| Here is a trip I was completely unprepared for. Good thing Sophia was. |
| Arriving at the airport in Paris seemed like all was going well. When I went to get my luggage off the carosel, thank god no one wanted to inspect it. Upon pulling off my large suitcase, there was a little bit of gel oozing from the zipper line. Turns our I had packed some pear hand soap in my suitcase, and the altitude didn't agree with the bottle. So it pretty much exploded all over my clothes in my suitcase. And wow, did it have a STRONG scent of some cosmetic pear smell to it. So walking out of the airport, not knowing how to catch a shuttle to the airport, I was greeted with a military truck of troops, who pushed us back to a wall area off to the side of the shuttle bus area. We stood there for about an hour waiting for them to do whatever it was they were doing. Of course, not speaking French, wasn't able to ask a lot of questions. Ran into a couple that had been traveling to UK and France, and said they were happy to go home(not promising), so had someone that spoke english to talk too for a bit. |
| After standing around the shuttle area for about another hour, and having a hard time asking anyone for help on finding the shuttle, turns out more people were coming up to me asking me questions(I didn't think I looked French). Somehow I made my way onto a bus that I thought was a shuttle. Apparently not. The bus got to a certain area, and then kicked us off. The bus driver tried his best at english to tell me to walk back to the terminal and check again(yes, literally, couldn't help me but point me back to the terminal, grrrr). Walking into the terminal area on the opposite side, I caught glimpse of a sign that said "Hotel Shuttles". What a break. So I went outside, to find mini shuttle buses, and the hotel we were staying at was one of them. Apparently they were dropping some folks off to catch their flight. I got lucky cause the next shuttle wouldn't have come for another 2 hours as they stop coming around 10 in the morning until 2:30 in the afternoon, and it was 12:30 when I got out there. Riding back to the hotel, was able to check in, and the receptionist was very friendly, and was collecting currency of all sorts so was able to give her some US change. Apparently, when you make hotel reservations, there are extra charges you have to pay after booking and paying for the hotel. Thankfully I had gotten some Euro's at the Los Angeles airport while I was there. It wasn't much, like 1 - 2 Euro's(Around 3 US dollars). |
| In the hotel room, while waiting for Sophia to arrive on her flight around 7 in the evening, I camped out in the bathroom and started opening my suitcase that had pear soap all over it. The smell was pretty bad at that high of a concentration. I proceed to do laundry in the bathroom for an hour. Having to ring out 4 shirts, 2 jeans, and swimming shorts. After emptying the suitcase out, I attempted to wash it out in the bathtub, making a mess everywhere. Ughh. Took me like 10 rinse and sprays, and suitcase was quite large, and still could not scrub out all the lotion from the seams. Had clothes hanging all over the room to try and dry them out, really looked tacky. |
| Picking Sophia up at the airport was a little easier now that I knew the shuttle bus service times. I found where she would be arriving, and waited for a bit. Was able to see her through the glass divider, and was easy to spot. Grabbed her luggage and walked out to the shuttle area(this time I knew exactly where to go). While waiting for the next shuttle, was asked by 2 people about information about other hotels/shuttles. I tried to "guess" the best I could about the shuttle service. I think I was wrong on both occasions.. Sorry folks. Finally at the hotel room, and was able to start resting well. We went down to the hotel dining room for dinner, and thankfully, english was ok for the server who was very busy with his couple of tables(the place wasn't very busy). They did give us a creme brulae dessert, which they wrapped for us so we could take it up to the room. |
| Waking up in the morning. With me being unprepared, was contemplating how to hail a taxi(there weren't any in the area.). Sophia knew about the train that ran to the airport, and the fact we couldn't get tickets through a kiosk, we had to get them through a real person who could run a credit card from America(apparently Europe credit cards are different). Got the tickets, and got on the train. Sophia had printed up a map of the entire metro system, and knew about connecting areas, and roughly where to get off at points we were going too. Challenge 1(find our first hotel in downtown Paris). Ok, so we got off the train, and made our way out of the station, to which we did not know where to go really once we got out. Street names were not really well marked, and a lot of shrubbery obscured a lot of things. I went into a korean BBQ bar, and asked the bartender for directions, and he said to get back on the train, and ride a couple stations away. After rechecking with Sophia, we thought that sounded wrong. She grabbed lady walking by, and asked her. She chuckled and pointed accross the street and said it was right there(which it was). Funny. |
| Hotel was nice, 6 floors, we were up on the 5th this round, but not with a nice Window view, but we weren't really there for the site from the hotel room, so was not a problem. Room was pretty small, was almost like in the corner that they added on, but worked for what we needed. Was also not noise proof, could hear people out in the hallways pretty easy, and there were only 7 rooms on the floor. The folks working at the hotel were great, and gave us maps and pointers to places nearby we could check out. We found small local grocery stands selling strawberries and cherries, so we grabbed bottle water and some fruits, and dropped them back off at the hotel for evening snacks. |
