Yawn! Was I ever sleepy!

We got into Münster right on time at 5.55 Tuesday morning, 14 October, and consequently had to hustle through our onboard breakfast to disembark on time. The wagon attendant came and opened our compartment door and said, “It is coming Münster and you must go.” In our haste I left my glasses behind, but luckily remembered them when I stepped onto the platform. I had just enough time to dash back aboard and run down the corridor to our compartment. I had laid them on my backpack so I wouldn’t forget them, but in the haste of leaving, they fell off on the floor. Good thing we didn’t smush them as we dashed out the door. They already had to have their arms replaced when the right arm fell off in Munich.

I slept a bit on the regional train to Leer, which was good as I couldn’t get to sleep the night before, which is unusual as I generally sleep quite well on the trains. At one point I checked my watch and it said 3.30. Ugh!

I had a nice treat Monday night when our Thalys train from Paris pulled into Bruxelles (Brussels). Tomas Grönberg, a longtime friend whom I met at the end of my college summer of study in Sweden, was waiting on the platform to say hi! He is a Swede who works for the European Union in Bruxelles. That was so nice of him, considering our transfer time was less than half an hour. It was good to see him, though. I really didn’t expect that he’d drag himself to the station at that hour. I had received e-mail from him last week saying his mother, who had been very sweet to me when I visited his family in Lappland, had passed away, and they had to put his dad in an old folks’ home. I mentioned I was in Europe and would be passing through, so he asked for our train schedule.

But first, a review of our visit to Paris:

We arrived on the TGV from Noirmoutier at the Montparnasse station and took the Métro up to Gare du Nord, the north station. One of the inconveniences of the Parisienne railroad layout is that you come and go from different stations all over the perimeter of town. There’s no, nice, handy, “central station” as you find in many other major European cities.

As our Monday night departure would be from Gare du Nord, we left our backpacks in a locker there, taking only what we’d need for our one night in town. We took the Métro to Place de République and, I was proud to say, I unerringly led us right to the Hotel du Nord where I had stayed in 2004. It is a very tidy, quaint, friendly little boutique hotel. Our room was comfortably furnished with two beds, a couple chairs, an armoire, and a nice, big bathroom with shower. It overlooked a narrow, chimney-like courtyard that soared up five stories. As it was only about 2 metres across, we could see into apartments in the builing behind us. We left our stuff in our fourth floor room and set out to see Paris.

After the wonderful hospitality of Noirmoutier, Paris was a bit of a letdown. It really is overrated and overpopulated by tourists. Maybe if we had gone there before visiting our joyous sister city, Paris would’ve struck us differently. Paris has that New Orleans-esque aroma, a melange of pee, food, and trash on the sidewalk awaiting pick up. David took to saying, “ah, oui-oui,” when we’d pass through a urine-scented place, which was not an infrequent occurrence, particularly in the Métro station tunnels.

Fortunately we had nice weather and it was pleasant walking around. Sunday was T-shirt weather, in fact. David didn’t want to do the real touristy things, which pretty much eliminates doing anything in Paris, but I, too, was content just to walk around. It was as much fun watching the gaping tourists as it was seeing the world-famous landmarks they were mobbing. I was actually surprised to find so many tourists in mid-October. If it is that crowded in the fall, I shudder to think what it’s like in mid-summer. I didn’t recall it being that bad in mid-August 2004.

We went first to the Île de Cité, an island in the Seine River and the most visited section, which includes Notre Dame and other popular attractions. We looked at the cathedral, including a quick breeze through, around and out the other side. David didn’t want to climb the tower with the mobs, so we headed on to the Memorial to the Deported, which was interesting. There were no signs explaining the admission procedure, however, so whenever anyone would walk up to see what the line was about or to see if there was any posted information, a grumpy guard would yell at them to get off the grass. I thought he might better serve visitors by being at the rear of the line politely explaining the admission procedure, but then he couldn’t yack with the other guard as easily. The memorial, by the way, is very somber and moving and worth a visit, despite the grumpy guards yelling at anyone not familiar with the admission procedure.

