Lemurs, Lemmings, Dorothy Lamour - Our March on Versailles

It was Tuesday morning.  The air was damp and cool, it had rained briefly the night before.  The weather was forecast to be cooler with a chance of rain.  I'll tell you what, this little excursion was one of the gosh darn hardest to pack for since our Everest ascent.

Just kidding.  Packing for Everest was easy.

We thought we did our due diligence.  I scoured the internet, checked with Rick Steve's, consulted with Al Roker, chatted with Paula Deen, all that.  Everybody and everything pretty much said the average temperature was in the high 70's-low 80's.  But then one source said it could be a wide swing, from the high 60's to mid 90's.  Apparently during the summer months rain could happen at almost any time.  It all seemed as unpredictable as, say, the weather.

So we sort of planned accordingly.  But as I think I previously mentioned in a previous Paris post I ended up wearing one pair of shorts, my snappy cargo shorts, five of seven days on the street.  And as it so happened, I decided to wear them this day, the day of our march on Versailles.  Good thing too, one always needs an extra pocket or two when going on a march.  You know, extra room for a fife and a fiddle.  I also wore a T-shirt under my regular good enough to be seen in public shirt, just so I had another layer.

As any good travel troop should, we did a fairly decent route recon for our journey into the luxurious lap of French royalty.  Versailles, as you may or may not know, was the residence of French monarchs and the cultural heartbeat of Europe for about 100 years, until the revolution of 1789 changed all that.  You know, "Let them eat cake and maybe I'll lose my head."  That sort of thing.  It is a MUST SEE apparently if ever one gets within its vicinity.

The town of Versailles is about a half hour train ride from Paris, depending on where in the city you pick up the train.  The RER train is available at 6 different metro stops and runs on 3 different lines.  But by this time we were subterranean pros and took the metro to one of the appropriate stops, paid the E6.60 each for the round trip train ticket and then my lovely wife and I hopped on the appropriate train in a rush of people, leaving our favorite traveling companions standing on the platform in a crowd of foreigners. 

I was a little irked because we had been herded on in a mass of humanity by some lady who had on a hat and badge and looked official.  Now, as I looked around, I discovered there weren't even two seats for my lovely wife and I to sit upon.  Had we been ushered on to a slow train to hell?

Fortunately, not everybody on the train was on the 30 minute ride to Versailles.  At the first stop two seats became available on the lower deck.  Two stops later almost the entire upper deck became available as about 56 college aged females departed for either a rugby match or science contest.

We moseyed upstairs and then enjoyed a picturesque ride the rest of the way to Versailles.  The train goes way too fast to enjoy the scenery if you're sitting on the lower level.  Greenery just whooshes by.  But on the upper level you get a pretty decent view of just about everywhere.

Once we arrived in Versailles we waited at the station for the next train.  It soon arrived and there were our companions.  And there, at the station, we also quickly discovered the multitudes had risen.  Orderly hordes and a mass confusion of humanity were everywhere.  There weren't just thousands of people, there were TENS of thousands of people.  Everywhere.  Nobody even remotely famous was around.  The Pope wasn't even there.  Everyone was on a pilgrimage to see old fashioned glitter.

The palace is about a quarter to  half mile from the train station, with an endless ant trail of folks going back and forth.  Across the street a wild horde had gathered around some sort of travel agency.  Some nice lady with a name tag and hat told one of our companions that we needed to get in that line.  It was like, a couple hundred strong at that point.  Why would we want to stand in that line?  Because some lady with a name tag said we should?  What was up with official looking ladies in hats telling us what to do, anyway?

So we got in the ant trail and followed the horde up the street and around the corner.  And then, wait for it, "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh."  (An angelic hosts sings.)

Our eyes were almost blinded  by an incredible array of light from all the gold gilding upon the front gate.  Rays of light were shining up through the cloud dotted sky and into the heavens.  You could almost hear the departed Monarch spirits singing like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.  Or Lynyrd Skynyrd. 

That was about the only thing we saw.  Other than people.  I have never seen that many people in any one place at any one time.  Except for maybe Bo Belinski's debut in the Bay Area in 1966.

According to Rick Steve's, the absolute worst day of the week to visit Versailles is a Tuesday.  He said it was really crowded on Tuesdays.  He didn't say why, but he said it.  I took this into consideration when I drafted the ESS, originally planning to assault Versailles on Saturday.  Rick Steve's, the Tuesday thing, he is right.  Boy is he right.  I don't know what Versailles is like on any other day of the week, but I can most certainly say that just about everyone in Europe and Japan was at Versailles on the day we visited.  Which was a Tuesday by the way.

By this time I really, really, really had to pee.  I still had morning coffee trying to make a break, and it was getting extremely uncomfortable.  There are no restrooms at metro stations, I didn't see one at the train station either.  And then we'd been wandering aimlessly among the hordes for almost an hour, trying to figure out which way was up.  And I really, really, really had to pee.

Even our magical museum pass would not get us through the security line to get in.  That was the main cause of the immense line.  They want to make sure no one is carrying any C4 that might blow up, you know, beautiful, priceless, culturally beneficial objects of glitter and art.

We looked at the line again, it was still immense.  Like a line from California to Kansas would be, only wound up like a serpent so they could all fit within a football field or two.  A big, sweaty football field.  I knew I would never make it another ten minutes let alone the four days it was going to take us to get in via that line.

While we were consternating our next move, my next move was to the parking lot.  On one side of the lot were about 100 tour buses, I'm not exaggerating.  Probably tens of thousands more.  Now I'm exaggerating.  But that was out since most of the bus drivers were sitting in their seats reading newspapers.  I'm sure they wouldn't have liked it if some dude went out and started marking their wheels.

In another area was a regular parking lot with cars, vans and scooters.  I waltzed out there, not really.  It was pretty painful by this point.  I staggered out there like a short Frankenstein who'd just been hit with a thousand volts of hot buttered elasticity.  Or just recently hit in the private region with a really big toaster.  That probably makes more sense.  Once safely ensconced within the garden of vehicles, I became one with the cars and vans and managed to relieve myself without getting intercepted by a single witness.  That I know of.  Hopefully a video won't surface any time soon.

Instead of standing in line FOREVER, we opted for a look see at the gardens, which was recommended by Rick Steve's (in case the palace line was massive.)  These grounds aren't just like a patch of vegetables on the corner block, these are miles and acres of gardens.  Apparently royalty back then rather enjoyed endless artistically manicured wilderness.

We basically strolled on down to the Grand Trianon, the royals home away from home, which lies near the end of that lake in the center of the above photo.  That's about a mile or so away.  Near the Grand Trianon, we also visited the Petit Trianon, Marie Antoinette's party place when she wanted to be away from the ball.

The gardens were endlessly immense, exquisitely manicured, and fun fun fun if you were in a golf cart, which we weren't.  We did stroll down to the lake, but then picked up a shuttle bus that took us to all the remaining pertinent locations, even bringing us back up to the garden entrance by the palace.

We thought our three hour detour would have made a dent in the line, it hadn't.  Even a male tour guide with a hat and a name tag said the huge square would be half empty by 3PM.  It wasn't.  It was still full and sweaty.  We were getting absolutely no satisfaction this day from anybody that looked official.  Apparently.

The sisters decided they had to hit the gift shop at the very least.  After burning up fifteen minutes there, we all decided to walk back to the town of Versailles to grab a late lunch.  The town of course sprang up around the palace just to house and provide services to the hundreds of folks who provided services at the palace.

Once again we found a lovely outdoor brassiere, sat down for more awesome cuisine and burned up an hour.  It was now 4:00 PM.  The palace closed at 5:30.  There was still a pretty long line, like from California to Colorado.  You'd think some people would have gone home by now, but apparently some had just moved to the gardens while half the orderly horde yet remained.  

A little more than dismayed, the sisters decided to hit the gift shop one more time.  I sat outside and watched the line.  It was moving and was actually shortening.  About 5 minutes later the good Doc joined me and we decided to get in line, just because why not.  We were hanging out anyway.  There were still about a hundred folks in front of us, but the line was moving fairly quickly.  The lovely sisters soon joined us, and before we knew it we were in.

It was, how can I say this, incredibly, extremely crowded.  There's only one direction to go, and once you're in you pretty much have to go that direction.  It's a human tide.  If you tried to turn back it would be like a salmon swimming upstream.  It'd be like Richard Pryor with his hair on fire trying to run through a parade of circus clowns and elephants.  Uh-oh, flashback again.

