paris

My second visit to Paris

Jacob Redding — Thu, 12 Aug 2004 18:02:00 +0000

I returned to Paris this past Sunday at 8am or so in the morning. Amanda met me at the train station and we went straight to our Hotel. After dropping our bags off we again set off to explore the city of Paris for the second time. My first visit to Paris was dreadful and I had been regretting my decision to fly out of Paris for the past two months. However, during my stay in Salamanca, I met a nice french girl by the name of Caroline and she place Paris in a whole new light. Because of her I decided to give Paris a second chance and to approach it anew. I am very glad that I did.

My second trip to Paris was awesome. I now love Paris and I will definitely return someday. On sunday we walked through several of the Sunday markets that are littered throughout the city, I had completely missed these on my first visit. The markets are great. We also visited Notre Dame and many of the cities parks. Before going to the top of one of Paris' tallest buildings we stopped by the Cementary of famous French people (not the location of Jim Morrison), it was pretty amazing. I?saw the grave of Photographer Man Ray. After going to the top of one of Paris' tallest buildings we had lunch at a small cafe. The waiter was courteous and somewhat understood our order even though we were speaking the worst broken french that you can imagine.

On the walk back to our hotel we discovered a new district near the museum of Modern Art that we did not see on our first visit to Paris. The district was alive with shops, sidewalk vendors and people of all ages. It was great. Everyone there was courteous, friendly and I feel extremely comfortable in the area. The next day we returned to this area again and had lunch at an outdoor diner situated on one of the corners. The waiter was, again, courteous, friendly and incredibly hospitable a completely change from what I had encountered during my first visit.

On Monday we visited the Louvre for 7 or 8 hours and we still didn't see the entire thing. We did, however, walk through every single room that was open and at least viewed many if not all of the artifacts held in the Louvre. I took several pages of notes and an insane amount of photos.

So in short, Paris is great just make sure that you stay a few days and stay away from the ultra touristy areas. I shall return.....

Pictures

Jacob Redding — Fri, 02 Jul 2004 11:21:00 +0000

I uploaded a bunch of pictures today, Paris, Normandy, Marseille and all of the little side trips that I have been taking along the way are now up on the site.
I also uploaded the pictures from my graduation party

Click here for pictures of Europe
Click here for pictures from the graduation party
And click here for the sexiest picture you'll ever see

Onshore winds

Jacob Redding — Fri, 25 Jun 2004 13:21:00 +0000

OK so here's the deal, I have a ton of journal entries to write up but school is keeping me pretty busy so I haven't had the opportunity to type them up, additionally I have pretty limited access to a computer. I will get to them however. I still have my trip to Paris and the flight down to Marseille to write about not to mention the entire first week of classes. I will get to them as soon as possible, maybe I'll go to an internet cafe.

What I do want to write about right now is surfing. When I arrived on Sunday Jenson was already in Marseille and was waiting for us. When the plane touched down he told me exactly what I had suspected. People did surf in Marseille. I have been talking about surfing in Marseille for months but everyone thought I was crazy. After all does the Mediterrean have waves? YES!!! it does, they are very small but gosh-dangit they are rideable.

The problem is that they are not consistent, last sunday the sea was producing some decent waves due to heavy winds out to sea. Unfortunately for me this entire week the wind has died down and the waves are not been produced. Freakin' eh, I just want to surf one small meditterean wave.

So everyday I'm checking the buoy and wind reports, one of these something is going to happen. I just know it ;)

Paris..

Jacob Redding — Sun, 20 Jun 2004 05:53:00 +0000

Saturday:

On Saturday morning we woke up to a familiar sound; Rain. Neither Amanda nor myself had seen the rain for a few weeks and the rain gods were getting irritated with us so they opened the skys for us. Amanda was smart enough to have brought along a raincoat, I on the other hand brought a cotton hoodie. It, however, was not raining that hard so we decided to just walk in it. Good choice.

We hit up a small pastry shop that was down the street from our Hotel for breakfast. We both had a simple croissant or something like that, don't quite remember now. Anyhow our destination for the day was the Louvre, Arc de Triumph and a few other places. Our first stop after breakfast, however, was at a small shop to purchase an umbrella. I discovered that cotton and rain do not mix that well.

A few minutes after purchasing the Umbrella we arrived at the famed Notre Dame. The best thing about Notre Dame is that admission is free. Every church, cathedral or old building in London has an insane admission charge so for Paris' Notre Dame to be free was refreshing. We spent about twenty minutes inside looking around before we decided to leave. The stonework, glasswork and artwork inside the building is amazing to look at but once you have been inside one Notre Dame they all look the same. I was not impressed with it, unfortunately.

When we got out of Notre Dame the rain had stopped and the umbrella I had purchased not twenty minutes before became 100% useless, yeah! After Notre Dame we for the Arc de Triumph, which we had seen the night before but we wanted to see again, plus it was a good waypoint.

