David Burrow in front of the Louvre in Paris, France
It's hard to believe that the better part of two decades has passed since the last time I was in Europe. It was, however, 1985 when I made two trans-Atlantic trips-first visiting what was then the communist Soviet Union and then traveling to a poverty-stricken Spain that was still adjusting from fascism to democracy. Back then I was a young and inexperienced traveler. In the past seventeen years, both I and the world have changed a lot. For years now I've wanted to go back to Europe, but as a "real" adult I can never seem to get enough money together to do it. So, when my sister Margaret approached me with the prospect of accompanying her and my brother Paul as they took students to Europe-at a cost that was a small fraction of what the kids paid-I jumped at the chance. The trip would take me back to Spain, where I would see some things were the same, but most things had changed beyond imagination. It would also take me to a place I had never been before, France. In anticipation of the trip, I lived as frugally as possible through the winter and spring, but it still ended up with very little "mad money". Even so, this turned out to be a most enjoyable vacation.
I left Algona around 11am. For much of the first part of the trip I found myself constantly rubbing my teeth with my tongue. That's because last week I broke a tooth, and just yesterday the dentist had put in a temporary filling. While he assured me it would last indefinitely (and it would be months until I could schedule an appointment to get the tooth permanently repaired), I still had my doubts about traveling thousands of miles with temporary dental work. Fortunately, the dentist was right, and the filling held up well. Before long I got used to how it felt and didn't have to constantly rub it with my tongue.
I thought to myself as I drove how nice it was to see green countryside. We had a cold, wet spring, and the crops were all late coming up. I always wonder when people say spring is their favorite season. I hate spring; it's always wet, and everything looks gray and barren. There are few things I find uglier than bare cropland, and Iowa in spring is definitely not a place anyone would find beautiful. Now, though, the whole landscape was carpeted in green, and Iowa had that "pastoral" look of a Grant Wood painting.
My first stop was at the Culver's restaurant in Clear Lake. Culver's is a Wisconsin-based chain that most people would call "fast food". They certainly didn't demonstrate any speed in their service today, though. Literally the entire staff was made up of senior citizens, and they all seemed to move at a care center rate. It took twenty minutes to get a ham sandwich and an ice cream cone.
As I turned onto the entrance of Interstate 35, there was a hitchhiker at the side of the ramp. It's been years since I've seen a hitchhiker anywhere, and probably over a decade since I've seen one in Iowa. There were so many horror stories about hitchhiking ten or fifteen years ago that I'd figured it had died out. Apparently not, though, as evidenced by this scruffy young man with a back pack and a scrap of cardboard with "Des Moines" scrawled on it. Unfortunately for him, I was headed just two exits south, so he'd have to wait for someone else if he wanted to go to Des Moines.
I took the new Avenue of the Saints eastward to Charles City and continued east on highway 18. There's a major detour on 18 around New Hampton, where they're apparently working on the new four-lane of U.S. 63. There's so many new four-lanes these days, it amazes me we ever got anywhere before them. Not that 63 can't use the improvement, mind you-I remember my father cursing that road for years as we headed up to my grandparents' house. He's been dead for almost twenty years now, so that gives you an idea of just how overdue those highway improvements are.
I stopped for gas in Calmar and then continued on to Margaret's. She lives at the bottom of a valley in the middle of the forest east of Decorah. It's a gorgeous drive any time of year, and it was especially nice today.
I was surprised to find she was already packed and nearly ready to go. (Hopefully she'll pardon that catty remark, but I think she'll that she and I are opposites when it comes to packing-I am ready to go days or even weeks in advance, while she usually waits until the last minute to get out a suitcase.) She had a much bigger surprise for me, though. All the adults associated with the Cresco group were getting money in cash to help pay for meals on the trip. The money came from candy they had sold at Cresco during the school year. We got what was left after the students had been allocated their share. Obviously they had done very well with their candy sales, and given my shoestring budget, I was certainly grateful to have a bit of money to fall back on.
We loaded up my car and then headed out. We stopped briefly at a pharmacy in Decorah and then drove on to Cresco, where we stopped at the home of Michelle (I hate to admit it, but I don't remember her last name), another member of the Cresco faculty. For years Michelle has taught French at Cresco, as well as teaching some Spanish and working with the yearbook. With the latest round of budget cuts the Cresco school board decided that the French program had to go. (What they thought they were going to do with the students who were already part way through the program, nobody knows.) So Michelle was suddenly faced with the prospect of finding a new job and moving. Fortunately for her, things were working out pretty well. She managed to find a Spanish position in a growing district south of Des Moines, where they found the prospect of adding a French program appealing. Then just today she had found a buyer for the home she owned in Cresco. Taking the French students to Europe would be her last official duty here, and then she could start things fresh in southern Iowa.
