your PIN, or the first 4 (mine worked fine and is more than 4 digits). Call your bank before leaving to make sure. Ask them if they have a surcharge for converting dollars to euros. Most credit unions do not.
  
  
• 4€50 means "4 euros and 50 cents". It can be written like 4€50 or 4.50€. Euros are similar to American coinage.
  
  
• There's not a lot of great nightlife in Paris unless you like bars and DJ/house music. We didn't see a live band the entire time we were there. We DID look, too.
  
  
• Yes, the food is great everywhere. We had a lot of really great food in Paris. From the lowliest of places to very nice 5 course meals. It was all good.
  
  
• Not all croissants are created equally! Some are made with butter, and some with margarine. Ask for a "croissant du buerre" if you want one with the real thing. And if you happen to find the mythical shop in the Marsais that sells croissants with bananas and chocolate (as well as macaroons and sables), I will buy you dinner if you can give me the name/address/phone number of it!
  
  
• The Latin quarter is overrated. It's nearly the Disneyland of Paris. We preferred the Marais and Menilmontant by far. The Champs Elysees is dead at night except for the Buddah Bar, which is great for atmosphere, but way expensive for drinks (wine 9€, mixed drinks 12€) and comes with too much posing and attitude for our tastes. Dinner is outrageously expensive there, so don't even bother unless you have an expense account.
  
  
• Definitely avoid restaurants that advertise "we speak english" or post their menu ("la carte") in English. Also, check to see how busy a restaurant is to gauge how good it is. Restaurants don't get busy til 9PM or later, so this is only a gauge of it's quality if you are looking at this time or later. Always try to make a restaurant in person (calling is second best) to make sure that they can accomodate you.
  
  
• Order the "menu" or "plat du jour" when you can. The menu is a great deal, all inclusive. Meals in Paris include tax and service. If the tip isn't included, you can be sure that the waiter will let you know. They love Americans because they tend to not believe that the meal price includes tip and will often tip on top of that. If the menu says "prix net" anywhere on it, that is also a guarantee that the service is included. If the service is spectacular, leave a couple extra euros to show they are appreciated.
  

Again, I can't stress how friendly we found the people in Paris to be. Complete strangers would stop and ask us if we needed help when they spotted us scanning a map to try to find out where we were. In America, you'd be hard pressed to find this sort of behaviour. I don't know where people in America get the idea that people in France are rude or short with Americans. They are some of the warmest, friendliest people we've ever met, and I can only assume that Americans much be jealous on some level and by some weird twist of psychology, they have to turn them into something lesser in order to cope with their inadequacies.

They have great food, great wine, culture, a beautiful countryside, stunning chateaus and palaces and history that makes ones head spin, a great medical system, and much more.

Why wouldn't anyone be jealous of that? :-)

A bientot!
Linda et John

Homeward Bound

6:00AM and I was wide awake. Our wake up call did come in at 6:30AM much to my surprise. By that time we were both in full swing packing and gathing belongings.

We took the metro to the Gare du Nord where we'd be able to pick up the RER B to Charles De Gaull Airport. While at the Gare, John and I went to the Paul Pastissier and John bought about 18€ of croissant and pastries to bring home to share with his coworkers. I guess they must have thought that we were quite hungry!

It took some doing to figure out which RER B train we needed (there's like 5 of them) and determined we need the RER B3 train specifically. We stayed on the train until it's final destination, CDC2 and then exited. The metro lets out directly into the airport itself so it isn't even necessary to go outside to find the terminal that you need. Quite nice when the weather is bad. We had used our Carte Orange passes to get into the train area, but exiting was another matter. Upon exiting you have to put in your metro ticket in order to be released. We hadn't bought an "area 3" ticket so we were pretty much trapped. A nice Italian lady that we had chatted up on the way to the airport said, "just jump it!" so, behaving like locals, we did just that. The French trains run pretty much on the honor system, but if you get caught jumping over entrances and exits you can be fined. We saw a lot of this occur in the Paris metros, but also never saw anyone busted for this as well.

After having checked in at the front counter at Air France, we passed through the security checkpoint and then went on a dutyfree buying spree. We bought a number of bottles of wine and then sat down to have a cafe before boarding the plane.

Despite arriving two hours early, the airport was quite busy with people and we had just enough time to board the plane. We really didn't have any spare time after having coffee to dawdle about. We passed through the boarding gate and were directed onto a huge "people mover" vehicle on a "scissor lift" that shuttled us off to the plane, which was situated out in the field. Unbeknownst to us, our plane took off about a half hour late and we would arrive 45 minutes late in San Francisco.