The four of we intrepid explorers were together for a while, but then somehow it was just me and my lovely wife.  And four thousand other people in one room.  We did see the largest chandelier ever known to man though.  It was the size of the Empire State Building, or at least as big as a really large watermelon.  It would take half a day to dust that puppy if it took a minute.

Somewhere along the way my lovely wife and I got separated.  It wasn't difficult.  There were hundreds of people politely jostling along.  One misstep and you could be separated for life.  I am talking the shoulder to shoulder shuffle, your own personal space limited to about 2 inches.  Everywhere.  You are shuffling along in an endless parade of people.  There was no going back.

Somewhere along the line there was a little off shoot heading into maybe a parlor, or bedroom, or some other incredibly lavish situation.  I was simply swept in that direction and my lovely wife was shuffled forward.  I have no idea.  My life was not my own at that point.

I was enveloped by a huge throng of foreign speaking tourists.  They all wanted a look see at the luxury.  I no longer cared.  I just wanted out.  I was almost there before I was whooshed away and ushered in another direction, but now it was imperative.  I had to get out.  Minutes shuffled by.  Hundreds of people all crushing about.  It was hot, it was stifling.  I was in a slow shuffling crowd of about 400 tourists, probably.  I was shoulder to shoulder with a cacophony of people, no way out in front, back or sides.  

This was, then, surely hell.  Where else could it be?  I was alone and in hell with hundreds, nay thousands of other people.  And then my lovely sister-in-law grabbed me from behind.  Ah!  Thank God.  I knew she'd end up here too.  Through the onerous din, I indicated I needed to get out.  She, too, thought it insane.  We slowly moved with the crowd, through the off-shoot parlor detour and then merging back with the main crowd.  The shuffle was now slowed to about six inches per second, maybe ten feet per minute.  Maybe not.

Yep, I had surely died and gone to hell, because, well.   I was in hell with all it's crowded multitudes, wishing they had guild in their bathrooms while they were living.  I thought the devil was chiding me.

I muttered, "There's got to be a fu*king way out of here."

And then I heard a deep voice above my head say, "There is no way out."

The voice had a Scottish brogue.

Apparently the devil was from Scotland and was a very tall fellow.

The voice continued, "All these people you see, they have been here since six this morning trying to find their way out.  It's hopeless.  There is no way out.  Got a bagel?"

And then I looked up and discovered a rather tall chap in a baseball cap with a kid by his side.  He was smiling.  He had heard me mutter there was no way out.  At least my lovely sister in law and I had an allay.  And one who could see where we were all shuffling.  It was another ten to fifteen minutes though before we found our way to an exit.  Once outside we exulted like butterflies on a soft summer breeze.

There was certainly endless, unbelievable opulence to be seen, maybe that's why it's such a big draw.   I think it's a much better draw than say, Disneyland Paris.  And I can definitely say, with utmost authority, if you have read this passage and ever visit Versailles on a Tuesday then you would be a bona fide fool.  Unless, of course, you really want to see more people in one place than you've ever seen before in your life.

That evening, in preparation for their departure, the good Doc and I did some research regarding airport transfers.  We ended up finding a place that was about $15 less expensive than ihatetaxis.com.  We both ended up booking our return transfers from them, which was great.  But I do want to say it was rather important (for us) to be in the presiding country of travel to book that transfer.  I am still a HUGE ihatetaxis.com fan as far as initial airport to location transfer.  I think it's just too iffy to try and initially book internationally.  Before you take off for any foreign country, I would definitely put ihatetaxis.com down as one of your first research sites.

That night, our last night all together, we ate, drank and sang more sailing songs.  Off key and off kilter, of course.

The next morn our companions departed.  There were sister tears, there always are.  The good Doc and I are accustomed to this.  It happens every time.  Once the tears had subsided, my lovely wife and I were off for our final day of Paris exploration.

In doing a little more on site research, I noticed a neighborhood fairly close that we had not yet visited.  We strolled on down to le Grands, about ten blocks away and discovered an incredible array of fashion icons and edible wonders, among other things.  There was, of course Chanel.

And then there was Fauchon, founded in 1886, a bastion of over the top edibles like tea, caviar and foie gras.  There's Hediard, another gourmet shop founded in 1854.  Caviar, candy, truffles.  And while you're eating all that luxury you can be wearing the fashion you've also purchased at shops like Ralph Lauren, Gucci and Hugo Boss.  All of which places have security at the front and side doors.

We picked up a few gourmet goodies for gifts and then meandered back to the Eiffel Tower, where we took several selfies-

That last evening my lovely wife and dined at yet another wonderful brasserie.  My lovely wife, always the adventurous diner, decided to go for a little steak tartare.  When she ordered it the waiter looked straight at her and asked in marginal English, "You know what it is?"   To which she nodded her ascent.

Steak Tartare seems like a pretty big deal in France.  It's not really what you see here in America, you know, a raw beef patty with raw egg on top.  Mmmmm, yum?

No, not at all.  In France the meat is actually very finely cut up steak.  Nice cuts too.  Not a gram of fat.  Many brasseries had very special recipes for their Tartare, adding herbs and spices to make it their own.

The waiter was very pleased my lovely wife almost finished her steak.  I, too, had a bite.  I'll try anything once.  I was a little more food adventurous when I drank alcohol.  Hmmh.  Probably gonna be tough to get me to eat bugs or lizard gizzard anymore.

We thoroughly enjoyed our last dining experience together in Paris, the food and street ambiance were supreme.  Here is my lovely wife feeling a satisfied, happy melancholy.

That last day while shopping we also went in to a store to buy my lovely wife a lovely pair of lovely, renowned Parisian underwear.  If you know what I mean.  I think every woman who goes to Paris surely must buy at least one pair.  It should be a law.

Me?  I do not need a macho pair of renowned Paris underwear.  I got a pair of butt enhancing briefs to remember the trip.

Epilogue

Travel, for the most part, is fun.  Except for the travel part.  Most all exotic destinations are generally fantabulous, but getting there and back, unless you're traveling by burro, can be quite boring.  And scary.  Flying scares the hell out of me.  How does that dang couple ton hunk of metal get in the air and stay there anyway?  Same thing with a fax.  How did that letter go through that wire?  I just don't get it.  But I digress.

So we're on our way home, the flight via Air Canada from Paris to Montreal was just peachy.  Then upon our three hour layover in Montreal-which was a good thing since Montreal is an entrance point for the US-I came down with a little tickle in my nose.

But let me retreat.  Customs is quite exacting in Montreal.  Holy cow.  First they usher you into a smallish room, all the passengers on the Air Canada flight who were going into the US, about 50 of us.  So we're all just sitting in this room, waiting, and video surveillance was EVERYWHERE.  I could feel ten pairs of eyes watching my every move.

"Don't pick your nose now Homeboy," I said to myself.  It could make Canadian news.

Then we finally get up to the guy, and he looks at our ticket, punches in some numbers on the computer and then pulls up a picture of our luggage on the video screen in front of him.  WTF?  Could they also see my lovely wife's new underwear from Paris?

We verify it's ours, and then go into ANOTHER waiting room with video surveillance cameras everywhere.  Dang, I still couldn't pick my nose.  We waited there another thirty minutes or so before finally standing in front of a customs agent in a booth.  It was kind of like confession.  Only different.

He asked if we were bringing back regular type tourist stuff, to which we replied yes, which was true.  Mustard, wine, candies, scarfs and other knick knacks like that.  An Eiffel Tower replica.  Tourist stuff.  Hell, they'd probably already looked at everything anyway.  It was a quick stamp of the passport and we were off and free to roam the Montreal airport. 

It was there, after my dinner which included Canadian French Fries, I felt this little tickle in my nose.  It felt like an allergy thing.  I usually carry some antihistamine in my magic back pack, but I had switched packs for Europe and the little yellow pills that stop Niagara Falls were left behind.  Dang.

So I ran the gauntlet past the two or three book store mini marts seeking antihistamine, and I could not find a thing.  I said OK, I can handle this.  I have a hanky.

It must've been the Canadian fries.  By the time we were in flight for an hour I had a soggy hanky.  At one point water was dripping out my right eye while it was also running out my nose, doubling my liquid pleasure.

Upon landing in SF, after the mandatory wait while all the rude travel bubs get their too many sad sacks of crap out of the overhead bins, I raced to a magazine stand.  There I found 2 Claritan's for almost $6, a helluva deal.  I'd have paid $20.

We had a real quick layover in SF, and after a real quick fifty minute flight we were back at our local quasi international airport.   Our son and fabulous girlfriend were there for the airport to house transfer, and we were home around 1:00 AM (PST), or 10:00 AM (Paris time).  Hell, it was just about time to get out on the street for the day's adventures.  