We went out to Crestwood High School where Margaret and Michelle made copies of various information for the kids. Then we had dinner at a nice little Chinese restaurant called the Panda Garden. After finishing my sesame chicken I was amused to get a fortune cookie with a most appropriate message: "Nothing is certain but the unforeseen". Could there be any more sage advice for the traveler?
After dinner we went to the home of Marlene Michael, a long-time friend of Margaret's who was also joining the tour group. Marlene made arrangements with an elderly neighbor for me to store my car in that lady's empty garage. We then waited for Margaret's friend Vicki Cline to drive up from southeast Iowa. Vicki would make the last of the adults in the Cresco group.
We finally left Cresco about 8:30 at night. We took Vicki' minivan north to Minnesota. It's a big vehicle, but with five adults and their luggage, it made for pretty cramped quarters. Traffic was light, though, and the trip went quickly. About a quarter to eleven we made it to the Airport Exel Inn south of Minneapolis.
Our rooms (and the parking while we were in Europe) were also being paid for by the candy fund. Michelle had intended to put everything on her credit card and get reimbursed for it after the trip. Unfortunately something was goofed up, and the girl at the desk said the credit card had been declined. I was just reaching in to get my credit card out when Margaret got out her wallet and paid cash for all our rooms. I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone pay cash for a motel room before-let alone pay for three rooms plus parking, to the tune of over $200 cash. I'm not sure I've ever carried that much cash on me in my life, but I guess I'm glad Margaret had it on her tonight.
I was a little surprised when the girl at the desk handed us old-fashioned keys. I think Exel Inn must be the last motel in America with metal keys. Even Motel 6 has those magnetic key cards these days, and it really surprised me not to have them here.
Exel Inn is certainly not anything luxurious. We hauled our luggage up steps (there was no elevator) and down cavernous halls. Our rooms were not unattractive, but definitely had a dated décor-brick walls and wood tone formica and contact paper that reminded me of an apartment from the '70s. In theory there was satellite TV, but I think they had taken one hook-up and split it 200 ways to service all the rooms. There was more snow than anything else on every channel. My room also featured a wastebasket that the maid had not emptied after the last guest. While it was most assuredly not worth over $70 a night, it was certainly not the worst place I've ever stayed. The bed was comfortable, and before long I was able to get to sleep.
I was up at 6am. I spent much of the early morning watching snowy children's shows on public television. On Reading Rainbow I heard "The Story of the Paper Crane", a Japanese fable about an origami bird that came to life. Then on Sesame Street I heard distinguished news anchor Peter Jennings offering his rendition of the old Carpenters' song "Sing! Sing a Song!".
I went down to the lobby where I looked at what the Exel Inn had to offer for their complimentary breakfast. It was a rather strange selection. In addition to the standard juice and coffee machines, they had toast, bagels, and muffins. My preference would have been the bagels, but they had no cream cheese to go with them. So instead I had pre-packaged Otis Spunkmeyer's homestyle blueberry and chocolate chip muffins.
As I munched on Otis' muffins, I enjoyed the lovely view outside my room. My window looked out on a lovely tree-filled courtyard that the entire motel surrounded.
Before long it was time for us to leave for the airport. We put our luggage in the airport shuttle, a van that was distinguished by having impossibly little legroom in every seat. The shuttle driver was a gray-haired man with a bizarre sense of humor. He kept joking about leaving Vicki (who had to park in the long-term lot) behind, but from the way he said things it was not entirely clear he was kidding. When one of the women complained of having a headache, his response was "What's his name?"--which drew a combination of stares and forced chuckles. Fortunately it was just a short ride to the airport, so we didn't have to put up with such humor for long.
We met the Cresco students by the Continental desk at the airport, and before long it was time to check-in. None of us had flown since the horrible terrorist incidents last fall, so we had no idea what to expect in terms of security. In Minneapolis it came across as more tight than in the past, but not really anything exceptional. They had obviously turned up the setting on the metal detectors. Everything set them off. Each of us had pins that said "Interact" (the name of the tour company), and we were told to remove them, because they would set off the machines. One of the girls in the group had a number of body piercings. The machine went crazy when she went through, and they spent quite a while going over her with a hand-held wand to show that everything was okay. A couple members of our group were randomly picked to have their shoes inspected-presumably to prove they had no explosives in the soles. They sent my carry-on bag through the x-ray repeatedly. I have no idea what they thought was there (they never did ask me to open it), but they kept looking and looking as if they were concerned about something.