We crossed over into the Latin Quarter and strolled along the river, where numerous booksellers traditionally set up their stalls. Most also hawk tourist junk, including reproductions of old French posters for can-can shows and cabarets. I started to take a picture of a middle-aged woman’s paintings she had exhibited by hanging on the railing of the bridge across the river, but she freaked and ran up to tell me they were all private. David and I couldn’t figure out why she’d hang them out for all to see in one of the city’s most touristy places if they were so private. Must be a Parisian thing. My French friend Alain, who lives on the Côte d’Azur, had warned me about the Parisienne attitude a few years ago, so I was more amused than taken aback. “They don’t just hate foreigners,” Alain assured me. “They hate everybody, including other French.”

Crossing back onto the Isle de Cité, we walked to Ste. Chapelle, the 13th-century church with the fantastic stained glass windows. David didn’t want to go in, so he walked around the neighborhood while I waited in the ticket line. The ground floor is pretty in an overwrought sort of way and is mostly dominated by a large souvenir shop, but after you go up the small spiral staircase to the chapel level, it is breathtakingly magnificent. The celebrated stained glass windows just soared, bathing the sanctuary with a magnificent bluish light. It was packed with visitors, including a couple tour groups, and the din was remarkable, especially for a church.

I was probably the only photographer obeying the “no flash” signs, but my pix still came out nicely: I just used the plethora of flashes from everyone elses’ cameras. Afterward we saw the famous Sunday bird market across the street from the Prefecture of Police. (That building is where Inspector Clouseau worked, but we didn’t see him. Maybe he was on patrol. “Do you have a leesahnce for that minky?”) At the bird market I wanted to ask a vendor if he provided any recipes with the sale of a bird. Nearby was one of the classic Art Nouveau Métro station entrances, which led to a fascinating station designed in stainless steel with a distinct nautical feel, including oversized nuts and bolts seemingly holding everything together.

In the late afternoon and early evening we walked around the Tuilleries Garden and looked at the Louvre. I.M. Pei’s pyramid doesn’t look so out of place in person, but still doesn’t belong there. The garden was a welcome respite from the mobs of tourists that populated the other places we’d visited. Here locals strolled, played with kids, tossed balls, and visited. At the other end of the garden, opposite the Louvre and a smaller, less imposing arch than the “de Triomphe,” was the Place du Concord, where there had been an exhibit and conference of aerospace and aircraft vendors. There were a bunch of oversized aircraft and rocket models, plus cockpit mock-ups on display. Quite a change. During the Revolution, this was where the heads would roll. The obelisk in the center is Paris’ oldest monument, so says Let’s Go.

Blue lights had been hung on all the lampposts down the Champs Elysées, with white strobes that chased down the street to the Place du Concord. We watched the evening lights come on, snapped a few pix, then headed by Métro back to the Place de République. Dinner was near the hotel at Café Pierre, a nice restaurant with a sidewalk café. The entire Place de République area has many, many restaurants. We didn’t eat outside because Paris’ new no-smoking laws have forced all the smokers to the sidewalks. Though they’ve cut back ever so slightly, it will be a long time before Parisiennes completely quit the vile, lung-searing cigarettes they like. Inside, though, it was rather hot, and the stench of those nasty, pungent French cigarettes wafted in anyway. I had a nice, big green salad and pan grilled steak tartare with remoulade. Isn’t that funny: grilled tartare? Sorta defeats the intent of eating a mound of raw cow meat.

Monday we took the Métro to Place de Concord and walked up the Champs Elysées. It was a beautiful, sunny day and the boulevard was loaded with strollers. Workers were dismantling the tents and barricades that had been erected for the big international aerospace conference, and had already taken down the blue lights hung from the lampposts. We came across a Virgin Megastore and I did a little damage to my debit card, but got some great stuff. I found a soundtrack to The Man from Rio, a Jean-Paul Belmondo film, for which I’ve been searching for years. It made the visit all worthwhile. I also now have The Sound of Music on DVD in French!