It will hopefully be a birthday my lovely wife will remember and cherish for the rest of her life.

Double Epilogue

The only reason Dorothy Lamour is in the title of this post is because I think her last name sounds so good with the first couple words of the title.  I like words - it's a problem, I know.

Flagrantly Fragrant French Fromage

One thing sure seemed relatively certain to all four of we traveling foreign foodies, the French folk sure seemed to be serious about their food.  From our first encounter in the grocery market to all the restaurants we visited thereafter, we did not encounter anything that even remotely tasted eh.  Apparently we could not find any bad food in Paris.  And we also discovered right away they were very flagrant about their fragrant fromage, or cheese.

I am lactose intolerant, have been for over a decade now.  Yeah, I can take them lactose enzyme things, but for me, they only work so much.  And cheese, for me, is the absolute worst as far as milk products go.  I have gone without or adapted to many milk products over the years, and actually have found a way to make many cream desserts without the cream.  I'll have to save that for another post actually, but a definite game changer for lactose intolerant folks who love desserts.  Stay tuned.

Ah, where was I?  Oh yes, lactose intolerance and the tons of gourmet cheeses in France.  When I first became aware of my intolerance and started changing my diet, it was initially difficult to stop eating cheese.  But I adapted over time and I haven't really missed it in years.  My other three traveling companions, however, are not so afflicted.  When they first encountered the cheese section at the market I could have sworn I heard chirps of ecstasy.  And then some yodeling.

There was some serious French fromage in that there market cheese section.  There's actually entire French Fromage shops, selling nothing but kaboodles of the pungent stuff.  Hell, back in Amsterdam the market we went to there had a cheese wheel the size of a semi tire.  In France the big wheels of cheese were the size of a semi truck.   You know, like, if there were big rectangular wheels for instance.

So at that first foray into the market, a couple different cheeses made it into the basket.  Not my basket, but
somebody's.  There was other stuff in my basket, like meat and chocolates.  And the good Doctor always made sure we had a baguette of true French bread.  Every day.  Wine and French Bread.  Did not go home without it.


The second afternoon of our stay somebody noticed that the fridge was starting to smell a little frommagy.  Like all of us.  It wasn't hard.  It seems the blue cheese my lovely wife bought, the stuff that was growing new mold on the already blue mold, was affecting everything else in the fridge with it's odorous vintage.  The only thing saving us all from a full on bio assault was the three inch thick metal casing surrounding the cold air inside the fridge.  But once that door was opened, you had to duck.

Everything inside the fridge smelled of fromage.  Peaches, chocolate, wine.  Now, cheese and wine typically go pretty good together, but not out of the same bottle.  Ah yes, here we have a nice bottle of vintage Bordeaux.  A classic varietal, with subtle notes of cheddar and jack.

Cheesy chocolate?  No thanks.  Something had to be done.  We could toss in on a neighbor's porch...

That does remind me of a high school senior prank an old school chum and I pulled one day.  On our own.  We took a first period cooking class together, and one morning the class was about different kinds of cheese.  One of them happened to be Limburger, a cheese with a particularity heightened brand of odor.  My chum and I took a bit of that cheese along with us to our next class, which we took together, creative writing.  There we wrote a funny little sonnet by sticking small amounts of Limburger cheese underneath about ten desks.  By mid afternoon the doors and windows of that room were all open and about ten desks were out in the plaza, having been recently cleaned.  Class was being held in the library.  We never got caught.

On our way out that day, as always, we took down the garbage.  That day we also dropped off the cheese.  It was actually growing.  The blue was begetting more blue and it was getting cheesier all the time.  I don't know what's going to happen to it now that it's been sent to a landfill somewhere around Paris.  Hopefully a nice French rat, like Ratatouille, or a nice French skunk, like PePe Le Pew, will find it and eat it before it frommages up the entire country.

The day after my lovely wife's birthday had to be a mellow one.  Are you kidding?  Was once a time we never slept through entire weekends, now and then.  Staying up past nine is a big event anymore, 1:00 AM?  Way big doings, that's for sure.  And for sure, everyone needed to sleep in.

So, rather than do the Louvre, which would be an all day affair and was on the ESS for that particular day, we all opted to go to the Musee d'Orsay, which would only be a half a day at best.  We decided to lateral the Louvre a couple days out.

The d' Orsay houses French art from 1848-1914, which covered the most important part of art history for us, Impressionism.  As a matter of fact, the d' Orsay houses one of the largest collections of Impressionist art in the world.   Universe even.

As always, we strolled down to the museum.  Our apartment was in a wonderful location, with no large historical venue more than a couple miles away. We would typically start our daily adventures with a stroll, or city hike, and then see what fortunes the day might bring along before deciding how to return.

On the way to the d' Orsay, which is across the Seine from the Louvre, we accidentally happened upon the Pont des Arts, or bridge between the museums. This bridge is moderately famous because of all the locks that have been placed on the chain link fence.  And I quote from somewhere,

 

"Some years ago, a new fad started when love-struck sweethearts began locking padlocks onto the chain link fence of the Pont des Arts, which crosses from the left bank to the Louvre museum. The love padlocks, called cadenas d’amour, multiplied until there were thousands of love tokens on the bridge, each engraved with a message of love. After locking the love padlock onto the fence, lovers toss the keys into the Seine river – a sign of their eternal devotion."

Both us traveling couples became high school sweethearts once again, forty some years of ups and downs erased in a couple youthful heartbeats.  Fortunately a couple young enterprising vendors made it easy for we star struck lovers to join in the fun.  One young man sold locks, quite reasonable as a matter of fact (a couple euros) and a young lady would engrave the lock for a fee.  If you didn't want to pay (or wait) for engraving, the lock seller also had a Sharpee with which to inscribe the lock.

Both we couples bought a lock, one couple had their lock engraved.  The other couple wrote their initials on their lock with a Sharpee.  For our part, my lovely wife and I placed our lock on the chain link fence together and then kissed, our left legs rising in unison at the knee.  Then we tossed the key in the river and Cha Cha Cha'd across the bridge.  We all felt like high school kids again, which is actually where both couples first met and began dating, so many wonderful years ago.  Jeez, dare I say decades?

There was a French accordion master playing a few wonderful versions of old French standards, which  added a nice, romantic touch to the ambiance.   Then there was an old gypsy hag in a bundle of haphazardly thrown together shawls, bandanas and pup tents who was limping along like she was dragging a two hundred pound wooden canary beneath her shroud.  Her head was usually down and she muttered about for change as she dragged her cannon leg along.

"Eggs for the poor," she muttered.  Only it sounded different in French.

What struck me though about Hag-zilla was that every now and then she would lift her head up and her clear, sharp eyes would dart about, deftly surveying her surroundings.  And then in an instant her head was down and she was back to muttering form.  I tossed the accordion master some change.  I stayed as far away from Hag-zilla as possible, she scared the hell out of me.

Once we were through with our high school sweetheart regression, hand in hand we strolled over the bridge and into the Musee d'Orsay.

The d' Orsay is not quite as well known as the Louvre, so there was not nearly as much of a crowd. There was still, however, a good fifty person line waiting to get in.  Happily our little traveling party with our Paris Museum Pass's walked right in through another entrance, NO waiting at all.

Since we had worked up quite an appetite rekindling our high school romance(s) along the way, and since we figured we'd need a little sustenance before engaging the Impressionists, we decided to engage the dining room.  And boy howdy were we happy we did!

Everything in that room was a work of art.  From the ceiling and fifteen layers of guilded crown molding to

what they put on the plates, it was all a work of art.

Here's some fabulous Pate de Foie Gras, served on a plate with several different types of peas and some sort of art nouveau cracker.

I mean, how can you not like ground up fowl organ meat when it looks like that?  Yum.

After our sumptuous dining excursion we delved right on in for a few hours of incredible culture.

If you really wanted to see everything in the museum, you should probably allow all day.  The place might not be the football stadium(s) that are the Louvre, but it's still pretty darn big.  We all focused on our favorite period, which was good, because after a few hours we got to hear the final cattle call of the day, "The museum is closing in fifteen minutes.  Get the hell out."  Or something like that.  What do I know?  I don't speak French.

On the way out, my lovely wife entered the absolutely PACKED gift shop.  It was closing time and it was sardine time.  I motioned that I would mosey outside and catch her there.  Where there was air.  I'm not much of a sardine guy.  Anchovies either.