The worst thing was one girl who had scissors in her carry-on bag. It's no great secret that scissors are a no-no under the increased security rules-as are knives, box-cutters, and pretty much anything else sharp or pointed. They found and confiscated the girl's scissors, and then regulations forced them to manually inspect every item in her bag. They did that quite efficiently, and she certainly had nothing incriminating or dangerous with her. I'm sure it had to be a bit traumatic, though.
While we waited at the gate, Margaret and I enjoyed overpriced rolls and coffee from a Cinnabon stand that was just down the concourse. I also browsed through a gift shop that featured mementos of Minnesota. Probably the most amusing item they sold was a postcard with a cartoon of the governors of all fifty states. It showed forty-nine stoic men and women in conservative suits, together with Jesse Ventura in pink feathers and wrestling garb.
Our plane was scheduled to take off at 11:08am, but we were told the aircraft was "slightly delayed" on arrival from Houston. It was, in fact, only a slight delay. Before long we boarded and taxied forever, and we were in the air around 11:30. The pilot told us we should still be arriving in Newark on time.
Our plane, a Boeing 737, was full of high school students on their way to foreign destinations. Our group was both one of the smallest and quietest on board. Most annoying was a group from Minnesota who were going to Costa Rica. (Why you'd go to Central America by way of New Jersey, I don't know-but no one ever asked me to come up with an airline schedule.) At one point a girl from the Costa Rica group actually got on the flight attendant's microphone, told us it was their group leader's birthday (I'm pretty sure it wasn't), and urged us to join her in singing to her. On a more positive note, the same girl's whining managed to get a a stewardess to hand out those plastic wings they usually give to young children. While it's been a while since I was a child, I certainly won't complain about getting a pair of wings.
Aside from all the school kids, it was a fairly uneventful flight. The head flight attendant was a young Caribbean man named Paul, and he certainly made us feel at home. While it was exactly lunch time, the included meal was "snack"-which meant a tiny sandwich, a small bag of chips, and a single piece of candy. I'll never put down free food, though. We also had unlimited coffee and soft drinks (including cans of 7-Up from Germany). Overall it was a very smooth flight. Having taken the train recently, I tried to compare the feeling of flying to being on the train. For the most part this flight was smoother than an Amtrak ride-and generally I thought the train was perfectly smooth. There was a bit of turbulence as we passed through a huge cloud bank just before landing, but even that was nothing too bad.
We landed in Newark 9 minutes late at 2:48pm. Paul met us at the gate as we came off the plane and walked us to Continental's "group room". This is a nice service that the airline provides to groups who have a long time to wait while transferring between flights. Located right next to the VIP lounge at Newark airport, the group room provided a "home base" with free snacks and drinks and a place to sit where we were all together and out of the hair of other people in the airport.
In the group room we met Paul's students and also the third "group" that was part of our tour. That third group included just three people-two adults and one student. They came from the Kansas City area, and they were by far the hardest people in the group to get to know.
The group room was one of many nice features at Newark International Airport. I had heard that this was the nicest of the New York area airports, but I had never flown there before. It really is a nice place. While it's enormous, things are well organized. There are also lots of shops and restaurants to entertain passengers while they wait. They even provide complimentary magazines on the concourses. It certainly beat dealing with the mess and confusion at JFK.
While we waited, many of us in the group changed money. Here was one of the big differences between this trip and going to Europe seventeen years ago. That summer I took travelers' checks and changed them into pesetas, pounds, and escudos (not to mention rubles). Today I changed the cash Margaret had given me from the candy sales into the nearly universal European currency, the euro. For the rest of the trip I just put my ATM card into bank machines in France and Spain and got cash in euros taken directly from my home bank account.
It was certainly convenient to us that at the time of our trip the euro was worth almost exactly one U.S. dollar (actually about €1 = $0.95) . That has to be a bit confusing to people who for most of their life have used currencies that are worth less than a cent, but it worked out great for us.
As money goes, euros are really sort of boring. The euro itself is a two-tone coin about the size of a quarter that is brass on the outside and nickel on the inside (a lot like the Canadian $2 coin). There is also a €2 coin that is just slightly larger than a quarter (the size of new U.S. dollar coins) and is brass on the inside and nickel on the outside. The euro is divided into "euro-cents", and there are three frequently used brass coins worth 50 (just larger than a quarter), 20 (just smaller than a quarter), and 10 (a little larger than a dime) euro-cents. There are also three copper coins worth 5 (the size of a nickel), 2 (exactly the size of a penny), and 1 (smaller than a dime) euro-cents. The 5's are used pretty often, but no one other than banks and grocery stores ever seems to use 2's or 1's. All the coins have a number with their value and a map of Europe on one side. On the other side there is a design representing one of the countries of Europe-not unlike the state designs on the back of our quarters. Some countries, like France, have the same design on the back of every coin; others, like Spain, have different designs on different coins. No matter what country a coin is from, though, you can spend it in any country that uses euros.