As usual, Air France stuffed us with a great deal of food and wine. They really know how to make sure a person is fed and wined. Perhaps they do this so that we'll sleep on the way? They served us two meals and in between made a point of letting us know that there were drinks, sandwiches, and hagen dasz in the "self service" area in the back of the plane. Amazing. And we have a hard time getting a tuna sandwich out of American Airlines.

My only gripes about Air France are that the seats are scrunched way too close to each other. I am 5'10" and John is 6'2". We barely had room to cross our legs, and a few times the people in front of us would recline so fast that we nearly had our glasses of wine launched at our faces without warning at all. I think that the next time we travel abroad we'll try Virgin or KLM and hope that their seats are more comfortable. Hopefully the food will be as good and plentiful as it was on Air France.

While in the air, we took some photos of the ice sheets in Greenland and the mountains in Banff national park. The flight was slightly more bumpy on the way home than it had been on the way over, but I'm particularly frightened of turbulance and really notice it when it is present.

We arrived 45 minutes late, and slipped through customs without any problems. I asked for my passport to be stamped after realizing the French didn't stamp it on entry or exit. I like the idea of s stamp as a souvenier of a trip. I'll have to be sure to ask for them in the future.

John's dad was there waiting for us in the drive through pickup area. It was a nice warm day in the Bay Area and we both enjoyed feeling sunshine on us for the first time in 10 days.

4th: Leaving Agen - Return to Paris

Hardly slept at all last night. I had taken some 24 hour sudafed the day before and I was completely wired. I always overreact to medication, and this time was no different than others.

At 8am, Mrs Smith came to wake us up, but I was already awake. John showered and then we both quickly dressed, stripped the bed, and packed up our things. We dropped of the three children at their riding lesson (Roge) and headed to the gare in Agen.

Adjacent to the gare, in the same building, was a small cafe where we all stopped to have cafe et croissants. There was a strange woman that was exiting when we were entering...she stared at Mr Smith and made a funny movement with her mouth...like she was going to say something but was terrified. It was too funny and was the brunt of much of our breakfast conversation. We speculated about what must have been going on in her mind at that moment. Mr Smith said to her, "Ca va?" and she said nothing so he said next, "No ca va?" and she just stood there stupified. It was hilarious.

So we had our cafe grande, croissants, said our goodbyes. We had a spectacular visit with the Smith family and wished that we'd had more time to spend with them. They'll be coming to the US on the 12th to stay for a month - hopefully we'll get to see them again before they head back to the chateau.

Our train to Bordeaux was an older train, lots of stops along the way. Once in Bordeaux, we swtiched to one of the highpowered bullet trains. My ears ached all the way to Paris. In Paris we exited the Montparnase station and found that we needed to book a hotel for the night. We walked around the station a bit, checking for an internet pub but there was none. There were a few hotels, but it seemed we were in a bit of a red light district of sorts and figured that it wasn't the best place to stay. John's patience was running thinner and thinner so I suggested that we return to the Pont du Neuf cafe where we knew we'd be able to have wine, food, and surf to find a place in which to stay for our last night in Paris.

Pascal wasn't our waiter tonight. Instead we had the rude yound man that we'd had on our first visit to the cafe. (He refused to sell us a pichet of wine because we were "in the wrong room"). We ordered some fries, an omlette, and a small pichet of wine, and then logged on. I wrote to a number of ads posted on the Paris version of Craigslist and amazingly one person wrote back immediately. While he didn't have a room for us in one of his rentals, he kindly offered to help find us a place for the night. He found us a room in the Hotel Metronome (Marais/Bastille border) for a meager 65€ a night. It had a double bed, a twin bed, a private bathroom. What more could we want on short notice on a Saturday night in Paris? Most places require a two night booking on a weekend so we were really in luck!

The room was on the 3rd floor (deuxieme etage in France) and was on the cheesy side. It was faily clean and didn't smell like smoke so I was rather happy. We left our suitcases and headed out almost immediately. The clerk asked to hold our key for us and I felt very weird about that. It wasn't until later that I realized that we had paid for the room in cash, received no receipt, and then he had the key. I panicked and feared that we might have lost not only our cash, but our bags. That thought loomed in my mind for most of the night.

