Day 13: More Driving

We got up and had our Ibis breakfast, then headed out. I will say that getting out of the parking lot was much easier than getting in. Mom walked behind the car and helped direct me.

So we got on the road, heading towards the airport.  I'm going to cut my writings a little short, and just say that eventually, we got to our hotel.  We've discovered that the French don't navigate by roads, they navigate by towns.  So when you're in a town, looking for a particular road, you need to know where that road goes.  For instance, if you're in Little Rock, and you want to go west to Russellville, you look for the road to Fort Smith.  You don't look for a big sign saying I-40 West.

Once we figured out how to navigate, things got easier.  We still ended up going around and around the town of Meaux, looking for a cafe and a bathroom.  Eventually we gave up and mom remembered a Lidl was nearby, so we drove there.  Lidl is like an Aldi.

Next door to the Lidl was a restaurant!  It's Leon de Bruxelles.  It was weird.  It's a Belgian chain of mussel restaurants.  Almost everything on the menu was mussel related.  We had the lunch special, which was the "starter buffet," a hot dish, and a dessert.  The starter buffet was small and interesting.  There was lettuce, tomato, hard boiled egg, shredded carrots, pasta salad with krab, couscous with salad dressing in it, pickles, boiled shrimp, salami or something like it, escargot, and some kind of salad that looked like mini pieces of corn.

For out main dish, I had the fish and chips, and mom had the bacon omelet.  Which, of course, came with fries.  Dessert was creme brulee for me and ice cream for mom.  And all that was 11 euros and 20 cents!  The bread was also delicious.  It was chewy on the outside, but not hard, and soft on the inside.

So we survived our driving and headed towards our hotel, which is at the airport.  The traffic got really bad at some points and was really stressing me out.  There were a couple of hairy roundabouts.  We finally made the hotel and dropped off our luggage.  Now the adventure was returning the rental car.

The agency had told us to head into the airport and follow the signs.  So we did.  And there were no signs.  We circled and finally I pulled out the paperwork.  It said Terminal 2D.  So we headed there.  I followed the signs and ended up circling through a bus terminal, then finally got the correct road.  Once we got near 2D, there were signs for the rental car.  We had to circle 2D though, to get to our road, because we couldn't access it from our side.  

So we finally get to the rental return.  It says park the car, and there was a hut with computers in it.  But no people.  It said it was open from 7am-9pm, but it was locked up tight.  The sign said go into the terminal, so we followed another guy returning his car and walked to the terminal.  We got there and handed in the key, and they were like, okay, bye.  So we left and took a taxi back to the hotel.

We napped a little before supper, which was when the hotel restaurant opened at 7pm.  Another expensive meal, but I kind of like the options.  They have a starter buffet, a hot dish, and a dessert.  You can choose any individually, or get 2 of them for a price, or all 3 for a price.  The hot dish was a buffet.  There were noodles, beef stroganoff, cod in butter sauce, and something we couldn't identify.  The starter buffet was a bunch of different salads.  The desserts were creme brulee, cheese cake, and a bunch of other stuff.  I had some kind of chocolate cake with whipped cream and cherries.

Paris

Free wine at Moroccan restaurant.

Day 4: Driving Paris

Day 4 was pretty neat. We checked out and walked down to the taxi stand, only to find no taxi in sight.  So we stood there, trying to figure out what to do, and a taxi turns the corner and starts towards us.  Yay!  He took us to the car rental place, in the Air France building. He also wished us luck with driving.

The car rental went well.  We ended up getting an automatic, for free.  He also said it had a GPS, for free, but it turned out not to have a GPS.  It had a GPS booklet and the car had German markings, and the manuals were in German.  It's an Astra Opel wagon, Frank - and it rocks!

So we get the car paid for.  Then I have to walk 2 long blocks down the road, to get to the car park, which is underground.  I had an elevator code to take me down to the 5th floor underground.  Then, I had to unlock the car to find it, because the guy couldn't figure out where it was parked.