The euro bills are actually less interesting than the coins. There are really only three bills that people use with any frequency. First there is a tiny banknote (about two-thirds as long as our bills and slightly less wide) in a dull blue color that is worth €5. There is also a pink €10 note that is exactly the width of our bills, but not quite as long. The €20 note is larger than our bills and comes in a bright blue color. They also have bills worth €50, €100, €200, and €500, but even the fifty is rarely used. In fact, stores don't seem to like to accept twenties unless your bill is well over €10.
The only word that appears on European currency is "euro". The bills have numbers with their value and then say both "EURO" and "EYPO" to communicate the type of currency in west European languages and in Greek. You won't see any people on the bills, either (although some of the countries put people on their coin designs). The fronts of the bills feature arches and doorways, while the backs show bridges. None of the arches or bridges actually exists in the real world, either. They merely represent various architectural styles that can be found throughout Europe.
Euro bills are high security banknotes. Like all foreign money they are printed in numerous colors, which makes them much harder to counterfeit. Every bill-even the fives-include a hologram strip down the side. There is also a reflective metallic stripe on the back that gives the value of the note. There is a security thread down the middle of each bill and a watermark with the same door or arch seen on the front. The value in the corner of each bill is also printed with part of the number on the front and the rest on the back. You can only see the whole number when you hold it up to the light. There are even a number of invisible features. For instance, each bill has apparently is magnetically recorded with its own serial number. All that makes even the new U.S. currency seem hopelessly old-fashioned by comparison.
Well, enough about euros-on with the trip! I made one really stupid purchase while waiting at Newark airport. One gift shop had cheap snow globes with the New York skyline that looked interesting to me. Mine lasted all of about five minutes, until I set down my bag (not even very abruptly) and glittery water leaked all over the place. Oh well, at least it was cheap!
We left the group room, waited a while at the gate, and before long it was time for our plane to leave. The plane we were flying overseas on was a brand new Boeing 777. A few years ago public TV did a series called Twenty-First Century Plane about designing and building the 777. I taped that series and re-watched it just before we left on this trip. The "triple seven" is the plane that is replacing the 747 on most international routes. It's actually a little smaller than the 747 (9 seats across in coach, instead of 10), and with just two engines it's much more fuel efficient. There are a lot of nice design features, such as overhead bins that close inward to create additional headroom. The documentary even made a big deal out of the design of the toilet seats, which have a special catch that keeps them from banging down loudly. I checked them out, and they definitely are quiet.
This is really the first computer-age aircraft. Until the 777, virtually every commercial plane derived from either the 747 (which, believe it or not, was first manufactured 34 years ago) or the 727 (which is as old as I am, with a 1962 birthdate). Other companies copied Boeing's two main airplanes, and Boeing just made improved or differently sized versions of the same basic planes (the 737, for instance, is basically a 727 with a shorter fuselage). The 777 is an entirely new design, and it marked the first time that computer-aided design was used for an entire airplane. It features an all-computerized "fly by wire" system, but a major selling point is that the pilot can (usually with difficulty) override everything the computer wants to do.
Another big selling point is the "entertainment system", which the documentary pointed out actually uses several times more computer power than it takes to fly the plane. Each seat has its own TV screen, built into the back of the seat in front. Each passenger is given complementary headphones (which I mostly didn't use), and a combination control wand and telephone is built into the each armrest. You can choose from a dozen different music programs on the headsets, or you can watch one of five movies or re-runs of various television shows-many of which with bilingual soundtracks on various audio channels. With all the TVs in everyone's seats, when you look forward, the effect is like looking at the electronics section of a department store.
What I mostly kept my TV tuned to was "Channel 0", which featured information on the flight. Mostly they showed maps with the exact location of the plane. We started out flying straight north and then turned to fly directly over Hartford, Providence, and Cape Cod before heading out over the Atlantic. The monitors also showed information on elevation, speed, etc. in both French and English. As we taxied on the ground our elevation was shown as 10 meters (or 33 feet), which is probably the elevation of Newark. We quickly rose to 14,000 feet, then more gradually rose to 32,500-which is when the pilot turned off the seat belt sign. Eventually we leveled off at 37,000 feet. It's weird to think about being more than five miles above the Atlantic Ocean; it certainly made me hope that all those wonderful high-tech features in this new plane worked.