So our last night in Paris was a bit strained. John's patience was thin as it took us a few hours to find a place (not unexpected), and we hadn't done ANY shopping at all for friends and family. It was getting late and all of the major department stores were closed (Le Bon Marche, Samaratain, etc). We walkd the Marais, and luckily a few places were open, however, there really wasn't anything that we saw that we wanted to buy for anyone. Most items are "made in China" and bringing a gift from France should be FROM France, made in France, by REAL French people.

We gave up and decided it was time to grab a bite. John's blood sugar dangerously low, and he on the verge of a nuclear meltdown. We tried to find a street parallel to Rivoli that houses a good number of Japanese and Vietnamese restaurants, but we didn't find it. We did find a nice veggie restaurant in the Marais (Le Marais) and dined on the following:

Soy Protein Lasagne 9€
Tea 10€ (yes, TEN EUROS...insane!)
Pizza Napolitaine 9€

The service was slow, very slow, the pizza came to the table with the champignons that I was so looking forward to, and then there were oodles of people smoking adjacent to us, despite the fact that we were in the no-smoking area of the restaurant. Can't really recommend going back to this one ever again. The waiter was friendly enough, but the rest of the experience just didn't cut it.

We headed back to the hotel room and our desk clerk was there watching the Miss France competition. He unlocked the door promptly and let us in. I was relieved that all was fine and that we hadn't "been taken" for a ride. We asked for a 6:30AM wake up call even though I was fairly certain we wouldn't need it: I never sleep well before a day of travel. No idea where that behaviour stems from, but I's been that way my entire life.

I left the computer on so that if I got up in the middle of the night I'd be able to check on the time. I stayed up for about an hour writing in my blog and then crawled under the sheets. I didn't bother to even take off my clothes as the room was cold and I figured that the cold would be just one more thing that would keep me up that night.

Day in Villeneuve-Sur-Lot and Surrounding Countryside

We awoke about 10am. I showered, freed the little beetles that had made their home in the bathroom, and then we were off for the day.

Mr. L drove us to Villaneuve. I finally bought some hair conditioner at a very modern hair stylist place. We stepped into a newer red brick church for a moment. I lit a candle and asked for a safe voyage home for John and I. We left the church and went for coffee and crepes at Jardin de Gormand, right around the corner in the town square.

Aften coffee, we wandered by an immobilier (ie, realtor) office and I spotted a lovely castle in the window for 561.000E ($734,910USD). It's a tad out of our range, but it IS an asking price and we could easily come in at 500E and see what they make of it. John and I both took a flier of the property and stuffed them away.

We dropped off two of the three children. One child didn't feel well (too many crepes on an empty stomach?) and another went along to keep company.

Back on the road, we went to the bastide of Penne D'Angenais where Richard the Lionhearted fought his last battle. The bastide is atop a high hilltop and is covered with winding cobblestone drives and pathways. The views are stunning. Richard the Lionhearted is reportedly buried at the fort at the top of the hill there. There are very old remains of an old fort which date to 1000AD +/- 80 years (?) There's also a neat old church (maybe a cathedral...what's the difference? When is a church large enough to become a cathedral?) Underneath the church we inspected the old caves that were the original place of worship for the inhabitents of this area more than 1000 years ago. There was a statue of Mary and a stone altar.

We ran into friends of Mr. L on the way down the bastide path and stopped to chat a while with them. Afterwards we visited a tapestry store and perused their wares, and then visited a 'christmas boutique' where the village was selling locally produced goods for a benefit of some sort. I bought a bottle of local wine, and John a packet of handmade water color paper.

After our purchases, we slipped into a small coffee shop for some espresso. A local man came in carrying his abysinnian cat (lovely creature) and we oohed and ahhed over the little fur being. After finishing our caffeinated drinks we headed off to visit Roge, a horse riding school.

We then went to visit the friends of Mr. and Mrs. L that we had run to at the foot of the bastide. Their home is lovely and has an expansive view that seems to go on forever. Two unique elements to their home were, (1) their fireplace dates to Roman times and, (2) their staircase pole is carved from a single log that has been hollowed out. I didn't get pictures of either of these and am now wishing that I had. Sigh.

After our visit, we departed and stopped at a paint store briefly, then headed home where we snacked on a massive plate of cheese and crackers (yes, I popped some Sudafed that morning!) Mr. L opened a nice red to go with the cheese (1999 Chateau Les Cavailles Bergerac, Biaussat)

At 7:15PM we all piled into the car and John and I were dropped off in the town square while the L family went to dine at a friend's house. John and I had a 7:30PM reservation at:

La Gallerie
38 Bd de la Marine
47300 Villaneuve Sur Lot
Tel 05-53-71-52-12

Okay...for the menu, as always!