I stepped outside, the entrance square was alive with the hustle and bustle of happy tourists at play.  A dozen different languages  in the background chitter chatter.  People watching in Europe, it does not get better.  As I scanned the late afternoon arty exit ambiance, I noticed a small crowd gathering and sitting on the long steps of the square, which rose up from a pedestrian thoroughfare.  I wandered over and discovered a solo male violinist in his thirties holding court, playing real good.  For change.  He sounded like a symphony player, or at least first chair in a high school band.  His audience grew as he quite melodically sashayed through some Paganini, Puccini and Pet Shop Boys.

Then there was this tall, almost homeless looking man who had set up camp within close proximity of the violinist.  Mr. Mimic, who looked like a cross between Gerard Depardieu and Marty Feldman, would spy an unsuspecting approaching human and then mimic their walk and demeanor in a rather humorous and sardonic fashion.  In some instances he was not very kind.  Funny, but not very kind to many of the the innocent passersby.  Some of the victims played back, some ignored him, several fled.  The audience all laughed.  Although he was quite vigorous in his comical assaults, he was also quite gracious, sincerely adopting a "Wai" gratitude pose when gifted with change.

The rest of the party soon joined me, and before long there were about eighty people enjoying both shows.  We watched another ten minutes or so and then walked over to the metro since we had become seasoned metro commuters.  When we exited at the Bourse, we accidentally discovered an even closer market, like only three blocks from the apartment.  Instead of ten.  Viola!  We picked up the usual stuff, including baguette, returned to the apartment, ate, drank and sang more sailing songs into the heart of the night.  

Sunday morning we actually returned to the ESS, or Excel Spread Sheet.  Sunday had always been the 2nd most important day of the trip, flea market day.  My lovely wife loves flea markets, and Paris hosts the MOTHER of all flea markets, the Puces St. Ouen (pronounced "Huh?"), which hosts over 2,000 vendors.

From Rick Steves: "Paris' sprawling flea markets are over-sized garage sales.  They started in the Middle Ages, when middlemen sold old, flea-infested clothes and discarded possessions of the wealthy at bargain prices to eager peasants.  Buyers were allowed to rummage through piles of aristocratic garbage."

The Puces St. Ouen lies on the outskirts of Paris, definitely not within strolling distance.  So we took the metro out, making a couple underground changes along the way.  Once we arrived top side we followed the crowd and eventually entered acres and acres and blocks and miles and oodles of vendors.  This really wasn't a parking lot where pick-ups drove up and folks plopped their wares on the asphalt.  Most of the vendors had their own stalls, some were pop-up tents, some were within huge warehouses.  Certain areas specialized in certain items, so if you were looking for something specific you could narrow down your search area.  You know, like down to a square mile.

We soon discovered there was the typical every day flea market cheap stuff and then there were fourteen thousand Louis the Whatever chairs that were all for sale in excess of thousands of dollars.  A lot of stuff was BIG, and none of it seemed to be whispering a sweet take me home sonnet.

We wandered and strolled and got lost, finding ourselves once again on a nondescript corner somewhere in and around the madcap mayhem that is the Puces St Ouen.  There was but another charming sidewalk brasserie and we plopped ourselves right on down.

This brasserie was owned and operated by a very gracious and entertaining gentleman who also happened to be our waiter.  He spoke decent enough English, substantially better than any of our French.  We found out his parents first opened the place after WWII and it had pretty much been his life for sixty years.

There was an eight by ten black and white of him as a kid waiting tables.  It was on the wall, along with many other old photos of life back when on the block.  An entire life spent in one building, really.  I found him a fascinating story and individual.

By the way, did I mention you pretty much get French Fries with everything?  Burger?  Fries.  Steak?  Fries.  Ice cream?  Fries.  I ate a lot of fries while I was in France.  Basic, thick cut fries.  Everywhere.  I think they standardized them just like they did the baguette of bread.  They seemed to be French institutions.

Sometimes they served mayo as a condiment with the fries, sometimes not.  They definitely don't serve ketchup with them, and don't ask.  My lovely sister-in-law was politely accosted by our waiter when she asked for some.  He then proceeded to ask her, quite humorously, if she wanted ketchup with her salad.  And then with her ice cream.

After we had been sitting for a few minutes, outside of course, some classic French accordion music began inside.  Soon it was joined by a most lovely, alluring female voice.  I could see the gentleman playing the accordion through the open door, but I could not see the singer.

The simple background music set a most delightful ambiance.  We were sitting outside in a brasserie on a lovely afternoon in Paris, listening to a wonderful version of "C'est Magnifique".

When the music stopped, an utterly charming seventies something Chanteuse in a leopard print mini-skirt came by our table with a hat.  I gave her a ten for the table, for which she responded with an enchanting smile.  For being seventies something, that girl looked great and sounded like Lady Gaga on steroids.

After lunch we once again embarked, searching for the prefect antique to bring home.  But alas, the antique angels were not apparently with my lovely wife that day.  She really didn't find anything that sang to her.  Not like the candle Abra she found our last day in Amsterdam.  And boy howdy did that ever NOT fire my rockets when faced with the challenge of getting it home.  In a suitcase.

 

Actually, that little puppy can break down and just about fit in a shoe box.  Really.

And now a news bulletin:  The night before in Paris, unbeknownst to most of the real world, there was some Muslim rioting in the streets over the Israel-Gaza affair.  My lovely sister in law discovered this factoid online on the Huffington Post that morning and we took note.

Then, as we were wandering along in the amazing maze of vendors and antiques, we noticed there was a large group of young men starting to coagulate under an overpass, by a corner, not very far away.  Like, right over there not far away!  You know, like fifty feet.  When I say large group, I'm not talking ten to fifteen.  No, there were at least a hundred young men and they were being joined by more and more young men every minute.  With the riots in mind from the night before and the intersection not looking like a likely scenario for a soccer match, and not quite wanting to get involved in a potentially heightened foreign affair, we decided it was time to go.  Like, anywhere but there.  The thing was, like, we were lost again and had to figure out where the train station was.

I found the route, (not covered by the Moon Map Guide-there's a separate map for the flea market) which unfortunately took us kitty corner across from the impending insurgency.  And as we walked, I noticed a couple cop cars blazing into the scene, four coppers to each small sedan.  It didn't look like they were armed.  Maybe they were going to just going to flail and kick.  Or they carried some magic sauce somewhere.

Our pace quickened, and now we were in the thick of the less expensive side of things, the cheap stuff you see at all the flea markets over here.  Made in China.  The Dollar Store.  And the walkway was thick with young, foreign speaking potential agitators.  It was a long, hard football field and more of zigging and zagging, but we wound our way through the crowd and got to the metro and eventually home.

The next day, a Monday, was going to be our assault on the Louvre.  We had to, we were running out of time.  Our companions were departing in two days, we in three.  And we still had Versailles to see.

After another festive night of wine, fromage and sailing songs, we left the next morning with our standard stroll from the apartment.  Actually at a decent hour this time.  The Louvre was still packed, but we entered via the pass line and this time had to wait behind four or five other people.  Sheesh.

Once inside, the place looked even bigger than it did from the outside.  One of the main reasons to hit the Louvre is to see the Mona Lisa, which seems to be a mass favorite amongst all speaking peoples.  And according to Rick Steves, the room in which she is housed can get quite crowded at times, with lines and everything.  We decided to immediately make a beeline to the Mona Lisa and get that smirking, docile little wench out of the way.

We looked at the museum map, Mona appeared to be about a mile from where we entered.  Not in a straight line either. We just had to go down a couple corridors, make a right, then pass through a couple interconnected rooms  Then walk down a wide hallway and make a left.  Now that we were at the stairs we went up to the 2nd floor, made a right and walked down a corridor.  From there it was another right, or left, another hall, another room, hell, who cares at this point?  We finally found her, somehow.

Mona is actually a tiny little painting setting by herself on a HUGE wall.  Meh.  But she was a must see, kinda like the Eiffel Tower.  Even though we made a wounded bee line to the masterpiece, there was still quite a crowd.  I couldn't imagine what the room would have been like in an other hour.

With Mona out of the way, what next?   Our companions had a couple things they really wanted to see, and my lovely wife really wanted to see some Etruscan things.  Not crusty things like I first thought.  Really really old things.  Like the oldest things ever.  Older than most crusty things even.