During much of the flight I thought of Charles Lindbergh, and I noted on the maps that our flight plan was almost identical to Lucky Lindy's original trans-Atlantic crossing. He, too, started in suburban New Jersey, and he flew north past Newfoundland and then over the coasts of Iceland and Ireland before entering France at Normandy and cutting inland to Paris. They have the Spirit of St. Louis hanging above the elevated train station at the St. Louis airport, and it's amazing for me to think of anyone flying 50 miles-let alone 5,000-in what really isn't much more than a wicket basket. In The Century Peter Jennings likens the Lindbergh flight to landing on the moon; looking at his plane, it really seems almost a larger accomplishment.
The flight attendants passed out complimentary newspapers and drinks. Then we received warm towelettes to clean up with before dinner. I had chicken for dinner, which was accompanied by peas and carrots with bread pudding for dessert. It soon was night, but a crying kid a couple of rows forward kept me from getting much in the way of sleep.
While I remember getting a fair amount of sleep when I flew to Spain before, I really didn't sleep much at all tonight. Every time I rested my eyes the baby would start screeching again. Eventually I gave up and decided sleep was a lost cause. I figured Lindbergh had stayed awake all the way to Paris, and I could too. I dug out my old high school French book, and I spent pretty much the entire night reading Son et Sens by the light of the in-seat TV monitor. Honestly, that was probably one of the smartest things I could have done. It's been twenty-two years since I last studied French, and cramming through the book really did help me to feel more confident communicating in France. (It also reminded me just how many silly vocabulary phrases language books teach, but that's a different story.)
I would periodically take a break from mumbling French phrases to myself and peer up at the TV to watch our plane progress ever so slowly across the Atlantic. (Actually it was going around 700 mph, but when you can't sleep, that seems like creeping.) They tried to put the location of the plane in perspective by showing cities on the land areas off the Atlantic. Most of these I knew. Toward the beginning of the trip we weren't too far from Halifax and St. John's in Canada, and I had even heard of Godthab in Greenland. We then passed south of Rekjavik, Iceland, and the map changed to show Europe and Africa instead of North America. The European cities they showed were all familiar-first Shannon in western Ireland, then London, Birmingham, Brussels, Paris, Madrid, and Lisbon. I also recognized African cities like Algiers and Tripoli and Casablanca.
What I didn't recognize was Ghat, and every time they showed a map that included Africa Ghat was part of it. I thought at first that this was the French name for a place I might recognize in English, but it was the same name in both languages-G-H-A-T. It bugged me all through the trip that I had no clue where Ghat was (other than someplace in the middle of the Sahara, according to the map). Paul and Margaret had noticed the same place, and they had no clue where Ghat was either. I finally checked when I got home. Let me quote from "Miftah Shamali", which bills itself as "the largest website in North Africa":
Ghat is almost as far away from anywhere as you can get, and you should try to get here. The old city is found on a hillside, but as many other places in the Libyan Sahara, people don't live there anymore. Ghat was earlier a part of the trans-Saharan route and became part of French territory after the Tuareg (the natives of the area) made several attacks into Algeria around the turn of this century. The result is that some people here still understand French. When visiting the old city, it is the mosque you should look out for first. It's everything but splendid, but It does represent the type of simple architecture found in the southern fringes of Sahara. Ghat is also a place to stay when you visit the beautiful Acaus Mountains, not among the highest in Sahara, but competitive with ranges in Algeria and Morocco for example.
I debated about including the tourist information in the quotation, but I figured they so damned the place with faint praise that I simply had to quote it in its entirety. I'm certainly not planning to include Ghat (or anywhere else in Libya, for that matter) on my next trip.
I added to my trans-Atlantic French lesson by reading the bilingual flight information. I learned that "vitesse au sol" means velocity and "heure prevue d'arivee" is "ETA" (estimated time of arrival). It was also not too hard to figure out that "Heure locale a prochaine escale" was the local time at the next stop (in English at the "destination") and "heure local actuelle" was the actual local time.
At 2:30am local time (5:30 in France) the cheery flight crew passed out more hot towelettes, and then it was time for breakfast. Breakfast featured a croissant and fruit cocktail with very tasty melon, as well as the requisite juice and coffee. We were over France by the time dinner was over (when it was 6:15 both locally and at the destination). We descended fairly quickly, and it was not long before we saw mostly farmland below us. The farms continued all the way to our landing-in what seemed an impossibly rural area I'd have guessed was nowhere near a major city.
We landed promptly at 7:00am, which was 45 minutes earlier than the schedule stated but exactly when the ETA on the flight information said we'd arrive. There was a long line at immigration, but things went quite efficiently. There were no questions whatsoever, and while we had to show our passports, most people didn't have them stamped. (In fact the only ones who did were a couple of girls who I think the officers thought were cute.) Things were slightly-but not much-more complicated for people with passports from other places than the U.S.A.