1/2 boutille Puisseguin St. Emilion
Chateau L'Eglise 2000 (15E for 1/2 boutille)

Green and black olives (yum!)
hors d'ouerves (meats and bread)

John's dinner:
2 eggs poached, atop bread rounds, smothered in morels and a brown gravy
Lotte kebabs in sauce w/vegetables and rice timbale
Assiette des fromages (blue brie et salade)
Tarte des pommess with glace vanille

Linda's dinner:
Tagliatelle carbonara with a egg yolk right in the center...very rich, lots of jambon
Tarte tatin with fromage blanc (which tasted like sour cream...dessert was too sweet for my palate)

We finished dinner at 10:50PM and although I suggested to John that we call for a cab right away, he thought that we should wait until we had a little walk. Well, by 11:15PM we had discovered that there were no taxi cabs to be found AT ALL at the time in the night in Villaneuve. We tried calling a cab ourselves using the taxi devise...alas, it didn't work. We also went back to the restaurant, but they had all gone home. We then found a bar and pleaded with the bartender to help us find a taxi. He called at least three taxi companies, and none answered.

Worried that we were doomed to either walk home or have to wait longer in the cold, I made off to the local police station where in my best french, I asked them to please find us a cab. On the first call they had success but at that instant, Mr L, his family, and John arrived at the front door of the Villaneuve police station TO THE RESCUE! I apologized profusely and thanked the police for their efforts...and then quickly departed. John and I were so happy to have the good fortune of Mr L driving by as he did. Whew...

So...back at the house, we stayed up for a short while chatting with Mrs L about local real estate, and with the children about how they could build their own websites. Before going to bed I promised to help the children build their own blogs. Maybe I will do this by Tuesday!

From Paris to Aquitaine!

Had a hard time sleeping last night...too much beer, wine, champagne?? Got up at 8am, made coffee, cleaned the apartment for Bill, and set off for the TGV train station. The TGV is the bullet train that you can get from a handful of train stations in the Paris area. (I think they also have non-bullet trains, but who wants to ride those?)

Took Rue Saint Maur metro (3?) to Montparnasse Gare. Bought pastries at the Paul bakery and had my first rude encounter with a Parisian boy with a unibrow. I asked him if the croissants in the back were "Pommes" (ie, apples) and he said "oui" and tossed one into a bag. Well, John came down from the train station and wanted something different. It was near impossible to tell this boy that I no longer wanted the apple croissant. He rolled his eyes at me, sighed loudly, and mumbled about me to his coworkers. He was so impatient.

Grabbed a sandwich and slice of tart for the train at another place near to Paul. We're seated in 2nd class so the seats aren't as roomy, but everyone says it's not worth it to travel first class.

As the train went through the tunnels it created a pressure vacuum that caused my ears to hurt intensely. Usually I can open my eustachian tubes rather easily, but with my cold (?) I found it near impossible to equilibrate. This is something we weren't warned about at all. The ear pressure is more severe than ANY plane ride either John or I have ever experienced before.

We arrived in Agen without delay, and right at the train exit was our friend who lives with his wife and two children near to Agen in the town of Villaneuve. (They'd like to remain private in this blog so I'll just refer to them as Mr. and Mrs. "L"). Mr. L took us to their home on the outskirts of Villaneuve and then ran off to retrieve his children. I was rather exhausted and took a short nap while John read downstairs. Their home was simply stunning and dates to the late 1600's. The oldest reference to the house was in 1693 or 1694, but it might be a tad older. The land was conveyed in about 1500 to the builder of the house, so he could have commenced thereafter....such intrigue! If I owned such a house, I'd have a hard time not studying every nook and cranny and would likely take a shovel to excavate as well. :))

That night Mr. and Mrs "L" had a friend over for dinner, and so we dined with the family, a friend of the children, the house caretakers, and the family's dinner guest.

Menu:
1999 Chateau Duluc Bordeaux
Veuve Cliquot Champagne
Pommery Champagne

Chicken, mashed potatoes, tomato surprise (very luscious tomatoes), cauliflower with onion sauce (I could have eaten the whole plate of it!), carrots, and a lovely homemade gingerbread pudding with a creamy sauce to go atop.

Talk about being spoiled.

After dinner, it was off to bed with the lot of us. I swore I'd sleep in until 1:00PM the next day.

The Myth of the Chocolate Banana Croissant (Croissant du Banane et Chocolat)

We finally heard from our friends in Southwest France. It looks like we are definitely going to be visiting them!

