Apparently that is what one may say in France after they have stuffed themselves. I hope to use the phrase (in French) at least once.
Where am I? 24 hours ago we were on our way to the Portland airport after which we flew to Toronto (4 hours), and then onto Frankfurt (7 hours). We then hopped on the highlight of the trip, the inner city express (ICE), to Mannheim for a regretfully short 40 minutes. It was so organized and quiet and quite the change from the chaos that was the Toronto to Frankfurt flight. From there we took the TGV (no idea what that stands for) for a 4 hour ride to Paris.
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| Paris Est Train Station |
We opted to take the metro to our hotel rather than a taxi and are glad that we did as we discovered that it is fairly easy to use. Finding the hotel after we got off the metro was a bit challenging and we ended up wandering the streets with all of our luggage, in the rain, for 30 minutes. But we are here, with all of our luggage, in the time estimated. Never take for granted when things go smoothly . . . especially when the day started, at 3 am, with an e-mail from the Paris hotel saying that our credit card was refused (can't figure out why), my misplacing my passport (found in the printer), and upon arrival to the airport were informed by the agent that our flight did not exist.
Though minimal on space (in American terms) The hotel is lovely.
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| Our room at Hotel St.Paul Rive Gauche |
The elevator holds only 4 people. France and Germany are green and remind me of Oregon just flatter. The German train was wonderful. The train to Paris was utter chaos with multiple cars labeled the same number with the same seat numbers so it took us a half hour, traipsing up and down aisles, running people over with our luggage, trying to sort out our seats. Metro is amazing and aside from walking that will be our primary form of transportation . . . as soon as we figure out how to use the blasted ticket kiosks. Verdict still out on the French people. You apparently do not say "excuse me" when you bump into people, which we did a lot of today, and that nasty Oregon politeness (which has rubbed off on us more than we realized) is a detriment here where you must be far more aggressive, physically and mentally, if you want to get anywhere. But I'm still withholding judgment as I am very tired (though will try to stay up until 9:00 Parisian time) and suffering from a wee bit of crankiness . . . which Rick is handling quite admirably. Looking forward to our walkabouts in the coming days.
This blog is the greatest! We feel like we are right there with you, and the pictures are wonderful too. Can't believe you were able to write so much at the end of a very long day. Hope you can keep it up. We really appreciate it!
ReplyDeleteWhat Mom said!! This is great Jennifer, thanks for taking us along with you. Is there iPod video of your train adventures? I could see Rick grabbing a few beers, pulling the emergency chute and calling it quits on the snotty Parisians. Nice technical skillz too - I'm having your "Recovering Luddite" t-shirt printed up this weekend.
ReplyDeleteNice job, Jen, and on so little sleep! I'm impressed and the pictures are wonderful. Sounds like the first 24 hours was not too bad for traveling in a foreign country... but I bet you freaked about your passport. :-) Welcome to France! Enjoy every minute of it and fill us in when you have a chance, but don't you dare miss any of your experience just to blog about it... unless that is part of the experience. Amusez-vous bien!
ReplyDeleteGlad you like the blog Mom! It is pretty cool and software makes the pictures look professional.
ReplyDeleteTim, I've decided that I don't think the French are rude. They just leave you be to figure things out on your own unless you ask for help. Unlike other countries, they don't immediately offer to help every stranger standing on a sidewalk looking at a map, and frankly, given the amount of tourists here I can understand why. Also, everything here is in much closer quarters (you should see the double bed we're sleeping in :-)) than in America, so, again if you were to say "pardon" every time you bumped into someone you'd be saying "pardon" all the time. None of the waiters have been too surly and I find that if we just try to speak a little French (which, of course makes sense, being in France) then we always get a smile and very good service . . . by European standards :-)
P.S.
ReplyDeleteLaurie, the blog is pretty much the journal I would keep anyway so, I definitely planned to make time for this.