I finally get the car, get the seat adjusted, and head back to the main office to pick up mom.  The wagon held both our large suitcases, side by side.  So we've got our Paris map, and a route out of town, and off we go!

We couldn't figure out how to lock the car doors.  In the US, some doors lock automatically after you start, but these didn't.  And there was no lock button.  Eventually, we realized the lock and unlock buttons were above the radio.  And when we stopped for a break, I accidentally hit the little pull-up locky thing on the door with my elbow, and all the doors locked.  I think the car is smarter than us.

So we're driving out of Paris.  At first, it's okay.  I'm trying to follow the car in front of me, because sometimes lanes are just a suggestion and sometimes there are no lines for lanes.  We're trying to read street names, so we stay on the correct boulevard.  Then we get to a turn, and I go straight instead of right.  Which takes us over the river, heading back towards our hotel.  I'm thinking, that's okay, it's on the edge of Paris.  We'll hit the periphery road and head back towards our route.

So we get towards the periphery road, and I'm trying to follow the signs.  But the signs are so close to where you exit that I miss the periphery and head out east towards Port Bercy.  Then I have to exit the "interstate," turn around, head back towards our periphery interstate, and catch it.  Which is packed with cars and not moving very fast.

So now we're on the periphery interstate, heading southwest towards our exit.  We see signs saying A10, which is our interstate.  But it says A6 (A10) so we think we have to get on A6 to get to our A10.  Then mom tells me that A10 is the wrong road and goes to Bordeaux, not Limoges where we're going.  And I try to explain it is the right road, that Bordeaux is the end of the line, and we do need that road.  And while we're arguing we drive right past our exit.  Crap!

So now we're heading west.  I decide to take the next big exit, which turns out to be the Orly Airport.  So we end up looping around the airport, and then heading back east, hoping to catch our exit.  We see a big sign for our exit.  It's over the left-hand lanes, with 2 arrows pointing at those left-hand lanes.  And then, suddenly, the exit is on the right, exiting right now.  So I cut across traffic like a maniac, or a Parisienne, and manage to catch the exit.  Phew!  That was only 1 hour getting out of Paris.

Day 3 Roundup

Sorry about the delay.  Day 4 was mainly driving and then I didn't have wifi, so I couldn't post anything.

Day 3 was pretty good.  We got up and had breakfast.  We didn't get going until closer to lunch time.  Mom's knee was acting up so we took a taxi to our bus stop, which irritated the taxi driver, because it was relatively close.  We had lunch at the Turkish place, which was kind of a disappointment.  I had Shish Taouk (or the Turkish relative) and it was kind of plain.  We've had Greek, Turkish, and Lebanese, and we both agree that the Lebanese is the best.  More spice and flavor.  At least the hommus was okay, and they brought us unlimited, slightly burnt bread.

After lunch, a bus pulled up, so mom hightailed it back to the hotel.  I took the Green Line to the Musee d'Orsay.  It's got the largest collection of Impressionist art in the world, and those are my favorite, so I had to go!  Mom almost came but decided not to.

The museum was pretty good.  I had bought my ticket online, so I got to go in a separate entrance, with it's own security.  I had to open the main pocket on my purse and walk through one of those regular security scanners.  There were signs saying to watch for pickpockets. 

The museum was very open and light and really packed.  Also a bit warm.  You walk in on kind of the 1st floor (for Europe) and then there were stairs to the 0th floor for the main floor.  I couldn't find a ramp anywhere.  I even saw a dad with a stroller going down the stairs!

So I went down the stairs and then walked up a ramp to get to floor 1 on the other side.  They had some post-impressionist stuff that I looked at in a side gallery.  Then I had to walk down a flight of stairs to get to the bathroom.  Mom said the one at the Turkish place was really bad, so I waited for d'Orsay.

So I come back up the stairs, and luckily there was a set of escalators to get you to the 5th floor where the impressionists are housed.  It was great!  Crowded, warm, etc. but still the impressionists.  I spent a little time there and then decided it was time to go home. 