List of Sites seen:
Eiffel Tower
The Louvre (didn't go in, I'll go in when I return)
Notre Dame
St. Augustine Chapel
la Defense
Arc de Triomphe
Several parks
Several Opera Houses

We saw a bunch of other tourist sites, many of which I do not remember and probably won't remember. I'm not sure what it was, maybe my age or the large amount of tourists but I became bored of Paris about half way through the second day. I did, however, enjoy the 6-7 miles we walked (Amanda swears up and down that we did 10+ miles, he he that was fun).

The national library was our last stop of the day. It was approximately 1.5 miles away from downtown and another mile or so away from our hotel room. Walking to the national library was great for a number of reasons.
a) It is not in downtown Paris
b) You get to see signs stating "Fin De zone touristique"
c) The people on the street define why there is a sign marking a tourist zone
d) The best way to see the actual Paris
and best of all
The food is better, much better. In my experience the food in downtown Paris SUCKS! I am not saying this as "Oh I wish they had hamburgers" I'm talking about the French food in a french restaurant SUCKS. If you want to eat a good french meal do NOT eat in Paris.

Now to sum up my experience in Paris. It was great for a day and a half but when I go back in August I'm going to bored out of my mind. I've started my search for a good rock club and I'm probably heading to Disneyland just to simply occupy my time. Paris is a boring city, le ville du boring.

I apologize to all those that thought Paris was exciting, you're sadly mistaken

From sea level to the top of the Eiffel Tower

Jacob Redding — Fri, 18 Jun 2004 14:54:00 +0000

Friday:

On Friday morning we were awoken, yet again, by the sound of the oh-so-lovely church bells. Although they were incredibly annoying it was actually very neat and an awesome experience to be awoken by church bells that have rang for over a hundred years.

Driving back to Paris:

Amanda and I decided that instead of driving the highways back to Paris that we would instead drive along the coast so that we could check out both Gold and Juno beach. We stopped at both and other than the war museums (which we did not go into) they didn?t have anything special going on. They were both very quick stops. So on we went to Paris.

This time we were very familiar with the highways and the drive back was much more leisurely, mainly because we were not lost every 5 minutes. Just like the rental car agencies in the states we were required to return the car with the same amount of gas so we needed to stop for gas. The great thing about France is that a rest stop consists of not only restrooms but also gas stations and cafeterias, so we were able to stop for gas and food a perfect combination.

Price of Gasoline: 1.10 euros/gallon or 5.00 US dollars/gallon (after exchange)
Ya I?d say it?s a bit more expensive over here for gas.

Alright so we stopped got gas, ate some food and then headed back for Paris (by the way typical lunch price is approximately 5-7 euros excluding a drink which is another 2-3 euros for a US small coke or a Euro large coke, umm? same size). Once we entered the city limits of Paris driving became quite fun. Europeans drivers drive so well, motorcyclists (of which there are many) drive in between the lanes, the on-ramps are competitions and a safe driving distance is approximately 2 to 3 feet at 90k/hr. It wasn?t so bad because the car can stop on a dime. After visiting a car dealership later in the week I discovered that a lot of car have 4 wheel disc brakes (instead of the traditional drum brakes), I?m not sure if our car had 4 disc brakes but either way it stopped very well.

We dropped the car off at the airport and headed out for the centre of Paris via the RER and Metro train lines. 3 train transfers, a one block hike and one hour later we had made it from terminal 3 of the Charles De Gaulle airport to our hotel. The hotel was more like a hostel. Our room was on the first floor (in Europe floors start at 0, so 1 is the US 2). The room was probably about 10x12 feet in diameter and I am not exaggerating. There was enough room for a queen size bed, a small sink and our backpacks/suitcases and just enough room to walk around the bed. It was very tiny. But hey at less than 20 euros a night what do you expect? The price was right and I wasn?t planning on spending much time in the Hotel room anyways.

We arrived at the hotel room at approximately 1 or 2 pm (13hr or 14hr) and threw our bags in the room and headed out the door. Our first destination was, of course, the Eiffel tower. We hopped on the Metro (Paris? subway) and got off at the closest stop to the Eiffel tower. After taking several pictures from the bottom of the Eiffel tower we decided to go to the top. The cost was 10.40 euros/each, fairly pricey for an elevator ride.

Have I ever mentioned that I am afraid of heights?

Honestly, I am completely afraid of heights and just in case you didn?t know the Eiffel tower is freakin tall!! Ya I was pretty freaked out, I overcame my fears and got on the elevator anyways. The view from the top (after I calmed myself out) was amazing, you can see all of Paris and it was simply amazing. Don?t worry I took so many pictures that you can practically stitch them together for a 360 view from the top.

After coming down off the Eiffel tower we hit up a local restaurant (which sucked by the way, here?s a hint food in downtown Paris sucks go to the outskirts) for lunch. After that we walked around town for a bit and then decided to get some sleep. I really wanted to go out and hit the clubs and local bar scene but Amanda didn?t want to go out and I just didn?t feel like going out by myself so eh oh well. I?m flying out of Paris in August and I will be staying another three days there so I?ll go out then.

Alright that?s all I have for now. I?ll write about Saturday and about the flight down to Marseille on Sunday, later.