At the Arc de Triomphe the tourists were out in force. I had fun videotaping people taking pictures. As it was so crowded David didn’t want to climb to the top, so we headed down the Avenue Kleber, stopping to pick up sammiches and a chocolate-almond flaky pastry for dessert for our lunches. We took them to a bench below the Palais de Chaillot, which is the only building left from the 1938 or ‘39 world’s fair. It is at the end of the big linear park in the middle of which the Eiffel Tower sits. Some kids were playing a game behind us in the sunny park. It was rather nice and relaxing. We noticed an interesting phenomenon: all over the touristy sites we came across a bunch of African immigrants selling models of the Eiffel Tower of various sizes, which they had strung on strings for ease of carrying. The guys laughed and joked and called out to each other across the plazas. Must be some sort of concession just for them.

We then walked under the tower, and finally over to les Invalides, as I wanted to see Napoleon’s tomb. We got there a bit before 5 p.m., but by the time we got oriented, they had closed the church, so I didn’t get to see where Nappy is laid to rest. We sat in the Invalides garden for a while, deciding what to do next. Stores and sites were closing and we didn’t have to be back at the north station until 9 p.m. to get our bags from the locker. (You have to go through a metal detector and send your stuff through an X-ray to get in the locker room, so we wanted to allow plenty of time for hassles before catching our 9.55 train.)

We decided to take a Métro to the Montmartre area to watch the sun go down. The street up to the Sacre Couer was horribly mobbed by both tourists and numerous tourist junk shops, but also several second-hand clothes stores packed with Middle Eastern and African-looking women. Clothes fell off the racks and from the massive piles stacked on tables, some pieces falling onto the sidewalk and into the gutter, as the women scrabbled over the bargains. It was nasty. We avoided that street on the way back down.

I finally got to look inside the Sacre Couer, which we had missed during the Paris Death March of August 2004, in which Dr. Mike, a New Orleans friend dragged my friends Joe, Troy and me to many of the sites around town in just one day. A Mass was being celebrated, so we politely kept to the rear of the church just while admiring the somewhat plain interior. Suddenly a little Indian or Pakistani man with lax personal hygiene habits accosted me because I was carrying my video camera. It is something I had been doing all along, rather than putting it away and taking it out again whenever I saw something interesting to tape.

I had forgotten to switch it off from taping outside, so the green “ready” light was on (though not the red “record” light) and he must’ve thought I was taking illegal video. Never mind that any footage would’ve been upside down, as using the hand strap, which is an easier position to carry it, the camera hangs top down. He was quite indignant and kept saying “La liege, la liege.” We still have no clue what he meant. Maybe he was going to summon the king. He kept trying to pull my camera from my hand, which I was not about to let him do. Finally he made me play the tape back to prove I wasn’t taping in his church. When he saw video of kids playing in the fountain below the church, he was satisfied, his attitude changed immediately and he said I was now very welcome to visit. I told him I wasn’t used to being treated like some sort of criminal in a house of God and had no further interest in visiting his grubby church, and we left. So there.

We had a few more Métro tickets to use so we went back to Notre Dame to see it at night. We actually enjoyed the stroll along the Seine and around the one of of the island before heading to the station and getting our packs. It is a prettier city by night, especially when the hoards of tourists who are out by day vanish to wherever they go. (Where do they all vanish to?) By then we, David in particular, were about over Paris and were looking forward to our departure.

The underground locker room at Gare du Nord was also considerably less hectic at night. In fact, it was all but deserted. The guards were by themselves, laughing and talking. When I set off the metal detector, the large, smiling guard just said “is OK” and let me in. When we got to the Thalys platform, our train had just been posted, so we boarded, showing our tickets to a real character of a wagon attendant. We had onboard Internet service, which took several tries to set up, but ultimately worked. But by then the battery wore out and my laptop shut itself down. I had to finish up the next morning in my friend Ed’s spacious apartment, which overlooks Leer’s main square. We had arrived in Ostfriesland, a markedly different section of Germany on the North Sea coast. The language here is Plattdeutsch, and the culture is friendly, hospitable and relaxed, particularly after Paris. We eagerly awaited our visit to a place that was new for both of us.