Category: 2004-05: LHR & CDG

Since we’ve spent so much time in Tulieres and the Opera District (because that’s where their hotel is), we all thought it would be neat to explore Montmartre.
And that’s fine with me because I’ve not see much of this district besides all the places I walk past (closed) at 0100 when I’ve been getting home for the past few nights.
It’s an interesting district. I’m apparently in the nice neighbourhoody part of it because when you go to the other side of the hill that Sacre-Coeur sits on you hit…
Massive Hom-Suppyness!!!
After getting disoriented (very hard to do since we’re all Asian, ha ha!) and walking in the wrong direction, past the pet store (puppies!), the hospital and around the cemetary, we finally found the way to go after a local guy, seeing three Asians clustered around a map in a book, one with a beeeeg backpack (not me) on, offered in english, “are you lost”?
Sweeeet! Anyway, we were sent in the direction of Sacre-Coeur. That direction took us past the Moulin Rouge where we took pix and scared a bunch of mainlanders who were in line to see the show with a growl of “puuuutonggghuaaaaa?” They were totally freaked out.
After Moulin Rouge, we continued our search, passing such places as the Sex-a-Torium and the Sex Museum. We actually took a brief look in the Sex Museum. Then we saw that they wanted 7 Euro for admission and they were open until 0200. This is an actual museum with stuff from the 1700s and 1800s in the front. Just not up for it so close to dinner….yeah, that’s it.
This stretch of barely legal businesses went on for about 5 blocks. Then 20 minutes after that, we find Sacre-Coeur. Since we’re all hungry, we take our pix and we leave. Visiting inside and watching the sunset from the big hill goes on the “next time I’m in Paris” list. Now time for dinner near the Bastille district.
Montmartre, district of artists, has a big church in the middle. On the back side of the hill is a nice neighborhood. And on the front side is the sex trade. Fun!

It does get better!
There’s a Metro stop that coincides with a district called Madeline. If you like food in any way, shape or form, this is the place to visit. Foodie heaven.
We first went to a place called Fauchon that puts Dean and Deluca to shame.
Shame shame on you Dean and Deluca! And not just because you don’t have the Egg Cream outside of New York!
Well, I shouldn’t be too harsh, after all they’re not in the Madeline district. But they ARE from New York which food wise, is the closest thing. They should be able to compete…
But there’s NO WAY they can! I mean, I gained about 5 pounds just looking at all the food they had there! Custom chocolates, cookies and the like. All kinds of jam and spreads. Spices and coffee galore! And that’s just the main floor. They have wine and related stuff downstairs and really fancy teas and a tea room upstairs.
Since I possibly couldn’t bring back everything I wanted to, I settled on a small jar of Vanilla Milk (?) Jam and a small Strawberry Jam. I think that one is going as omayage for Yumi-chan on Monday.
Then we went next door to the Chocolate shop!!! The chocolate was really good, we met a gent from Oregon who is out here with his niece on an exchange program who shops here all the time. He gave us a lot of tips about the chocolate and because he was a regular, the owner(?) knew exactly what to get for him.
And she is used to people having the reaction to her shop that the three of us had (utter amazement and shock). After we bought a lot of stuff there, she gave each of us a 1 Euro chocolate coin.
That was sooo cool. I felt like I was 6 again.
That whole chocolate search was for a mythical chocolate shop that is made with 70% less sugar than typical fine chocolate and is supposed to be excellent. Andrew’s not a big sweets person so Ellen and I were leading the charge for this one.
heh.

Today is Andrew and Ellen’s last day in Paris. They fly out early in the morning tomorrow. Yeech.
Ellen still has some things she wants to do so the morning was for them to do stuff while I woke up and located where the Musee de la Police was. We decided to meet up for lunch near the Pompideau Center. While we were working this out on the phone via texting, I run out of credit on my SIM while on the Metro.
No problemo, right? Drop into a Tabac shop and get a recharge voucher. Follow the prompts, right? Easy, right? Nod your head violently.
Ha ha ha young bison. As if it were going to be THAT easy…
First of all, all the documentation is in Francais. Second of all, when you activate the SIM, you only get one choice of language, Francais. And when you go into the service menu, it’s all in le feu-rapide Francais. Which renders me useless (my Francais skills being high school French many many years ago).
Please keep in mind my experience in Asia with prepaid SIM cards. First of all they are multilingual. Second, it’s not as expensive and Third, English is one of the options! So the way they do it in France was a bit of a cold water shower.
Eventually the lady who runs the place was able to help me reload, but not until 20 minutes passed. Now I’m late for lunch and by the time I find them, they’re ready to leave because I couldn’t respond to their SMS/VMs because I had no credit.
And to top it off, it started to rain in ernest AND the food was so-so for lunch.
It does get better after this though, right? Of course it does…this is Paris you know!

After a late start (because it’s hard to wake up sometimes), we staggered onto the RER for the short trip to Versailles.
That’s a big house.
For one guy and all of his support staff and his concubines. And his wife too I think.
It’s very impressive. I liked the Opera House and the reception rooms. Wasn’t too crazy about the bedrooms, though they were impressive. Do the guided tour. You’ll see much more than the unguided tour and it’ll be explained to you. Get a combined ticket so you’ll have access to the gardens and the grand canal. Wah! I’d guess that the entire complex is as big as the Richmond District back home.
The Hall of Mirrors, where the peace treaty that ended WWI was signed was being refurbished. It’ll take several years to do, but imagine the history in this room. Most of the problems we face today in the world stem from what was done in this very room.
Makes ya think, huh?