We went to baggage claim and waited quite a while for our luggage to arrive. All the time we saw a piece of tropical fruit going round and round on the carousel. Eventually we saw the bag that it had obviously fallen out of. No one claimed either the lone piece of fruit or the bag, and I had to wonder if it was legal to bring that into France. In America you're not supposed to bring in agricultural products of any sort (because they might spread diseases that could hurt our agriculture), and they're always especially concerned about fresh fruits and vegetables.
We got our luggage and proceeded to the customs area, where we were literally waved through without any question or inspection whatsoever. We then met Cristina, who would be our "courier" for the trip-escorting us throughout France and Spain. Cristina has dual French/Spanish citizenship. Either she was born in France and her parents are Spanish or the other way around. She currently lives in a small town in northwestern Spain, and she speaks both Spanish and French fluently. What she doesn't speak as fluently is English. She does speak it, but she lacks confidence and she lacks a lot of often quite basic vocabulary. She would often start a sentence in English and switch to Spanish or French when she couldn't find the word she wanted. Almost all the adults on the trip spoke Spanish, and we most often found it easiest to communicate with Cristina "en español".
Cristina first led us down an elevator to the basement of Charles de Gaulle Airport. We spent a long while using the restroom and then proceeded to an adjoining parking ramp where we boarded a charter bus to go to our hotel.
My first impression of Paris was that it was really a very dumpy city. Indeed on the outskirts it looks almost like a Third World city. The buildings are very modern, but very cheaply constructed. There's also graffiti everywhere. Even as we got toward the city proper, it still seemed far from the beautiful place I'd heard about. It reminded me a lot of Mexico City (much of which was modeled on Paris), with block after block of look-alike grim gray buildings separated by monumental traffic circles. There's very little green space, not even the sidewalk trees you see in American cities, and the narrow streets gave me claustrophobia. Over the next few days we'd see a lot of Paris, but I still wonder just what it is people find "beautiful" about the place. Of course, I wondered the same thing in San Francisco last summer. At least San Francisco can boast a lovely natural setting, though. The landscape near Paris has all the charm of Omaha; table-flat farmland and a cement-walled river with questionable brown water.
I must temper my comments on Paris' lack of beauty, though, by saying I was pleasantly surprised at how friendly the people of were. I had heard horror stories-mostly from people who had themselves been to France-about the superior attitude Parisians had. Of course, I've heard the same thing about New Yorkers, and I found them to be quite pleasant, too. Without exception every Parisian I dealt with was pleasant, and most went out of their way to be polite and helpful. Pretty much everyone in the group had the same reaction, though some felt the friendliness was just a temporary thing because tourism was down this year. Perhaps that's true, but one way or another I certainly found the people of Paris pleasant, friendly, and helpful.
The Hotel Ambassadeur was on Rue Legendre, which is in the northwest part of Paris. For those who know the city, it's just north of Montmartre. Montmartre is known as a Bohemian district like Greenwich Village in New York. That atmosphere certainly didn't extend out to Rue Legendre, though. Indeed, it would be hard to find a duller street anywhere in the city. It's a very residential area, filled with 10 - 12 story gray apartment buildings. They looked old and dumpy, but my guess would be that they were actually built after World War II. The street itself is one-way, with parking along both sides and room for barely a lane of traffic in the middle. Because traffic can't move easily along it, there's very little traffic. The narrow sidewalks were also mostly deserted. There are businesses on the first floors of most of the buildings, but many of them were closed the entire time we were there (most of which was a weekend, of course). The most interesting business was probably a Pizza Hut franchise about a block from the hotel. It was delivery only-no seating inside at all-and they delivered the pizzas on mopeds.
It was still far to early to check in to the hotel, so we just dumped our luggage and went out to see the city. Cristina led us down Rue Legendre probably about half a mile to a strange seven-way intersection with an entrance ("Guy Môquet") to the Paris metro.
People who have read these travelogues before know that I like subways and other public transportation. I had read a lot about the Paris metro and had heard it described in glowing superlatives as if it were the finest transit system on earth. From all the build-up, I was really looking forward to it. While it wasn't really a disappointment, I certainly can't say it was anywhere close to the best system I've ever taken. It's old and dirty, and it's confusing and not very user-friendly. It's one of two systems I've used (New York was the other) that I'd say had too many lines. Instead of one good way to get from one place to another, there are many adequate ways. The map is confusing, and complicating things more is the fact that there are actually two competing underground train systems that are shown on the same map.