To get to the Etruscan scene, I think we had to cross the river Rhine and then come back via Spain.  Over the Alps.  Something like that.  It took us about an hour to find the exhibit, getting lost a couple dozen times along the way.  Fortunately there's priceless art all along the way, so it wasn't like we were missing out on too much.  Just 7/8 of the rest of the stuff in the place.  The Louvre is huge, massive.  You can take a guided tour, but that would still only hit the high points.  If you really want to explore the whole museum, allow at least three days.  And bring some extra food and water just in case.  And a flash light.  You never know.

I think we randomly stumbled upon a couple Reuban's along the way, saw a couple French Dips too.  Tuna Salad anyone? 

Sorry.

After a few hours we were through.  Even though we hadn't really been on a wildly urgent art museum kick, we were still getting a little culture burn.  Besides, it was brasserie time.  We hooked up with our companions and off we went in search of that afternoons repast.

Amazingly we didn't have to travel very far.  There's just about one on every corner.  Our waiter there didn't speak a lot of English and at first seemed annoyed we Americans had arrived within his sphere.  But then he broke the ice by playfully tossing cloth napkins on everybody's lap.  It was another enjoyable French meal, and again we had fries.

From there we wandered over to a neighborhood recommended by Rick Steve's and, even though we never really found it, we had a nice afternoon stroll nonetheless.  That night we did the usual, actually earning the disdain from one of our neighbors for the second time.

"Louder please," I believe was the sardonic response to our apparently ever elevating decibel level.  She had an almost vulgar French accent.  Gutteral baby.  Probably enhanced by French wine.  Probably a lot of it.  We sang the last few tunes quietly and retired early.  We had to be ready for the next day, our March on Versailles. 

There's Serious World Class Art, and Then There's Paris

The day after our on-off bus soiree was my lovely wife's birthday, the main reason we were in Paris.  We had all decided that night was going to be the main dinner event of the trip.  But where?  There's only something like twelve thousand restaurants in the city, most of them fabulous, what to do, what to do?

In perusing our individual laminated map within the Moon Map Guide Paris (we were staying in the Louvre district) I noticed there were several nice restaurants within walking distance of our apartment.  One of them, Le Grand Colbert, looked like it would fit the bill quite nicely.

You may be familiar with the restaurant.  If was featured in "Something's Gotta Give", that hilarious romantic comedy for over fifty somethings with Diane Keaton, Keanu Reeves and of course Jack Nicholson.  If it was good enough for them it certainly should be good enough for my lovely wife.  When presented with the idea she excitedly said, "What the hell."

I made reservations the night before and the soonest we could get in was 10 PM.  How decidedly European.  With that time in the bag we were definitely gonna need a nap!

Everyone pretty much slept in the morning of my lovely wife' 60ths birthday.  It could have been the fabulous French wine from the night before, it could have been the sailing songs.  I was up at a reasonable hour, like 8ish, and made some coffee.  Then I drank some coffee, a lot of it, and realized that by sleeping in my traveling comrades were totally screwing up the Excel spread sheet (ESS), the one I had spent hours and hours detailing and compiling.

So far, one day, so good.  We were on track.  An all day bus tour to get acquainted with the city, simple.  On her birthday, according to the ESS, we were supposed to go on a historic Paris walk, including Notre Dame, during the morning.  The walk would end at the Louvre, where I figured we could spend the afternoon.  Stroll back to the apartment, nap, then go out and have a fabulous French dinner.  That was reasonable, it wasn't too far out of line.  But in order to accommodate this, it would require us to get out and moving by at least 10:00 AM, but better around 9:00.  Or maybe even 8:00.

I had another sip of coffee and rolled.  It was vacation.  We were in Paris.  It was my lovely wife's birthday, of all the days of the year she should be able to do what she wants it should be her birthday.  If she wants to sleep in, so be it.  What the hell?

I think we all got moving around 11:00 that morning and strolled the other way than we had previously gone, down towards the Louvre.  We walked past and through the Royal Palace along the way, apparently we were staying in a fairly classy neighborhood.  It was a nice enough building and grounds, but then we arrived and stood in awe of the spectacle that is the Louvre.

This ain't just a museum, it's like a couple of football stadiums filled with art.  Endless, priceless art.

The main entrance is through that glass pyramid right there. Then you have the three story building with side wings seemingly a mile long that is a "U" around that entire square above.  There's priceless art in every room.  Then, of course, a large part of the museum exists underneath that square right there.  Yeah, I discovered route finding in avalanche territory in the Sierras, a weekend course I did a few decades back, was a hell of a lot easier than route finding in the Louvre.  But that was to be discovered another day.

We had decided prior to leaving that we were going very "light" that day as far as culture was concerned.  The Louvre would take some time to visit, like forever.  Another museum, the Musee de L'Orangerie, which sat at the far end of the Louvre gardens, would only take a couple hours. 

The Louvre is no doubt Paris's most famous art museum, partly because the Mona Lisa is exhibited there.  But the Louvre only covers the ancient world to 1850 as far as eons are concerned.  Naturally, if one is in Paris, one must really visit the Louvre, if only to say one did so.  But for Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art enthusiasts, such as our entire traveling party, the Musee de Orsay and L'Orangerie museums housed the stuff we really wanted to see; Monet, Renoir, Cezanne, Van Gogh, Manet, Toulouse-Lautrec, Gauguin, Degas, Etc.

We meandered around the Louvre square for a few minutes, marveling at the impressive structure.  Then we walked past the pyramid, off the square and out into the gardens.  It was another lovely, sweltering, summer day in Paris.  There were many benches and chairs in the shade under the trees, and many of them were being used by both Parisians and tourists.

How can you tell the difference?

Pretty easy, actually.  Tourists looked like metro commandos.  Cargo shorts, back packs, CAMERAS, hats.  Walking into walls with their not so smart phones.  Of course, those were the subtle indicators.  Favorite sport team baseball hats, t-shirts and tennis shoes were the more obvious. 

We always typically try to blend.  I don't usually wear sneakers anymore anyway, 'cept around the old homestead here.  And I'd NEVER wear anything with verbiage that would indicate I was American.  Not while I'm strolling in a foreign country.  I want the terrorist to hear me telling them to "F#@k Off!" in a steady, even voice to learn I'm American, not be able to shoot me from a thousand meters away. 

As far as the Parisians go, they're usually NOT taking pictures.  Nor are many wearing back packs.  And they were all pretty trim.  If a person was heavy set, male or female, that was another good tourist indicator.  Try as we might to blend, the locals saw us coming a mile away.  Of course it could have been the American accent of our banter and laughter, which accompanied us pretty much everywhere we went.

After strolling along the main thoroughfare of the immense park and gardens for what may have seemed like hours, we decided it was time to stop for refreshment at a basic outdoor French brasserie.  I say basic because they are everywhere.  All are individually charming, all serve some sort of spectacular specialty, all serve beer and wine.  Essentially the definition of a "Brasserie" is an informal French cafe.  Shoot howdy, what more could any wayfaring traveler desire?

Oh, and yeah.  They all had a toilette.  One who is wandering the streets of Paris soon discovers toilette's are hard to come by.  The simple solution; stop at a brasserie, they're like on every other corner.  Yeah, you do have to buy something, like a glass of French wine.  So what's your point?

An interesting tidbit about most of the sidewalk brasseries, typically all the chairs faced the street.  Patrons were obviously encouraged to enjoy the fabulous and lively pedestrian parade that is always apparent in Paris.  From a morning coffee through an evening glass of wine, the city air is charged with a delicious, effervescent energy, a sumptuous treat that needs to be savored and surveyed. 

Most of our party had been up for an hour and a half, so of course it was necessary to stop, rest and repast. 
We did all that, and then proceeded a much shorter distance to the Musee de L'Orangerie.  While the musee hosts a number of fabulous Impressionist works, if you're a Claude Monet Water Lilly fan you may never leave the place.

As Rick Steve's says, "Like Beethoven going deaf, a nearly blind Claude Monet (1840-1926) wrote his final symphonies on a monumental scale.  Even as he struggled with cataracts, he planned a series of HUGE six-foot-tall canvases of water lilies to hang in special rooms at the L'Orangerie."

Fortunately there was not a long regular line at the lesser known L'Orangerie, and we were within the air conditioned lobby within minutes.  Lines, at other venues we soon learned, could take HOURS.  HOURS!  Once up at the cashier we purchased four-six day museum passes.  As Rick Steve's also says, "In Paris there are two classes of sightseers-those with a Paris Museum Pass and those who stand in line." 

If you're going to go to more than one museum, you really do need to purchase a pass.  They sell two, four and six day passes, which do pay for themselves just through admission.  Simply tally up which places you want to see, how many days that will take and proceed from there.  Of course, you may even think you want to draft up an Excel spread sheet, but why bother?  It'll just get blown to shreds the first or second day anyway.