We showered, started our laundry, and were out the door rather fast. It was raining outside as we headed out we ran back upstairs to grab an umbrella. We hopped the metro to the 12e to try to find a computer store so that I could buy a PCMCIA flash card reader.

We went to a place called Sourchat (?). It's a store that is heavily advertised in the Paris metros with all sorts of computer deals blazed on the walls of the metro. It was larger than a typical Silicon Valley Fry's and I remarked that we were in a "French Fry's" which gave John quite a good laugh. I had seen such a card in a book that was back in our studio, so I knew that they had one for a mere 9€90. We found the item and headed for the cashier. What was odd here was that they put the item into a bad and the I went to the cashier to pay. I had to remove the item from the bag to pay, then have a man near the front door inspect the receipt (much like they do at Costco when you are about to exit). It seemed a little weird that they bagged the item first, but I'm sure there's a reason for it.

From there we walked down the street to the Gare du Lyon to buy our TGV (bullet train) tickets for Agen. We were able to get a 25% discount for traveling "a deux" on second class so our tickets wound up costing a total of 205€ roundtrip. I think that when I had checked airfare it was like 189€ each, so this was quite a savings on euros, but not on time, as the ride would be 4 hours in each direction.

Having bought our tickets, we headed to our favorite internet bar, the Pont du Neuf cafe, and had 25cL of wine, a chevre sandwich (not toasted! waaa!), and a mushroom omlette (delish!). By now we had gotten to know one of the waiters that by the name of Pascal. He was very friendly and even spoke English to us without us having to ask. He was always a warm cheerful face for us to see when we'd visit. This time he stopped by and chatted with us. We told him we were going to Bordeaux/Agena and that we were leaving the next day. He gave us his email address and we promised to drop him a line when we got home. Perhaps he will visit us here in the SF area should he make it this way one day.

We tried out the new PCMCIA card while were dining on our lunch and it worked perfectly in transferring pictures from the flash card to the laptop. We really needed to free up space on the camera as the camera was jammed full of pictures! This was a much faster method of of transferring pictures than using the canon cable. Besides, I wasn't able to get the canon software onto Randy's laptop as we didn't have the CDROM device. We checked email and then headed out to try to see the catacombs of Paris...something I'd been looking forward to since before we left.

We took the metro over to the Montparnase area and found the entrance to the catacombs was very very close to the metro. The entrance was actually in the Place (circular area in the middle of a bunch of streets that converge into a cirlce). Unfortunately, the catacombs are closed until May 2005 as they are undergoing a rennovation process. I was really upset that I wasn't going to be able to see them, but I know that John was relieved. He had been grumbling about being underground with 6 million skeletons since I first came up with the idea of touring them. No matter. They're not going anywhere and I will certainly see them on the next trip!

So instead of the metro, we hopped a bus and headed in the direction of the Musee Rodin. John noticed the tomb of Napoleon (Invalides) and decided he wanted to see that instead. It was somewhat late in the day and by the time we found the front of the tomb, it was too late to buy a ticket. Musee Rodin, according to a man at the door, was also closed for the day. So back to the metro we went. Along the way, we came across a parcel left by a Parisian dog. Amazingly, someone had gone through the time to stick a white tag into the pile of excrement with the lable "Merde" on it. I snapped a picture of this fecal oddiity and will post it here. If you don't believe that we made it to Paris, this is proof positive that we were there.

Back on the No 1 Metro, we headed for the Marais. We stopped at the Auld Alliance (first Scottish pub in Paris) and John went in to order us a pair of Guiness while I set off on foot to try to find the shop in the Marais that sold me that Banana Chocolate Croissant the first night we were in Paris. I was foiled by an immobilier office (real estate office) and stopped into to chat briefly with an agent. I took a card from her, a magazine of listings, and made my way back to my beer.

I didn't find that boulangerie/pastissier shop that sold me that fateful Croissant aux banane et chocolate, but if you, my reader, know where this shop is, I will be eternally grateful for the location. You see, I drove my dear John utterly crazy trying to find this shop a second time...to no avail. It is in the Marais, on a street that runs perpendicular to the Seine. The shop is on the right side of a narrow street, and a young man (a "brother", if you will) was running the shop. The shop was tiny, a window on each side for displaying the cookies to the passerbys, and upon entering the shop area for customers was rather small. I think the exterior of the shop was red, but I am guessing here.

I think I shall have to post a reward for the person that can find me this shop.