A few days in Paris

Saturday - we had the breakfast buffet here at the hotel, it wasn't really worth it. There was a big monster canister of honey in the breakfast room, but the dispenser was broken. Also just not a lot of selection.

We're very close to the Mitterand national library so we went there. It's a very strange place, very hard to find the entrance, which is underground, and the whole thing is underground. There are four strange skyscrapers on all four corners of the structure, but I'm not sure if they're actually used. Overall a very surreal impression. There's also the rooms with the actual books, which, believe it or not, you have to pay admission to get into. We were allowed into the children's room just as a special favor, for a few minutes, when I specifically asked.

I don't think I've ever seen a less welcoming library. Very interesting looking though, kind of a 1970s look.

Then we went on a bike ride along the Seine, towards the center of Paris, the tourist area. That was pretty nice, extremely windy though. We sat down at one of the "beach" areas, with lounge chairs and umbrellas, and a lady came by and asked us to close the umbrella because it was getting so windy. And then they actually folded up and put away all the chairs as well. We had our picnic there. They have all kinds of recreational facilities right along the river, with kids games, chairs and tables etc. 

Then we got up off the river, and into the Louvre area. Very, very, crowded. Huge lines. I felt no desire to go and actually see the museum, I think you really need to plan it carefully in order to not be packed like sardines.

Then biking towards the Eiffel tower, there was a sudden rainstorm. We hung out under a tree for a while, to avoid the rain, then went to the entryway of a museum for shelter from the rain, where the security guard said we could stay just for a few minutes, then stayed a little bit longer at the overhang for a metro station. Then sunshine, thank goodness.

The next stop was the Eiffel tower. We didn't go up, but really enjoyed walking around the human zoo that's at the base of the tower. Which by the way is completely enclosed by a glass fence, unlike the way it was last time we visited, when it was pretty open and you could stand right underneath it.

First off, there were gypsies doing the shell game. They had lots of accomplices, some looking for police, some pretending to actually play. And then of course they are some people who really did spend money on guessing where the ball was. Peter was intrigued by the whole thing. Then, only 5 or 10 minutes into their spiel, some lookouts told them the cops were coming, and they disappeared within seconds. And then we saw the same thing, but with another gang, just half an hour later! Also dissolved by the police within 5 or 10 minutes.

Another thing we saw was people - they looked like maybe Pakistani - selling beer and wine in buckets with ice. There were tons of them. The interesting part was that they had taken over this big huge recycle bin to store their equipment, and also we saw them storing their beer and wine in a drainage tunnel! All very strange.

Also there were loads and loads of Africans, selling those little Eiffel tower statues. There were so many of them, it's hard to see that they could actually make a profit. And then there was a huge police raid, three police vans drove up and lots of police ran out and chased the Africans, who bagged up their white claws full of trinkets very quickly and ran away.

That was the most remarkable part of the day, then we returned home along what was supposed to be a really good, separate bike path, but was actually very mediocre, and not always separate, along the Boulevard Jordan.

We stopped for coffee for me and a pastry for Peter. The other interesting thing that happened was as we were stopping in front of a supermarket, discussing whether we should go in now, or later, an American guy started talking with us. He was on an electric city rental bike, and for some reason couldn't make it go anymore because he needed to connect with it, and his phone had no Wi-Fi. He asked if we could set up a hotspot for him, and I did. He was able to get it working again and was very thankful.

we were thinking of going out for dinner, but there's really not very many good restaurants here, so we ended up just eating in the room.

Sunday - I had done some research online for good bike trails around Paris and one site said that the Paris highline - a converted elevated train track - was a great bike ride. So we went there, stopping at Gare de Lyon on the way, where there was supposed to be a public piano for Peter. (There was, but it was locked up for maintenance). 

Anyway the article suggesting that particular bike trail was 100% wrong, there was a steep staircase leading up to it, bikes were completely forbidden, it was really narrow, and overall completely impossible to bike there. However it was a nice walk. Then we went to the Bois de Vincennes, a huge forest park very close by. We spent a long time hanging out, Peter was feeding pigeons and tried to release one of the pigeons from a fishing line which was tangled around its legs. Unsuccessfully, though. We had lunch at a Sri Lankan Buddhist temple, which was selling food as a fundraiser for repair of the temple.  Good food, and interesting place. It seemed quite run down - not just needing repairs, but needing attention. Then we biked around to the other lake in the park. Peter was doing all the navigation, which was fine by me, I've done enough navigation to last for quite some time now. it's not as intimidating to bike around on the streets anymore, it's almost a little bit enjoyable, even though a little stressful as well.

We rested at the hotel a bit, and then went to the Monoprix, which is another location where they have a public piano (we found all of these from a website with worldwide public pianos). 

On the way home I stopped and watched the dancing taking place at the huge boardwalk type area, that's close to the Mitterand library here. There were two very large separated groups, and a bunch of other small groups, where people were dancing to music, mostly salsa. Very interesting. I wonder if it was government sponsored?

Monday - last day in Paris!

This morning, we hung out, Peter slept in, then we had coffee at the cafe up the street a little bit, while waiting for our bikes to be picked up at noon. Overall the bike rental has worked out extremely well, the drop off and pick up of the bikes worked out well, and the bike quality was good. I'm so, so, glad that I didn't end up taking those folding bikes. Those would have been far less efficient and far less fun to ride. 

After the bikes were gone, we took the metro for the first time since getting to France. It wasn't all that difficult to figure out how to get tickets, and how to get where we wanted to go. The stations are kept pretty dark though, I'm not sure why unless it's to save energy, which is probably the case. It's like they've gone back in time in terms of energy usage. Also don't get me started on the toilets here. They really cannot handle getting rid of the excrement without me manually needing to use the toilet brush. Every single time.

We ended up mostly just wandering around, we had a few targets - the Shakespeare book shop, the Champs Elysee. but mostly we just wandered around the really really touristy areas of Paris. we wanted to go to the Shakespeare English language bookstore because supposedly there's a public piano there, but there was actually a line to get in! So that was a no-go

For lunch, we stopped at a very touristy place and I had a beef rice dish, Thai style. The spices were great, however the meat was so insanely tough that I only ate about a quarter of it.

Took the ferris wheel close to the Louvre, that was really nice, though a little scary to get so high. Then we walked around the Champs Elysee. Interesting, packed with tourist, also lots of Americans. It used to be interesting and different to hear Americans, because there were almost none. We actually stopped an American couple with their grandson on July 4th in Orleans, because we hadn't heard any Americans in weeks. But it's very different here in Paris.

Overall a LOT of walking today, tiring but enjoyable, really packed touristy areas, interesting and not too hard to take the metro. The weather was perfect, not too hot, a pleasantly cloudy sky.