Just about every major historical attraction is covered by the pass.  While the modest euro savings is nice, probably the major most important benefit of the pass is you get to enter the venues via a pass line, of which there generally wasn't.  We walked right in every place after that-except Versailles, but that's another story-while others without a pass waited in line for hours.  Hours.

The first thing we did after obtaining our passes was wander into this room-Monet's Opus-

There's another room just like it.  Four incredible six foot high sixty foot long murals.  One can, essentially, walk around the room, become immersed in the cool, inviting water and swim with his lilies.  Or just sit on the shore underneath the willows, enjoying a cool, tranquil day, gazing upon the incredible beauty of a few dabs of oil paint and utter genius.

Once back out in the sweltering sun, we contemplated our next move.  We were so far off the ESS there was no going back.  We decided to hit the Musee Rodin, which was just across the Seine River and a few blocks west.  Or east.  Who cared?  Either direction was still Paris.

Surrounded by a ten foot high plaster wall, the museum and gardens were a definite worthwhile visit.  Although without AC that building was incredibly warm. One could say dang hot since many people were sweating inside.  Fortunately there were scattered works throughout the shady gardens where we could linger a little longer.

While at the Rodin I first learned of Robert Mapplethorpe, a New York photographer, whose works were also on exhibit at the museum.  Bob came to prominence in the 1980's, and like Rodin showed keen interest in the human body.  But Bob, I think, was a little more enamored with the male physique.  Sometimes ragingly so, if you know what I mean.  Right in your face, if you know what I mean.  I'm certain I blushed.  I found I'd much rather look at the pornography conveyed in all the pastry shop windows.  Pastry porn.  That I could not get enough of.

Both museums were fairly quick visits, and we found ourselves back on the street in little over an hour.  Now late afternoon, we contemplated our way home.  Even though we had our great Moon map guide, knew where we where and where we needed to go, it was still a few miles back to the ranch.  It was still pretty hot and I don't think anybody felt like walking.  After trying to flag down a couple occupied cabs, we figured out the occupied ones had a red light lit on top while unoccupied and ready for fare had a green light.  Made sense, but it still didn't help us find an unoccupied cab.

We did find a cab stand sign, where ostensibly cabbies lined up for waiting fares.  We waited there for about fifteen minutes, still no cab.  Then, much to our chagrin, a supposed handicapped looking old dude in a rumpled old suit limped his calculating French way kinda right in front of us.  So what should the good Doc and I do?

We had two very lovely ladies who were very tired, they needed a cab bad.  But apparently so did the supposed handicapped French guy.  I say "supposed" because the old dude kind of varied his limp from time to time as he wormed his way over, making sure we saw him.  I mean, the Doc and I could have gone over and kicked him in the knee, but what if he really was handicapped?  I shudder at the headlines.  

"American doctor and American writer beat up an elderly handicapped French man today so that they could get a taxi..."

Actually, with the current way of the world, that's probably already happened.  What's wrong with people anyway?

So we didn't kick the old dude and we all waited another ten minutes or so and still no cab.  It was then that someone suggested the metro.  There was a metro stop about four feet away from where we were standing.  It was the chivalrous thing to do.  Besides, we could potentially be waiting the rest of the day for that elusive cab.  Let the handicapped charlatan have the fare, we were off on another adventure.

We walked down the steps, right into the bowels of the city's subway system.  European metro systems, like their train systems, are generally fabulous.  I'd ridden the metro in Madrid some years back with an old friend who was very experienced and adept at travel.  His system, get a map of the city and a map of the metro system at the airport after you land.  We traveled all over the city of Madrid for a week for about $20 each.  It takes a little while to get your bearings, especially when chasing through pedestrian tunnels changing trains, but it's a great and inexpensive way to get around large foreign cities.

In Paris it was also entertaining at times.  Sometimes a couple musicians would pop in your car at a stop and start playing.  Could be a saxophone, clarinet, guitar, accordion, or pink translucent recorder.  You never knew.  You might get to hear the entire song or not, depending on where you got off.  When they ended they'd pass a hat, hop off at the next stop, hop on the next train and do it again.  As long as you don't actually exit the system and go up for air, you can ride around the metro underground all day and night for the price of one ticket. 

Once in a while you'd find an old French accordion master playing "Pigalle" or another French classic for change in one of the underground pedestrian tunnels.  I found the music nostalgically charming, probably from charmingly nostalgic old movies like "Rosemary's Baby." 

We found a metro pocket map and a ticket vending machine and were through the gates in minutes.  Along with about six hundred other people since we decided to hit the metro for the first time during rush hour.  Our first leg was easy, a couple stops up the line to a major changing station, one we would soon get fairly well acquainted with. 

We wound our way through the very well signed labyrinth to the tunnel that would eventually take us to our stop, the Bourse.  Still not quite comfortable with the map, directions and still trying to figure out which way was up, a very nice French gentlemen in a quite classy business suit perceived our confusion and asked in very good English if we needed any help.

To which we replied, "Yes."

After a quick "where ya going" we learned we were on the wrong side of the tunnel.  The side we were on would take us in the opposite direction of the Bourse.  Right line, wrong side.  Not too bad though, there were about four lines that all intersected at this particular station so at least we had found the correct line.

After saying, "Merci", we wrapped around, up and over to the other side, all the while enveloped in a wild rush hour crowd.  Once there, and talking amongst one another, a younger man, somewhat shabbily dressed, approached us and asked us in not so good English where we were going.  On high alert for something skinny, we listened as he informed us we were on the wrong side and needed to be back where we started.  That was all.  He surely looked like he was in for a scam, or pick pocket, but he merely sent us back the other way. 

We stopped in the tunnel, consulted the metro map and concluded the stranger in the business suit was correct.  The map corroborated this.  Why were we listening to a derelict anyway?

We wondered what his scam might be.  We didn't see a henchman.  Nobody was pick-pocketed, nobody was hurt. 

Actually, he probably had no idea where he was.  Or maybe he was mentally ill.  Or got his jollies telling people to go somewhere else.  What's wrong with people, anyway?

We stuffed ourselves along with every other person in France on to the next train and in several stops we were off at the Bourse.  Score one for the gentleman in the suit!

We knew our way home from there, and within ten minutes our feets were up and some heads went down.  We had a dinner to do that night!

Around nine pm the pre-party started and actual French champagne was uncorked.  The festivities had begun!

From the apartment it was a short, leisurely ten minute walk to our world class dining arena.  We were a couple minutes early but were ushered right in to our waiting table. It was ten pm.  The place was buzzing.  Every table was full and waiters were fluttering around like bees on a buttermilk biscuit.  While there were certainly quite a few romantic booths, a party such as ours was destined to be seated at a table in the middle of the floor.  It was quietly noisy, with enchanting French banter intermingling with quiet, sustained American laughter.

The dining room was gorgeous, the service spectacular.  Although I can't remember what everyone had, the meal was incredible, especially for foodies. Subtle sauce flavors, perfectly crisp tenders.  And of course, my lovely wife had to have some actual French snails.  Fresh from France.  And everything.

I'm personally not much of a snail guy.  The flavor's moderately palatable, it's really something stomach churning about the endlessly chewable texture.  OK, maybe where they come from is part of it, their relatives and all.  And the flavor too.  Yeah, I'm not much of a snail guy.  I'll do Tootsie Rolls, but I won't do snails. 

The good doctor also had a plate of snails for an appetizer, while I think my lovely sister-in-law and I both had some Pate de Foie Gras, or ground up duck liver.  Yeah, I won't eat snails but I will eat fowl organs. 

Two hours later, after a final course of coffee and actual French Crepes Suzette, we were out the door.  Our wonderful traveling companions paid the bill, mostly as a birthday gift for my lovely wife and minutely because they said I did so much planning.  You know, on the ESS we were no longer attached to and the one I had so much fun planning, knowing pretty much full well it would be blown out the window at some time anyway.  It was quite generous, thanks again guys!

Once out the door, all of us, mostly reformed smokers, lit up some tobacco.  The good doctor and I sparked up a couple small Cuban Cohiba's we had purchased earlier in the day.  The lovely ladies lit a couple long American Salem's one of them had purchased earlier in the week. We then strolled and smoked our way home through the now much quieter neighborhood, our stomachs in ecstasy with all the flavors and textures they were absorbing.

Here is my lovely sister-in-law, a disarmingly charming French chanteuse if I've ever seen one, looking dazzling in front of our apartment in the early morning hours of Paris. 

