Thursday, April 20, 2006

yey Paris!

I set off for Paris this warm, sunny-turned-partly-cloudy afternoon. Barajas to Charles Du Gaulle. It was hard to leave, I really did get to care, and I have promised to return... I'm leaving behind in Madrid more than a couple of guide books ;)

Terminal 3 of Paris' CDG airport was very tiny; a domestic terminal, no security or baggage checks whatsoever. Walked straight from it to the train station and managed to get the right train ticket to find my new hosts: Ana and Nic. They picked me up at the train station and we walked through a sight I had found missing in Madrid: a very diverse racial mix, lots of blacks. Madrid was strangely white. At most you'd see latinos and some arabs or eastern europeans, although also fair-skinned. A couple of darker-than-night Africans can be seen selling pirated goods on the streets, but they are a strange crowd that stands out.

An unfortunate side-effect of such a dense immigrant population is, like NYC, that crime thrives. So, holding tight to my backpack, we made it to a nice flat (damn british english i've started to pick up on this side of the world...) away from the worse side of town. Here Saint Denise is a quaint Parisian neighborhood, with a Basilica, a theater, and some other touristy spots I'll have to check out.

After a yummy dinner we started going over maps and information. We even walked to the metro to pick up a 10-pack of tickets (unlike Madrid's system, they give you 10 individual tickets instead of just one that is recognized by the machines and stamped until it reaches 10 trips. Pain in the arse to carry so many little purple rectangles in the wallet... I'm going to look into a weekly for next week. They go Mon-Sun, so it would be a waste to have it for just 4 days.)

In Madrid I kinda discovered my way through life and places. Here I think I know more about things before even setting foot out of the door. They gave me a nice overview of everything. I guess it's also easier than I have the experience of Madrid. Many concepts I am already familiar with, like the intermingling of metro, trains, trams, and buses through the same sections of the city. So now all I have left to do is learn French. lol. (and I have to remember to try and speak Italian or Spanish to them, rather than English. Sadly enough, doing the latter can cause unnecessary rudeness on the locals' part...)

Going over the guide books I realize there is *a lot* to visit. I actually couldn't finish the overview of sights in downtown Paris in one sitting. I am also exploring ways to save money on the touristy sights... I can get a multi-museum pass for 3 days, but it's only worth it if I visit 6-7 museums. If I have to include the Louvre in the list, forget about it. That alone takes a couple of days!

For tomorrow I think I will just stroll through some of the major sights, get a feel for things, then plan out an effective way to plow through museums. I'm going to start at the Ile St Louis, then hop to Ile de la Cite, to see Notre Dame. Then up over the Seine to Les Halles and the Forums, then walk the grand axe: Louvre, Champ Elysee, Arc Du Triomphe... if it's still early by the time i'm done with that, I can go check out the Eiffel Tower. I think I'm going to leave actually visiting the inside of places for Mon-Wed, hoping for less touristy traffic.

I haven't whipped out my camera yet, conscious of the outside dangers and the inside exhaustion of my hosts. I'll be sure to pick it up tomorrow and click away! Hopefully in a while I will have a more portable, any-time camera (cell phone) to cover those gaps when I can't use the big guns ;) If anyone knows an actual date of when the Sony Ericsson W300i comes out, let me know! I read somewhere of a special edition coming out in June... but I'm hoping for an earlier release of the regular model.

Au revoir!

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