Today was an all day trip. To Normandy. Where the second front in the fight against the Nazis was opened. Where Europe was saved by American, British, Commonwealth and Free French troops. Sixty years ago.
Where the 1st Rangers climbed rocks at Point du Hoc only to find out the big guns they were supposed to silence were gone, stripped out to fight the Soviets on the Eastern Front.
And lots of other stories of heroism and sacrifice abound.
We went to Omaha, Utah and Sword beaches. Sword Beach is near a small resort town that’s kinda fun looking. Point du Hoc is still in the same condition that the Army and Navy left it in. Lots of craters still. We also visited the American Cemetery at Omaha Beach.. Very moving.
We started the tour at the D-Day museum in Caen with a catered lunch and time to muse the museum.
You need to do the basi tour to see Normandy Beach unless you are planning to rent a car. Just cough up the dough to take the tour. It’s easier that way. Bring your AAA card though. If you buy it there in person you get 10% off.
It was a 3 hour or so bus ride to Normandy. The three of us got seats in the front. It was on the upper deck of the basi and it had a good view to fall asleep with.
On the ride back, though, I was faced with UA Nightmare #2. Some baat poh decided that I was too comfortable with an empty seat next to me and declared that she got carsick if she sat in the middle of the bus and said that her needs were more important than ours and plopped her fat ass next to me.
Now, for those of you who know me, I snore pretty loud. To the point that there are only two others who sleep louder than I do. But since this baat poh was next to me, that meant no sleep for me.
Guess what she did? She popped some pills and promptly passed out. Couldn’t she have done that where she was??? And because of that, I couldn’t sleep. No space. Too cramped.
Did I mention that I had to wake up at 0500 to get to the tour office by 0645 to be on the basi by 0700? I was a cranky dude man.
We got back around 0930. But we found a ramen shop for dinner. Then we found a souffle place for dessert. So the day ended on a nice note.

Off to the Bastille district for dinner.
The Bastille used to be a prison for Political Prisoners that was stormed by the common people in the Revolution of 1789. You’d figure that it would be preserved or something like that.
Nope. There’s a memorial. On an island. In a traffic circle (big). So much for my idea of “storming the gates”. If I tried to storm the statue, I’d get hit by a car but not before being pinched for jaywalking by all the cops around…
Bastille is also a district that’s has decent restaurants. We went to one of the recommendations in the DK Paris guide. The food was excellent, the service was good and the average age of the staff/manager was 28 or so. We wound up eating a LOT and talking a lot and hanging around a lot even after we finished our meal. Just like everyone else in the restaurant.
The coolest thing was, as we were leaving, the manager asks us, “Do you live in Paris? Because we’re having a customer appreciation party on the 19th, can you attend?”
Sounds like one helluva party, according to the flyer.

After we escaped Notre Dame, it rained. A lot. Like my Grandpa used to say, “rainlikeaheeeellll“. Since it was after 6, getting into the Louvre is discounted on Wednesdays.
So off we went. And wouldn’t you know it, the weather cleared up. By the time we got to the Pyramid, the sun was poking through. Since we had dinner plans (but no reservations), we visited the smiling chick (AKA Mona Lisa) and the goddess with no arms (Venus de Milo, AKA Aphrodite). Saw some of the art inbetween (mostly bibical and part of the fire and brimstone genre) but since we didn’t have the 5 weeks experts determined that it would take to see the Louvre properly, we bugged out for dinner in the Bastille district.
First thing we heard was “Do you have a reservation?”. Hearts sank when we were told to come back in an hour. But we puttered about for an hour and got seated. The place looks pretty fun…

Not that school in Indiana with the pathetic football team!
It’s big, old and impressive.
You can walk to the top and you get a fantastic view of the city with the gargoyles and other things up there. You can hang out in the bell tower.
Did I mention that you can WALK? Cuz there ain’t no lift!
So after about a gazillion steps and 20 minutes total of climbing the stairs, we were treated to a kick ass view.
Until it started to rain. Again. Rain…

Andrew and Ellen have been to Paris many times. They usually do the shopping deal and not a lot of sightseeing. My being here is an excuse to do some sightseeing.
So last night at supper, we worked out a list of things to do/see on this trip.
In no particular order:
Sacre Coeur
Louvre
Arc de Triomphe
Notre Dame
Versialles
Normandy
Seine Cruise
Catacombs
They did the Tower the first day they arrived, on the one day this week it was clear (!) and had dinner in the Jules Verne restaurant in the Tower. They have two kinds of menus, one for the guy and one for the gal. The difference? The hommes’ menu has the prices (!) and the femme’s menu doesn’t .
With the prices they charge that makes a BIG BIG difference…

We finally arrive at Gare du Nord close to 1700. It’s wet and rainy and cold.
First thing I do is make my way to the hotel and dump off my bags. There’s a lotta stairs between the street and the hotel. Just by asking, I got an upgraded room for the price of the cheap room I booked. Yay.
My room is on the top floor of the hotel but since it’s an older traditional style European hotel, it’s got stairs. Lots of stairs. With baggage. Nice.
Being in Paris, I need Euro. So it’s down to the only Citibank in France, on Champs Elysees near the Arc de Triomphe. Since I ‘m here and it’s dinner time, I wander up and down the avenues.
This is their big high ticket shopping district. Example: The LV store is closed for remodeling but the scaffolding looks like two giant LV bags. It’s so big that there are lots of Asian tourists (girls mostly but some with very reluctant boyfriends) taking pictures with the LV “bags” in the background.
Like they could afford those.
I pick up a SIM card for my mobile, pick up dinner for me and walk over to the Opera district. I’m supposed to give Andrew and Ellen a call but since I’ve not recieved their mobile number, I figured that leaving a message at their hotel will work.
So I’m chatting up the desk clerk to leave the message and they spot me as they were coming out of the lift for supper. Neat! We go to a Vietnamese place for late night supper and planning.
Did I mention that it gets dark here around 2200? Wow.