 

Bon Jour, Arrivederci, Por Favor, Where the Hell Am I?

I have been lost in foreign cities before, like Amsterdam.  But when you're lost in Amsterdam, you're usually not very concerned at all.  It doesn't matter who and where you are after a half hour in Amsterdam.

When the four of us intrepid European Wayfaring Wanderers first arrived in Amsterdam back in 2007 and got all our big fat suitcases unpacked, we went out for a little exploration.  We didn't have to explore too far, there was one of those magical cafes, appropriately named the Majik, about six cars down in the below shot, which was taken from the front steps of our rental house.  Nice location.

 

After hanging out there for an hour or so, by general consensus it appeared to be time to go out and explore some more.  Not thinking we would be further venturing forth, we left our Moon Map Guide Amsterdam at the house, about six cars up in the above photo.   You know, an extreme hundred feet or so.  

By the way, if you've never utilized one of the Moon Map Guides, check 'em out.  In my humble opinion they are the best dang locational medium out there when exploring any new city.  Smart phone maps be damned!  I saw tourists walking into walls all over Paris while they were holding their "smart" phone in front of them like a locational divining rod.  In the Moon guide, Paris is divided in ten sections, with the detailed street maps on heavy laminated stock.  Very easy to comprehend.  Metro locations, notable restaurants, shops ETC are all noted. That link above will take you to their site.

Which brings me to another point.  If you've never clicked on any of the hyperlinks included within this blog, you're missing out on a large part of the equation.  Many times they links are to relevant sites, such as the one above.  Many times they are a link to a relevant song, usually from You Tube.  Lots of good stuff in there, for instance: Get lost music.

So we left the Majik (in Amsterdam) and walked down our street a few blocks until we found a boulevard that felt exciting and appealing, you know, lots of stuff going on.  We hung a right, over the canal, and strolled, soaking up the teeming, electric and fabulous Amsterdam atmosphere.  We walked several blocks, probably about twelve, and, in the lead, I stumbled upon a large courtyard ringed by restaurants.  There were probably sixty tables about that were serviced by four different restaurants.  It was a lovely, tree shaded courtyard, filled with afternoon drinkers and diners.  But what struck me more about the courtyard was what was happening above the tables.

Ranging from ten to twenty feet above the tables, a middle aged fifty something grey haired man in astounding shape was doing aerial gymnastic acrobatics on ropes and cables that were taut between the trees.  He was incredibly graceful, very agile, and not shyly dressed in not much more than a leather loin cloth.  And when he did the splits above your table, well, you get the picture.  Or maybe not-can't blame you.  A picture would have been fabulous, but remember, we left our house without a dang thing except adventure in our hearts.

Entertained, bemused and just a little bit hungry, we sat down for some Amsterdam ambiance and a bite to eat.  An hour later we were on our way back to the house, after tipping, of course, our afternoon entertainment when he dropped by for a split.  Our first venture out, even though enhanced by some cafe medium, was easy.  We just did an "L", had memorized our street and knew it was just over the only canal we had seen that day.  No problem.

Our first gambit out on the streets of Paris was a little bit different.  We did leave the apartment with a basic fold out city map our apartment manager had given us, but that was all.  It pretty much just showed main city streets, not the detailed dynamics of specific blocks.

After making a left out of our apartment door, we walked the block to the end of our Rue and made a right, strolling past the Elvis museum.  Yes, Elvis.  On a tiny little side rue in the middle of Paris.  Go figure.   We strolled along another long block and then we made a left on a larger thoroughfare, right at the Bourse, Paris's stock exchange.

By the way, that may look like a parking lot to you in the above shot.  It's actually business as usual at one of Paris's very lively intersections, where about four or five lanes all merge into one.  Or sometimes they merge into a circle.  What fun!

Not quite as big as the NYSE, The Bourse was nevertheless another ornate Parisian landmark with a small amount of gold leaf, like maybe on the tip of a spear.  The Bourse would soon be a major landmark for us as well as becoming our "home" metro stop, once we got into the metro swing of things.  The Bourse was currently closed for the month(s) of July and August.  I wonder what American hedge fund traders would do if the NYSE closed for two months every year?

From the Bourse we made another left, off in the direction of Le Opera Garnier, about six blocks down and another one of Paris's fabulous and ornate centuries old buildings.  That one had a lot of gold leaf.  Apparently French sopranos have historically fared better than French stock brokers.

The city streets were alive with electricity along the way, or maybe that was just me cruising on no sleep.  The sidewalks teemed with Parisians and tourists, while the streets were packed with bustling sedans and double decker buses carrying scads of camera toting tourists.  The streets were definitely busier than the sidewalks, but not by much.  Everything got more crowded as we approached the Opera square, where no less than seven rues (streets) intersected.  Ah Chi Mama!  Talk about honking wild hordes and crazy European drivers!

All along the way were shops and sidewalk cafes, or brassieres, where you could get a bite along with a glass or two of your favorite beverage.  But we were on a mission.  The first thing we really needed to do was to find an exchange station and convert some dollars to Euros, then find some groceries. 

Credit cards generally work great in Europe.  Call your carrier ahead of time though so they know where you are.  Most CC companies will charge another 3% on all foreign purchases, which isn't bad considering what they try to do to you when converting cash.  But there would be times we would want to use cash, especially for smaller purchases and cabs, so some Euros were imperative.

We finally found a Travelex office just off the square.   I walked up to the window that was manned by a lovely young female creature who spoke little English.  I flipped her $400, and she was going to flip me about E260 back.  WTF?  I wigged.  I mean, the exchange rate then was $1.353 per Euro, so we were already taking a bath.  Based on that, without any commission, I should have been receiving around  E296  for $400.

I was willing to pay a few cents per dollar for commission, but not nineteen!  I told her I wanted my four bills back, that I was going elsewhere, and then she started to wig and started to speak (in French) to her manager.  One thing led to another and she finally gave me E285, which was a little more than the E280 I figured was a fair deal.  Then my bro in law the super ER Doc did the same thing, so she made out a little better by having two $400 customers at once.  We did go to a Western Union office later in the trip and their initial exchange was where we ended up at Travelex, without any bickering or bartering.  Just in case you wanted to know.  BUT, we also quickly learned you can barter at these places.

With Euros in hand, Paris was at our fingertips.  We were pulled in a hundred different directions by all the sights and sounds, but the primary goal then was to hit a grocery store for provisions.  Eventually I found a French tourism office just off a main drag where one of the staffers spoke fairly decent English.  I got a grocery store location, and after saying , "Arrivederci," I ambled out the door and found my traveling comrades.

My newly rehearsed phrase was that day was, "Parlez-vous Anglais"?  (Do you speak English?)  If that didn't get a bite I had to move on because there were only about four other French words I knew.  I found a little Espanol rolling around my tongue tip that day, and I have absolutely no idea how "Arrivederci "got in there.  I've never even been to Germany.  I don't know how these multi linguists do it.  I had snippets of about eight words in four languages short circuiting my cranium like scrambled eggs on rye.  An entire language?  Now you're talking a cruise ship buffet on the largest onion roll in the universe.  In my brain.

Off we went in the direction of the grocery store, which was also heading back in the general direction of the apartment.  Only on a different street.  Which ran about four blocks behind the Bourse, running at diagonally perpendicular laterals to the original triangular point of embarkation at the apartment.  Or something like that.  But we did not know that then.  I had innocently isosceles'd a parallel triangular direction (or dimension) and thought it was our own, leading our intrepid party astray.

Initially it did not matter.  We were in Paris, and actually enjoying a Rick Steve's recommended Montmarte walk.  Bedazzled by the sites, sounds and big city fabulous European energy, we almost walked past the very nondescript MonoPrix market.  The only indication there was a grocery store in the vicinity was viewing a gentleman walking by with a canvas grocery bag that was filled with, well, groceries.  We traced his steps back and then entered a two glass door store.  There were incidentals on the very small double garage sized first floor, but then about ten wide steps down found us in French Grocery Nirvana.

Sigh.  Foreign grocery stores are an extremely simple source of pleasure for four wayfaring foodies.  We got a couple hand baskets and off we strolled down the short but amply stocked aisles.  Many things weren't familiar, which is half the fun.  It's definitely a good way to learn the French words for food items too.   

A baguette later, and maybe some bottled water, juice, wine, cheese, cold cut meats, coffee, fruits, Louis Maille mustard, mayo, chocolates and pastries we were on our way.  Did I forget anything?  By the way, a large jar of Maille mustard, about twice the size of what you see on grocery store shelves here was less than half the price you pay here.  1.8 Euro there.  And what a refined, wonderful Dijon mustard it is.  We may have been converted into mustard snobs.  Is it French Dijon?  No?  Why no thank you then.