I went to the opposite side of the museum, to find the down escalator, but it wasn't there.  There was an "elevator."  It was a door in the wall, and it had a handicapped sign and said push button for handicapped help.  I looked around more and finally found a down escalator at the other side of this end of the musuem.  And it only took me to about floor 2.5.  Seriously.  I walked down a flight of stairs, then there was a long-ass double flight that I had to walk down.  My knee was twinging badly by the time I got down.

I finally made it out of the musuem at 3:15.  I now had the choice of taking a taxi home, or taking the bus home for free.  Which would also allow me to buy gyros for supper.  Of course, I decided on the bus.  I took the Green Line, so I could make the loop back to Notre Dame.  I sat in the very back, by myself, and listened to the music and tourist info. 

Next thing I know, a lady from Seattle and her group sit next to me.  We talked off and on, and I started to nap off and on.  Half her group got off at the Eiffel Tower, and the rest got off later.  So I was finally alone again.  I even thought of a present for my brother-in-law.

The traffic was horrendous - Friday afternoon - but I finally got back to Notre Dame.  I booked it to a tourist stall and got the present, then booked down the alley to a gyro stand.  Our gyro stand was run by Indians, but it was also 5 euros.  We got chicken gyros, with fries piled inside.  I booked it around the corner and saw my Blue bus.  It was getting ready to leave, but someone else ran up before me, so it stopped and I made it. 

More traffic, more traffic, more traffic.  I finally reach my stop near the stadium.  I'm walking pretty fast, since I'm by myself. I stopped in at the market to get cokes and candy for us, then headed to the hotel.  I walk in, and mom is sitting in the lobby.  She'd been out wandering the village shops and looking for me.  It was 6:30.  So it took me over 3 hours to get home.  Blargh!

Day 2: The Blue Line?

The Indian restaurant was right by the bus stop.  But the bus had to stop further down because of other buses, so we had to pass a Turkish restaurant. And mom said, "We should eat here tomorrow."  It was about 6:30 by now and we were hungry again.  And for some reason, the French seem to eat a lot of food.  Our dinner was 3 courses.  First we had samosas.  We each got 2 with a salad on the side.  The samosas were amazing - some of the best I've had.  Fluffy curried potatoes with green peas, yum!  I realize this may read like a food blog, but deal with it :) 

Our next dish was curry  Naan came separate but we both got some.  I had lamb curry, and mom had chicken.  And it was also amazing.  Seriously, this was some of the best Indian food I've had in decades.  We stuffed ourselves, and finished off the naan dipping it in our curry sauce.

Our final dish was dessert.  The menu said sorbet, but the waiter said they had ice cream, so we ended up with 2 scoops of vanilla, because they had run out of chocolate.  Two scoops each.  The ice cream was decent, but not as good as Braum's.  Overall, this was an incredible meal!

So we finish eating, and are waiting for our bus.  It finally arrives, around 7:40, but the driver wouldn't let us on.  I was under the impression that service ended at 8:30.  I even remember hearing it on the audio track.  But apparently the blue line isn't as busy, so it stops earlier.  He even opened up the brochure to show us he wasn't making it up.  Since there was a small group of people waiting for the bus, not just us, we were all a little upset.

Day 2: The Yellow Line

This was probably the worst part of our day.  The bus was packed and we ended up sitting in different areas.  The wind picked up, and with the bus moving, it was quite chilly.  I had to put my hoodie on and my camera hand was freezing.  We made slow progress, because of the traffic.  I will freely admit that I started to nap.

Mom had an adventure, though.  She was sitting there, and felt something weird in her hair.  She started wiping it, and there was green stuff.  Apparently she'd been hit by a pigeon!

