Saturday, August 13, 2011

The search for a caramel sundae!

After a poor sleep, I'm not used to the noises of the city and another person in the room nor going to bed so physically exhausted at 2:30AM, we got up and ready and went to find Sherrin and Liam. We were eager to swap stories from the night before.

Breakfast was pain au raisin from a boulangerie down on Avenue des Gobelins before deciding on a rough plan of attack for the day. Given the logistical challenges of getting Liam on to the underground, although there were 3 of us, we opted to do as much walking as we could. While we were on our way to Les Jardins de Luxembourg the skies opened up signal ing that it was time for coffee. Hey - when Mother Nature gives you a sign, you listen!

We hit the gardens a short time later and they proved to be a real find. I love green spaces wherever I travel and this was an oasis in a concrete jungle. What pleased Andrew and Liam most was the fountain where they were sailing mini-sailboats that you could rent for 2€/30mins. Andrew was in there like the big kid he is but we kept having to watch the little kid as he tried to climb over the edge and get to the boats!

We stopped for crepes, candies and toys on the way out at one of the old-fashioned and adorable little kiosks. While waiting we heard, then saw, a cat caught up a tree. I actually got a video of it working it's way down the tree which was pretty cool. Too bad no pompiers had to be called...I would have enjoyed the 'scenery'!

There is an incredible variation in prices of things in Paris and the first restaurant we inteded to have lunch at had 5€ cokes and coffees. NEXT! None were great but we found one a little bit more reasonably prices just as the skies opened up once again. It turned out at those two sets of showers, for coffee and for lunch, were the only ones of the day and it turned into our first collective nice, summer day.

The afternoon had Sherrin on a mission to find this amazing little tea shop she'd been to before. iPhones are quite the inventions! It had moved from before so we wandered around on a hunt and found it. Success. Then on to hang out at the grounds of Notredame. Once again the lines were ridiculous and we opted to just sit and people watch. By that time I was sleep walking anyway and I was desperate for a nap. Fortunately so was Liam!

We had dinner at Le Manufacture, not our hotel but the restaurant across the way. What is it with the French wanting their meat so rare. COOK the hamburger please! Ah well, the service was good and quick (!) and when we left it was Liam's bedtime and time for Andrew and I to make our way to the Lido for the 21h30 show.

Only...it wasn't enough time. We tried to take the metro but went into an entrance where you couldn't buy tickets. Crossing the street to another entrance and looking at the time, we opted for a cab ride. It turned out to be a very expensive cab ride, 30€, but she got us there with little time to spare before the show and she was quite entertaining to speak to and practice my French with.

The Lido show was quite something. I'd heard it was a classier version of Le Moulin Rouge. Sounded promising despite my initial gasp at the price tag of 100€. I let Andrew make the call if he was game for that and he said okay, so off we went.

We were seated moments after it had started on the balcony at the very back in a little booth with a bottle of champagne chilling. While I don't normally like champagne, I have to say that this was actually pretty darned good. The show was enjoyable though it was obvious the chorus dance performers didn't really have their hearts in it. Perhaps the toll of two shows a day has taken the sparkle of it from them. And the main star, I hate to say it, was a bad singer. I'd expected more from a principle character but the 'more' came in an unparalleled way with the set design.

I've never been to a show that had a mock up of a Thai temple revolving up and out of the floor with the lowest level of statues actually dancers. While that was impressive, I wasn't expecting the Lippizaner stallion (aka the prancing ponies) to hippity-hop across the stage, the ice rink to come up a couple of numbers later and get treated to a mini pairs figure skating routine, nor the acrobat in the tighty-whities swirling and spinning on two curtains. Amazing! All in all it was a really good night out and a great show.

After the show we wandered up and down the Champs d'Elysees to see the Arc de Triomphe and across the Seine to get a better look at the Eiffel Tower. We'd planned on taking the metro there but it was closed for repairs. So we walked to the next station to take us to the Place d'Italie. In the end we took the metro 6 stops and walked the rest of the way back to the hotel with one important side-trip. The acquisition of the coveted caramel ice-create, sundae was only complete at 01h30, and our thrid McDonald's stop and just before closing. It tasted so good. ..as did the fries and Andrew's burger that we ended up adding to the order since we'd certainly earned it.

Friday, August 12, 2011

Pari-Roulant!



I had to work today. My heart wasn't in it but my to-do list was long. I spent all morning getting through about 80% of them, after that I would pack, work, shower, work, dry my hair, work. It was good that the morning was so prodcutive because the afternoon sure wasn't!



And yet...with all that time to prepare and pack it is BY FLUKE that I happened to look in my wallet by the door when my shoes were on and I was ready to go that I thought to have one last, unsuccessful look for my PADI card and found my driver's licence just sitting there. OOPS! I kinda need that! Cripes, if I had forgotten that, renting cars (which is the plan for nearly 2 weeks!) would have been niet mogelijk!!! Phew!

Met Sherrin at HS, met Andrew in Rotterdam. We hopped on to car 18 and Liam had a mini meltdown. It proved fortunate in the end since we initially just tried to stay out of people's way and find places to put our luggage. In the end we found the quiet and out of the way customs car. It was rather private - by design! Shaded doors and handcuff hooks on the wall suggest this isn't a place you want to HAVE to sit but it worked out well for us because the conductor let us stay and it was our own, very comfortable private car. Hurrah!

Andrew and I didn't have much time between arriving in Paris and the start of the Pari-Roulante start time of 10PM from Gare de Montparnasse. We managed to all cab it to the hotel, ditch our stuff, change and cab it over to the station.

We knew we were in the right place because we started to see more and more people with roller blades. It was so exciting to be a part of this. They have had crowds of up to 20000 people before. I'd say that the 12th of August, and the full moon no less, started with maybe 1000 and filtered down to 300ish by the end at 1AM.

I was initially quite cautious. I hadn't bladed in a while and wasn't used to the crowds. There were hot shots weaving in and out of the crowds and just givin'er! I had to watch the people around me and the pavement which varied in quality from recently resurfaced patches which were so nice to skate on, to pot-holes, to cobbles that had been paved but the pavement was coming off to no-getting-around-it, serious-foot-numbing cobbles. When we got off the first patch of cobbles it was funny as everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief!

It was amazing to tear through town like this. I originally though we might skate around Paris, but no...we skated through Paris. What a great way to be a tourist! We went past the Arc de Triomphe, the Eiffel Tower, Notredame, and many other places I want to trace on a map. We had many little breaks through the night as they gathered the skaters prior to blocking off traffic at the more major intersections. The longer break took place at the Place de Vendome.


It was around that time, an hour and a half in=halfway, that Andrew and I were both feeling quite tired. It would have been okay to stop then. I'd loved every minute of it until then, despite the appearance of a few ambulances along the way...not surprising really! In any case, as we both pushed each other to keep going for one more break, we got to the point that the 3hour mark and 30km finish line were so close that we figured we might as well finish. And we did! Hurrah...now for celebration drinks!
       
Before drinks, though, I had planted the seed about a McDonald's caramel sundae. We were both fixated on that and terribly disappointed that they were closed at 1AM and we'd missed them by 15mins. So a beer for Andrew and a piƱa colada for me to toast our fabulously fun night had to suffice.