We packed up my day pack with three liters of water and several other incidentals.  We also ended up with two large canvas bags purchased from the store.  As yet unhampered by our new weight, off we went in the perceived direction of the apartment. It only took us about fifteen minutes to get to the Opera Garnier from the apartment, and the grocery store was about half the distance back.  Ten minutes tops, right?

Forty minutes later we were sweating and discovered we were wandering in circles.  We were starting to feel the strain of our new addled weight, my back under the pack was solidly sweat soaked.  We were beginning to wonder where we were.  Or where we were going.  Paris, right?

On Montmarte, a boisterously busy street, we ambled into a Starbucks for our only native purchase experience of the excursion, iced coffee.  It was necessary.  Several doors down was the Hardrock Paris, I was sure we had seen that before.  Or was that the day before?  This is 2014, right?

Caffeinated and rejuvenated, we undertook the next phase of getting home.  Or the next phase of figuring out where home was.  Or the next phase of figuring out what century it was and what planet we were on.  Boy were we ever getting confused.  What the heck was in that coffee, anyway?

The good Doc had his smart phone out like a locational divining rod, and we could see the little beeping dot, indicating where our bastion of shelter lay.  But the smart phone map did not contain all the streets of the domain either, and with multi story stone buildings all about it was tough to get our bearings.

I figured the hell with it.  Our combined bags of groceries now surely weighed about 476 pounds after carrying them around for an hour.  I can admit defeat.  We were all getting tired.  Let's grab a cab and get the fu*k home.

I accosted several cabbies through their open windows, "Parlez-vous Anglais?"

One of them finally did, and rather than let four wayfaring wanderers into his cab for the three block ride to their apartment, he showed me the beeping locational icon on his smart fuc*ing map.

BUT, somehow that was all we needed.  Between that fix and the good doctor's divining rod we honed in on a three block radius, wound around and finally found the Elvis museum, knowing we were right around the corner.

Once ensconced back in our little slice of heaven and changed out of sweaty clothes, out came the wine, baguette, meats and cheese.  Then we sat around the huge glass dining table, ate, drank and sang French sailing songs.  We were loud enough to get a grumpy, middle aged Parisian housewife (whose balcony shared our apartment's courtyard) to yell at us to be quiet.  Yeah, we were having fun!

We turned in by ten, a little hoarse from all those sea shanty's, but much the better for wear.  The next day we were going on the Le Open on/off double decker bus tour to get a good view of the city.  Somewhere in  our ramblings, while we were lost, we ran across one of their bus stop signs along the Montmarte.  I only hoped we could find our way back since we were essentially lost at the time we found it.

The next morning we arose at a reasonable hour and got the Starbucks coffee going.  OK, we bought two American things while we were there.

Armed with a couple bottles of water AND the Moon Map Guide Paris, which the ever wise good doctor brought, we were off.  We were not going to get lost again!

We walked out just like the day before, left'd and then right'd past the Elvis museum and eventually we got to the Bourse.  We walked right past the dormant stock exchange another four not quite so ordinary blocks and we were once again on Montmarte.  We found one of the "L'Open" Bus stop signs and waited.

One came along within ten minutes or so, and then we all got an all day wristband  for E31 each.  Yeah, a little pricey, but a fantastic way to get orientated to the city, which, witness the day before, was rather necessary for us.

When we were telling folks we were gong to Paris in July, everyone told us it would be hot.  But everything we read on line and elsewhere stated the temperatures would generally be in the high seventies to low eighties.  Once in a while it could get into the nineties, but not that often.  Compared to the high nineties low hundreds we were leaving, we figured the weather would be fabulous.

It turned out to be in the low nineties our first couple days on the streets, and pretty darn humid.  It was hot.  Fortunately, besides a pair of clay colored khakis, a pair of levis and a nice pair of slacks, I also brought along a nice, formalish pair of navy blue snappy cargo shorts.  My lovely wife bought them for me.  They were the only pair of cargo anything I could wear that allowed her to be seen with me.   Cargo shorts and pants are, apparently, not of the current highest fashion standards.  Highly practical, not so very fashionable.   Especially in Paris.  I ended up wearing those shorts five of eight days in Paris.  It's a good thing they were snappy. 

Both our lovely female travelers were wearing sun dresses, and the good doctor was in khaki.  That first day in the city, on the upper deck of the double decker bus, we four intrepid travelers sweated with impunity underneath the humid, ninety something, sweltering Paris summer sky. 

We got off at one of our first stops, a train station.  I was in a frenetic search for le toilette, while our lovely female traveling companions purchased a couple of lovely French sun bonnets.

The excellent aspect of the ON/Off bus tour is just that.  When you land at a spot where you'd like to spend some time, you just hop off and spend some time.  You can return to the same stop to pick up another bus or pick one up at another stop after you've strolled for a while.  One is usually along in 10-15 minutes.

After the train stop we were back on the hot and humid express.  We rolled past Notre Dame, but did not stop since it was on the Excel spread sheet for a thorough review the next day.

After a lovely ride along the sights, sounds and scenes of the Seine, the picturesque river that runs through the city, we hopped off along the Champs- Elysees for a little cafe time.

After lunch we strolled along the Champs-Elysees down to the Arc de Triomph, which is a pretty busy darn intersection, with no less than 12 streets colliding right thar.  Honk, honk.  Beep, beep.

We found the appropriate stop for our bus based on their map, waited for five minutes and then were off to the Eiffel Tower. The quintessential Paris landmark, the Eiffel Tower is not without it's crowds.  There were scads of people everywhere, especially on it.  We chose not to make that trek, all the way to the top.  Lots of Euros and long lines. Plus, we'd already been higher than that numerous times.  Like in Amsterdam, for instance.

There were also quite a few hawkers selling Eiffel Tower replicas.  Everywhere.  You could get five key chain sized Eiffels for one euro.  Or a ten incher for around ten euro.  A euro an inch.  And they were everywhere.

So I semi got to chatting with a non-English speaking hawker, "Parlez-vous Espanol?" and ended up getting two ten inch towers for ten euro, or five euros each.  It was unheard of!  Even in the shops they were over a euro per inch.  I had unwittingly made the foreign deal of the century, saving us all a grand total of about six euros.   

Sweltered and just about sight-seeing'd out, we rolled on the Le Open back to Le Opera, which was, based on their maps, the closest stop to our apartment.  Le Open has four different routes, all accessed by the wristband.  If you didn't get off the bus at all, it would take you about five hours to complete all four routes.  But if you stop, and I mean, you HAVE to stop once in a while, it would certainly take longer than one day.  That's probably why they sell two and three day passes for a fraction of the initial purchase price.  You just can not do it all in one day.

As we approached our stop by the Opera, we all ambled down the stairs from the upper deck to be near the doors so we could disembark.  Imagine our surprise when the driver just rolled past our stop.  A little concerned, I approached the driver who was talking on his phone and asked, "Parlez-vous what the hell??"

He brushed me off and said the next stop was only a minute away.  And about four more blocks past the six blocks we'd already gone since we wanted to get off.  That's ten extra blocks of walking for two very tired  lovely women who just wanted to get off their feet.  That was the only rude French man or woman we encountered on our stay, and I repaid him by leaving two empty plastic water bottles on his bus.  Not extreme, I know, but I had to do something other than poop in the corner.

Ten extra blocks?  Hell, we were troopers, we could buck-up and handle it with a sardonic joke and a smile.  And maybe a little song.  It was all an adventure, and we were in Paris

Once on the street, we started to walk back towards Le Opera singing "Val-deri, Val-dera" when we quite accidentally and maybe more magically stumbled on to a MonoPrix grocery store.  We decided what the hell, rather than return to our tried and true grocery environs we'd venture into something new.  We raided the store and armed with a baguette, wine, meats, cheese, chocolates and pastries we ventured back out onto the street to begin the trek home and finish our song.

"Val-dera, with my knapsack on my (sweaty) back."

Instead of simply capitulating to a long march on a tried and true route and inspired that we found a market right after suffering a ten block setback, I consulted the Moon Map Guide Paris.  Once I had two intersecting street names I found our location immediately.  Then, much to my happy surprise, I discovered that we were actually about six blocks closer to our apartment than if we had been dropped off at our original desired stop.  Ha!  Even in his endeavor to be rude the French bus driver actually did us a favor.

We were in Paris, and it appeared we were on a roll, "beneath the clear blue sky."