| Sophia, being prepared again, got us back on the Train, and we headed out to see Notre Dame Cathedral. It was huge, and a lot of people in line that stretched all the way back to some birds we found. Couple 100 yards long line, and it looked like it might be a while. The line moved very quickly, and we were able to get in and look around. Lots of candles, and small cubby sections with interesting works or arts in them. Even a model of how the Cathedral was built. They had a Chandalier I guess from way back in the days on display as well. We also waited a little bit while a ceremony of some sort was going on with smoke and sermons. Looks like they had an area on the roof, but we didn't find out how to get there. When we got back out, Sophia wanted to take a picture of the bike taxi(so cute). There was a raised platform out in front we started taking pictures of each other as best we could fit it in behind us. |
| Getting back on the train, we headed to the Eiffel Tower for next stop. As usual, SOphia knew exactly where to go. Getting off, it was a little bit of a walk, but as we got closer to it, we stopped for some pictures. The path we were walking on was a wide dirt path, so was able to get some room to fit us and the eiffel tower in the picture. It was getting more towards the afternoon(around 5), so the sun was starting to hit parts of it. As we got closer, we could see the line that stretched so far back, we couldn't see the end of it. We crossed the bridge instead to the other side of the river, where we took a few more photo's. There must of been 30-40 vendors on the bridge trying to sell little metal Eiffel Towers. There were some large fountains on that side we didn't get a chance to get up close and look at, but looked like quite a show. We made our way back across the bridge, and went down to check on a boat ride. It was only $30 a person for a ride, so we got a couple tickets. The boat ride was an hour loong, and we saw a lot of places, including places we would be going too in the next day or 2. Sadly, the camera Sophia had ran out of power, so we kind of stopped short of taking pictures. No worries though, we had my camera, so all is good. We ended up going to Japanese Sushi place for dinner, where the server could speak(or so he said 4 languages, French, English, Chinese and Japanese), but we didn't put him to the test. |
| Getting back to the hotel and resting up for the night, we then headed off to the Louve Museum. This place was super huge and very busy(dozens of large tour groups). The line was very long, and not very clear about how to get tickets to enter. We walked by a VIP line entrance of some kind, but we didn't have VIP tickets, so we walked out to the courtyard to get in that line. Apparently you enter the museum and buy tickets inside. We of course went and saw the Mona Lisa first thing, but with 300 some people all standing around looking at it, was hard to get any pictures. Managed to get a few with my Camera, and snapped a picture for Sophia by standing tall and raising the camera up above everyone's head as high as I could get it. Moving on, they had some project screens capturing people walking by, and putting you into the picture with people moving around in the background in it. Was quite cool. Walked by some neon signs on the way to the Egypt exhibits. Took pictures of the cats. Sophia didn't like the fact I could reach the ears so easy on both sides. The statue I'm standing next too I got in trouble when security said not to touch it, as I had put my arm around it. Oopsss. Later on, we started getting fancy with our pictures and taking goofy pictures. There was SOOOO much art and collection of things, good grief. We got to open areas that were 3-4 floors tall with lots of cool statues in there, and the skylight roof was nice. Of course, we were in a hurry to see things, the museum was closing in less then an hour, and we had only been there for a couple hours. After getting to last section of museum, we were being shuffled out, but we got to see most everything we had wanted. Back outside in the courtyard, we took a few more pictures of how big it was inside, and the fountains and the entrance to the courtyard area. At this point, I realize I forgot my camera at a concession stand inside. Grrrrr, going back inside, the concession stand is already closed down, and nothing is there. So I lost my camera. Cool, 2 days in a row of Oop's.. |
| After exiting the Museum area, we headed over to the Triumphal Arch(again, train station pretty much had a station right next to it). Of course, in the middle of 9 - 10 streets that all connected, so getting across the street looked to be challenging. We caught glimpse of a tunnel that went under the street. Which I guess you have to do, because crossing would have been very scary. Coming up on the other side, it was too hard to get back far enough to take photo's that fit properly, but we tried out best. We paid the $20 dollars to go to the top of it, which had a weird statue which I don't think we ever figured out exactly what it was. From the top, we took some more pictures(or tried too) with our only camera left, but it ran out of power again. Was quite an awesome view though, definetely recommend it. Heading back to the hotel, we stopped at a restaurant right next to our hotel, and ate on the side walk. Sophia got 2 orders of Escargo(think they came small enough for 2), and I went with a chicken wrap item. I ended up eating most of Sophia's french bread, so had a hard time eating the meal. Back to the room for more cherries and unwiding. |
| Next day, we had quite a train ride, as Saint Michael's Church was outisde the normal train zone. Train still went there, but it was extra to take the train there, as Paris worked in 5 zones, and I think the church was out in Zone 5. We found finding the train this time challenging though. Apparently we rode the train to get to one stop, but it did not go to the next stop we thought it did. Good thing we weren't the only one's lost and confused, as other people had come onto the platform to ask similair information. Once we figured out we had to ride a different train up one stop, and then connect to the train we wanted from there, we were on our way. The walk wasn't too far, but by the time we got there, there was a nice long line that was curved 2-3 times, and probably about 100 yards long each curve. Sophia got in line, and I went to the ticket area, which was another line elsewhere. We managed to make it in for about an hour, but like the Louve Museum, was super crowded, and hard to get a picture in anywhere, as halls were narrow and people were squashed up