To use the metro we had to first buy tickets. Cristina instructed us to buy the 10-ride passes (€9.60). I assumed we would get a fare card encoded to work for ten rides. Instead we each got ten individual tickets. To enter the metro we had to scan these in a high-security turnstile. It intrigued me that while it would be next to impossible for someone to jump the turnstiles at the entrances, there were numerous unattended exits to the Paris metro where they just had gates that often didn't close properly. Over the next couple of days I saw lots of people sneaking in without paying at those exits.
Cristina herded us to a platform and instructed us that we would be taking the train two stops to "Place de Clichy". What she didn't tell us was that in order to get in the cars we had to turn a lever to open the doors. I'd never seen that before; on every other subway I've taken the doors just opened automatically. We managed to get on okay, though, and before long we had reached Place de Clichy.
Place de Clichy was nowhere near our ultimate destination. (Indeed, Cristina didn't tell us what that ultimate destination was until we got there.) This time she herded us down a maze of narrow tunnels to transfer to another line. We went six stops to "Charles de Gaulle-Etoile" and then transferred again in an even bigger maze of tunnels. We went six more stops and got out at "Bir Hakeim", an elevated station on a bridge over the Siene River. We went through one of those unguarded exits and then walked about four blocks to our first destination for the day, the Eiffel Tower.
The Fodor's guide book to Paris says "the Eiffel Tower could be a cliché, but it isn't." There's actually some truth in that statement. While it is the ultimate tourist trap, it's also a monument that has stood the test of time. Later in the trip our local guide told us that they had taken a poll of people all over the European Union, asking them what they thought was the best symbol of Europe. Apparently the Eiffel Tower ended up #1 on that list.
We spent most of the morning at the Eiffel Tower. Most of the kids went up to the top-which required a wait for tickets and then another wait for the elevator. I've been to the top of other tall things, and I decided I could do without waiting in line all morning. So I, along with most of the other adults, waited in the gravel plaza below while the kids admired the low-rise Paris skyline.
Much of the time during our wait we were assaulted by Middle Eastern vendors mostly attempting to sell us packages of postcards and tin keychains shaped like the tower. Everything was impossibly cheap (mostly €1 or €2), and before long we found out why. A police car pulled into the plaza, and as if someone had shot off a starter's pistol the vendors were off like a light and instantly scattered in all directions. They obviously were not authorized to be there, and as long as the cops were around they didn't re-appear. As soon as the police left though, the vendors were back hawking their trinkets.
It fascinated me that the vendors seemed to know instinctively what language all the tourists spoke. They cried out "two euro" to us, while saying "deux" to other visitors. A lot of people who dealt with tourists in France seemed to have that instinct. It may be that most Americans are just larger than most Europeans (both taller and fatter), which makes it easy to target us as English-speakers. I saw people quickly identify Spaniards and Germans, too though, so it may just be a skill one picks up in a place where so many languages are common.
I killed some time buying cheap souvenirs (like a €3 coffee mug) and expensive ice cream (also €3-for a single scoop). I walked all around the plaza several times, and eventually the kids finished their sightseeing and it was time to be on our way.
The Missouri ladies had been to France before, and they were certain there was a matro station closer than Bir-Hakeim. Cristina seemed less than totally familiar with the Paris metro, and she believed them. So we walked ... and walked ... and walked ... and walked - all to get to the "closer" station. We crossed the Siene and then walked almost straight uphill, pausing briefly in the plaza of the Palais de Chaillot (a sort of national museum of everything that is leftover from a world's fair in 1937). From there you can get the standard "Japanese tourist" photo of the Eiffel Tower, and there were scores of Japanese tourists doing exactly that. In fact, I have a picture of one of them taking a picture of his wife posing with the tower in the background.
After having walked noticeably further than we had walked from Bir-Hakeim we eventually came to Trocadero station. We made our way back to Guy Môquet (making two wrong turns en route-as I said, Cristina didn't seem to know the Paris metro terribly well), and finally walked back to the hotel.
The Hotel Ambassadeur is certainly not going to win many awards for excellence. It's officially a three-star hotel, though I have no idea whatsoever what that means in France. The lobby features a small check-in desk with vending machines selling over-priced drinks and snacks (like cans of pop for €2 each). There are two small sitting rooms adjacent, with well-worn furniture and faded wallpaper. A tiny cage elevator and a steep staircase lead upstairs to the rooms.
