Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Back to the future. Or rather, forward to the past.

I keep retracing my steps. A part of me feels bad, thinking I am wasting my time. But I recognize that feeling as that same little voice in me that also keeps nagging I'm never doing anything good. So I tell it to shut up and I go ahead with my trip.

Dog owner arrived on Friday as scheduled, we got together, chatted, walked about, I spent the night there, and had a reservation for a train early the next morning. Ah, one really good news: I found my camera's flash card!!! As I was packing to leave, I found it in one of the thousand pockets I have, in my backpack... behind a bag of chamomile tea... lol. So I have some cute pics of the doggies I talked about. Then from Brussels I took one of them mad fast trains to Paris. First class, too. They had a half-price internet promotion that ended up being 15 euros cheaper than a regular 2nd class ticket! Got free breakfast and nicer seats for less money. Now, *that* is making good use of my money :) Only scary part of the trip was how badly the train shook throughout. After hearing about the Valencia metro accident all I could think of was that this train was going to derail, too... I even got motion sickness! Took one pill, tried to sleep most of the 1.5 hrs it took to travel, and arrived with no problems :)

The idea for this leg of the trip was to make a brief stop at the same friends' place as I visited last time, research travel options like last-minute deals and all those good promotions, and work my way south through France to Italy, where I am meeting another friend half-way in July, before heading south to Crotone (aaaall the way at the bottom of mainland Italy) for all of August, to chill by the beach. One thing I didn't consider was that July 14 is a major holiday in France, Bastille's day. Same as the 4th of July in the USA. So traveling this week is kinda insane. Another tiny detail that is hampering my progress is that my friends' internet connection broke exactly the day I arrived!! I'm writing this offline, hoping it'll be resolved on Monday. [editor's note: they finally got it working on Tue night! They're still troubleshooting the details, but I was able to start checking email at least :) ] Now I have to plan a week's trip in one day. How the hell did people do it back in the day...?? I mean, I *could* just go to the train station, pick up a brochure, pay full ticket fare, and find my way as I go... but stuff like that always leaves you much poorer and hassled at the end than if you had figured out the right itinerary and cheapest route first.

Anyhoo, I already had lotsa fun these two days back in Paris. Sat we went shopping at an outlet mall. Unfortunately if I buy something, I have to leave something behind, my suitcase can't squeeze anything else in it (and I've already left pieces along the way...!) and I didn't find anything worth that. Even though I'm dying with my winter corduroys and sneakers in 30 degree heat.

Sunday we went to mini-France. Similar concept like Madurodam in Holland, but this one is actually geographically accurate. They recreated France, and built representative miniature sites in their corresponding spots. I saw a couple of sights that I really want to try and go see. The one that stands out the most in my head is Mont Saint-Michel, dubbed the Wonder of the West. It seems to be a tiny island with a castle and an old town in it. Gorgeous model. I hope the real thing is similar. It might be more than a day trip, unfortunately, so I have to plan for it.

Cool extra thing about this place was a mini theme park half-way through the models. Oddest thing was that all the rides were completely do-it-yourself! There was one pirate ship-looking thing, for just two people, whose instructions were actually to find someone to lock the gate and push the button for you from the outside!! The coolest, and hardest, "ride" was a climbing tent. The foot/handholds were barely enough to put your fingertips in them, making the ascent really hard! And other people climbing would shake the surface, since it was a tent and not a hard, stable thing. I held on for dear life for what felt like forever near the top, until I found the strength, coordination, and quiet surface to reach the last two steps! We later found that we started on the hard side... the other side had a lot more footholds, and without socks it was a cinch!

Both evenings we watched the World cup matches. I'm glad that Italy won (even though 3 other people in the room were rooting for France) but I can't say that a final won through penalties is much of a victory. You should have heard the quiet in the neighborhood... ;) And Germany did get third place at least, Lila ;)

Tomorrow everyone is going back to work. Which leaves me stuck with no internet and roaming the streets of Paris, aimlessly, alone... Feel sorry for me yet? ;) Here are the pics for these couple of days.

PS) The worse tease about this lack of internet is that my computer recognizes other wireless connections... but they are all securely locked! If only I could find out the owners, to ask for temporary access... Ana and Nico don't really know their neighbors, so they have no idea who it could be. Ugh. [ note to self: getting to know your neighbors might be worth the hassle ;) ]

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Oyeee que lindas fotos... me parece estarlos viendo en vivo y a todo color... :D que dicha que para algunas cosas el tiempo no pasa.

Un abrazote!!