My best time happened in the Arab part of town.   There was a dude in sunglasses with a scruffy beard.  He was wearing camouflage pants and black bikini briefs. I know this because his pants were hanging below his butt. I could see skin and tell it was bikini briefs.  He was drinking out of a large can.   The bus had stopped so that the cars in front could turn right.  There was a crosswalk with pedestrians in it.  Dude walks into the crosswalk and then plants his ass on the hood of the taxi trying to get through.  Then he motions the pedestrians to keep walking.  Meantime the taxi is honking and looking very unhappy.   Dude finally gets up and leaves, and the bus is able to proceed.

We were both glad to get back to our stop so we could change buses.  We waited for our Green bus.  And waited.  Two more Yellow buses came by.  Finally we went hunting for another bathroom.  A nice lady directed us to one in the Metro, but it was closed.  Although we did get to ride an elevator down to the Metro instead of taking the stairs. 

We continued waiting.  Finally a Green bus arrived and took us back to Notre Dame.  Then we walked down to our Indian restaurant.

Day 2: The Green Line

We caught our bus, but this time we went upstairs - the buses are all doubledeckers and open on top.  I had read the tiny arrows on the map wrong, so the Eiffel Tower was further along than I thought.  We had saw some cool sights, and eventually made it to the tower!  The bus actually circles the tower and then stops almost where it had first reached the tower.  But no one realized that, so when the driver stopped in traffic several people opened the back door and got off, and he started yelling at them.

We finally got to the stop and got off.  I was immediately accosted by a young woman asking me if I spoke English.  I automatically said yes, so she asked me to sign her petition for deaf mutes.  I started to sign, while holding on to my bags, until I realized what the scam was.  Sign here, where are you from, what's your donation?  I said no, and started to walk away.  She tried to follow and guilt me into donating, but I kept walking. 

We needed a bathroom, and decided to go to a cafe and sit and have a snack.  We had seen a few on our drive around the tower, so we read a few menus and found an expensive cafe.  The waiter suggested we have a tart, so we did!  It was a slice of a big tart.  It looked like someone had made a "crust" in one of those round pans with the rippled edges.  Then they put down a thin layer of custard, and put fresh raspberries, strawberries, and kiwi on top.  Cut a slice and then spray whipped cream around it.  It was good!

The bathroom was amusing, though.  Bathrooms in France are really hit or miss.  I remember the last time I was here, the only decent bathroom was at Normandy, which is run by Americans.  The bathroom was a small area with a sink and hand dryer, and 2 doors: one for women, one for men.  Each toilet room was basically toilet-sized.  When I came out, there was a smiling gentleman in a suit waiting for the men's room.  He was by the sink, so we switched spots, so I could use the sink and he could continue to wait.  It just seemed weird.

Rejuvenated, we headed back to the tower and wandered and took a few photos.  We found the public toilets, which were full, and probably why we saw a man peeing in the park, behind a wall.  We didn't feel like going up the tower, so we headed back for our bus stop.  There were some camouflaged guys with machine guns walking around.

We got some good seats up top, and some good pics. Then things went weird.  We went by a sight, and made a u-turn, and our audio recording said "Because of the demonstrations, we will have to change our route."  We noticed several roads were blocked off.  One of the bridges was closed and had a huge amount of police officers on it.  We finally made it to our next stop, and changed buses, so we could just ride the next route.

Day 2: Notre Dame

We started towards Notre Dame, and saw a souvenir shop to look at.  And I spied an alley nearby that also had shops.  After the shop we headed down the alley, which was full of shops and food!  There must have been 5 gyro shops!  And mom said "We should eat there for lunch."  We wandered and touristed.  I bought myself some t-shirts, got you a present Frank!  And I bought a Paris bag to carry all my crap in. 

We wandered around in a triangle-shaped area of alleyways, and came upon a Moroccan place.  They weren't quite open, so we wandered more and decided to wait for them to open.  They had kafta, which mom loves.  So we come back and get a seat.  They brought us some glasses of complimentary wine, and we ordered.