Paul and I stayed in Room 21, which was on the second floor-that is, the floor we in America would call the third floor, two floors up from street level. Like most European hotels, this room featured two single beds (double beds are almost unheard of in Europe). The only other piece of furniture in the main part of the room was a marble topped desk that blocked access to the tiny balcony. There were four doors in the room. One led to the hall, and a second was a microscopic closet. The third led to a room that was barely larger than a closet. Inside it were a sink and a bidet. The fourth door, next to the balcony, led to a tiny room that housed the toilet and an item I suppose you'd call a bathtub. I phrase things that way because it was one of the most awkward things I've ever seen. It was a porcelain tub about three feet high (noticeably higher than American bathtubs) and not much more than 3 feet square on the bottom. It was literally impossible to sit inside the tub, but there was a small ledge at the end where you could sit as you washed. There was also a hand-held showerhead, but no shower curtain or any other way to keep water from splashing all over the room. To top things off, there was a large window just above the tub that would have afforded anyone across the street a "lovely" view of the bather.
That window pretty much had to be open, though, because there was no air conditioning in the room. It was in the mid 30s Celsius (lower 90s Farenheit), and we definitely wanted any ventilation we could get.
Another strange feature of the room was its lack of trash disposal. Most hotel rooms have at least one wastebasket, and two is pretty standard. Size varies, but you can usually get rid of at least a bit of ordinary garbage. We searched and searched, but there were not real wastebaskets in our room. What we ended up using was a tiny covered bin that I'm pretty sure was intended for disposal of feminine hygiene products. It would certainly not hold any real quantity of trash, but it was the best we could find.
We washed up and rested just a bit, and then everyone went their own way for lunch. Paul and I took the metro back to Place de Clichy, where we lunched at a French fast food place named Quick. While looking up some things before this trip I had come across Quick's website, and I thought it would be an interesting place to eat. They have over 300 restaurants in France, and I knew the one at Place de Clichy was near our hotel.
Both Paul and I had value meals. Mine was what they called a "menu salade", which meant that instead of fries, I got a very tasty salad. Most of their menu items had English names, which I found really interesting. The only other place I've been where they spoke French was Quebec, and there have a bit of an attitude in the way they give everything a French name. In France, though, my sandwich was called "le long-chicken". The hardest part about ordering it was trying to figure out how to say "long-chicken" with a French accent.
While I waited in line I carefully rehearsed exactly what I was going to say when ordering. Everything went fine until the woman at the counter said something in French, and I had no clue whatsoever what she said. I was pondering "do you want fries with that", but realized the menu salade didn't come with fries. She repeated what she had said again, and I just shrugged. Then she said in broken English "you eat here?"-which is, of course, the other likely question at the end of a fast food order. I quickly and sheepishly said "oui", and before long I had my chicken sandwich and salad.
The counter attendant was a young black woman I'd assume had immigrated from one of the former French colonies in Africa. There are a lot of black people in Paris-not as many as you'd see in most big American cities, but probably a higher percentage than you'd find in Des Moines or Minneapolis. There were absolutely no non-white people in either Spain or Russia on my previous trip to Europe, so it surprised me to see so many in Paris.
If I were visiting France on my own, I would live on fast food. It's one of the few ways you can eat cheaply there. The value meals at all the fast food places are all under €5, as compared to the fixed-price menus at "real" restaurants which start at €10 and go up and up. (The other cheap food is at hole-in-the-wall take-out places that serve baguette sandwiches or Asian food. Their prices are comparable to fast food.)
It was not too hard to figure out that mad cow disease was still on the minds of European consumers. While hamburgers were still on the menu (indeed, that's what Paul had at Quick), the fast food places in Europe did everything they possibly could to distance themselves from beef. McDonalds, Burger King, and local places like Quick were all pushing their salads and their chicken, pork, and fish items. They also push snack foods and desserts, as opposed to full meals. For those who do want hamburgers, all the fast food places have posters and flyers certifying the purity of their beef.
While it was two metro stops away, Place de Clichy was really just a short walk from our hotel. Paul and I walked back, and then he rested in the hotel room while I went out and explored the neighborhood.
The first place I went was an ATM. This was a major change and a major improvement from my last trip to Europe. Instead of waiting in line and going through endless paperwork at a bank, I did all my money changes electronically. The first question European ATMs ask is what language you want to use. They don't actually have words, but rather pictures of the flags of France, England, Spain, Germany, and one or two other nations. I pressed the button next to the Union Jack, and the rest was easy. The only real difference between using an ATM in Europe and in America is that the European machines never ask you what account (checking or savings) you want to take your money from; it just comes out of checking automatically. The added bonus of getting money from an ATM overseas is that there are no exchange charges. Unlike banks which charge commission of about $5 on every transaction, the ATM just exchanges the money at the going rate. They don't even have the usage fees American bank machines do. Since I pretty much assumed a euro and a dollar were equal in value and the machines exchanged without commission, every price was actually about 5% off the price I thought of in dollars.
The background music on this page is the '70s hit "Top of the World" by the Carpenters. It seemed appropriate for an airplane flight.