I got the chicken couscous and mom got the meatball couscous, which was kafta-like.  And we watched the restaurant cat wander around and play with inanimate objects.  Then our food arrived.  There was a honking big bowl of fine grain couscous, and a huge soup tureen of, well, a soup.  It had carrots, beans, turnips, and zuchini, and a beautiful orange broth.  There were side condiments of chick peas, golden raisins, and some hot spice paste.  They brought out a plate with a whole chicken breast and wing for me, and 3 big meatballs for mom.  We didn't have plates, we had bowls, so we scooped up couscous and dug in.  It was delicious!  And the spice was really hot.  We just had to use a little bit.

After stuffing ourselves, and leaving probably half the couscous, we traveled on.  Our next stop was Notre Dame itself.  It's free, because it's actually a church and still in use.  It was beautiful!  There was another section called the Treasury, that you could pay to see, but we didn't.  After leaving Notre Dame, we went through a giant tent out front that was hosting the Bread Festival.  It was people baking and selling bread and it smelled great.  We were starting to look for a toilet at this point, but decided to catch our next bus and get to the Eiffel Tower.

Day 2: The Blue Line

We're on the east side of Bercy Gardens.  On the west side is Bercy Stadium.  Our bus stop is on the west side of Bercy Stadium.  Sounds simple, right?  We started walking, and found a market and came upon the garden.  We walked alongside at first, in a cobblestoned alley.  Not nice tight cobblestones, but stones with lots of space around them.  We found an entrance to the garden, where there were sidewalks, and decided to walk there.  It had an unlocked gate with a sign saying No Dogs. 

The garden was nice.  It had a grove of orange trees, a vineyard area, and pretty flowers.  And people walking dogs.  We exited to the west, and there was a big open area with a carousel, skate park, and tons of dogs!  To the south was a giant - and I do mean giant - staircase.  Think 50 feet across and several stories high. 

We tried to walk west, but the stadium had construction barriers up.  We saw a dirt path with joggers to the south, so we followed it.  It wound uphill a bit, then ended at a stair way and steep ramp, with a confused guy in a suit.  We went up the ramp.  And up.  We finally found ourselves at the top of the garden in another "garden" area with sculptures.  And there was no way to go west. 

We started east.  Which is where we realized we were at the top of the huge stair, and the confused suit was just reaching the top.  He was joined by 2 more suits, also confused.  Frankly, so were we.  We could see the road on the south side of the stadium, but we couldn't get to it.  There was a giant pedestrian bridge over the river, and a sign about the French library.  Another bus stop was there, so we headed over.

The bridge was springy, because it was made of long, thin pieces of wood.  As we started over, the suits found an elevator, but it was out of order.  They kept walking.  Apparently the bridge was set up so that you walked on the sides, and then a center spot opened up that led to the street.  They went that way.

We continued on and crossed the Seine.  Then we had the choice of taking a large center section up high to the top of the library steps (the library was surrounded by more giant stairs) or coming out on the street by the river.  We took the street route, found a cross walk, and our bus stop was right there!  Then we just had to wait almost 30 minutes for a bus.

We finally caught our bus, and we were off!  We found the stadium stop and saw some sights, but we were mainly wanting to get near Notre Dame, so we could see it and catch the next bus we needed.  We finally got there, stepped of the bus, and voila - there's an Indian restaurant.  Mom said "We should eat lunch here."

Day 2: Getting started

Now, I know some of you are asking, Where the hell is Lauren's post for Thursday?  Well, Lauren is one tired puppy!  We got up early and went to breakfast about 7:45.  Our bus didn't start until 9:30, so we didn't want to be too early. We got home after 9pm.

We paid in advance for breakfast, which was a buffett.  There was a lot of bread, croissants, cereals, cheese, yogurts, fruit, and thin slices of a really good ham.  They had a few juices and a machine that dispensed several coffees, hot chocolate, and hot water, so I had tea.  We made croissandwiches  :)

It was really cool this morning, so I wore blue jeans and my hoodie.  Then our adventure began . . . .