moving around. Getting outside into the courtyard, which apparently stayed open a lot later, we found that you could pay to walk around in it, or wait until 6 in the evening, then it was free. We waited til 6, and then looked around. Probably my fault for not realizing it, but the courtyard was so huge, we only went down one section of it(apparently 3 large sections). Had to take a lot of pictures though, Sophia was wearing a really cute dress, so couldn't pass it up! Lots of fountains, and shrubberies. Was cute, there was another Chinese couple, that the girl was complaining she wanted a helicopter to see it all. Sophia translated it for me, and was a great chuckle. On the way out, apparently some special event was going on, as cars were pulling up, and they had priests(or people in black uniforms) greeting them and escorting them inside. On the way out of the gate, Sophia broke one of her cute shoes(the string between her toe ripped from the shoe base). SO made for a little more of a hike back to the train(another strike, we were on a roll!). Back at the hotem, we decided to hike for a bit to an area they told us had good food. We weren't sure what we we were looking for, but we were too hungry, and finally found a place that looked ok. Sophia ordered beef, and I ordered another kind of beef. I should have known better. Wasn't happy with the beef, but was my fault, so ended up not eating much. Towards the end of our meal, it started raining/sprinkling while we were outside, so we got the rest to go, and make a quick hike back to the hotel. |
| Next morning, Sophia knew the route, we needed to head to the TGV station to pick up a fast train to get to Avignon. It was quite the challenge once the paris trains dropped us at the station to find the TGV area. Once we did, we found a restaurant upstairs that looked good, and they put us in a back corner area which was really cool, and could see just about everywhere. Meal was awesome, and since we had 2 hours to kill before our train left, was definetely a good time killer. Waiting for the train to come in, the place got super packed. Probably in about 30-40 minutes, there were so many people, you couldn't move much of anywhere. Our train must of been late, since they gave us less then 10 minutes to get on the train. When they announced the platform, everyone started trying to squeeze onto the walkway to get on the train. As we tried to get down the walkway, Sophia was managing to move faster as I was too big to squeeze through, and managed to find the right train car. Me, on the other hand, got confused and lost, and by the time I figured out I was not in the right car, the workers told me to stay on cause once they shut the doors, they stay shut. I asked if the train was open so I could make it to the front, and they said yes. Ok, cool, I'll just work my way through the cars, simple. NOT! So hoping Sophia got on the train, I started making my way through the cars, but was really hard with my luggage, so I started leaving pieces in different car sections and made my way to the bar car. Cool, I made my way to 2 more cars before I couldn't move up any farther. What gives? I went back to the bar car, and asked the server about getting up to the front of the train, which she said I could. I tried again, but found I coudln't find the door. I asked a maintenance person about it, who really didn't speak english, and couldn't get an answer. Realizing I couldn't get to the front of the train, I stayed in the bar car, and sat on a stool, and tried to sleep a little for the 3 hour ride, very uncomfortable, and temperature was a little warm.(strike 4). |
| Arriving in Avignon, I realized I goofed again. The train was only stopping for a few minutes before conitnuing on. Crap, my luggage is spread out in different cars, and people were lining up to get off. In a panic, I started racing through the cars to re-collect my luggage pieces. Making it out in less then 30 seconds before they closed the doors, I didn't see Sophia anywhere. I went down the stairs and found her starting to worry I didn't make it(so cute). She asked me what happened, and we still debate to this day if she lost me on purpose or not. She had a comfortable ride though, so I was ok with it. Leaving the train station, we couldn't find the car rental place I had made a reservation for, so had to walk into a Hertz to ask, and they pointed to the builing next door. ughhhh. They gave us a brand new car, which was cool, and we had a lot of luggage, so was nice to finally get it all loaded in a car. Driving in France was scary at first, cause everything is in Europe standards, so I was worried I might run a stop sign, or a yield I shouldn't have. We got a GPS system, which I still think wasn't the best GPS in the world, and tried to find our first hotel. We had asked the car rental place, and they had told us it was around 1/4 mile in a specific direction. After driving around twice, we finally found it. Was not really a hotel, more like very small studio apartments. We were on the 3rd floor, and they had a laundry room(thank god). After dropping everything off, we went out to hit downtown Avignon using the GPS to find a place. Oh My God! It took us right into downtown downtown Avignon, and we ended up on this very very very small road that went around building and corners that we barely fit in. After stressing our way out, we found some place to park a couple blocks away. Away from downtown area, the other side of street, we hiked a bit and found a nice small place that didn't have any customers, but had a menu that we could work with. The owners were very nice, and made us up exactly what we wanted. After eating up we jumped back into the car, and headed for the hotel for some ice cream we had picked up from a grocery store nearby. |
| The next day, we headed up to Nimes, I can't remember what exactly we were looking for, but we stopped in for lunch. I ended up having a pizza with was served a cute little cutting knife, and of course an Orangina soda(which seemed to be their major brand). We ended up finding a Colusseum that was really cool, and took lots of pictures, and paid to go in and walk around on it. Was great, you could practically go anywhere, there were no railings, or signs that said do not do this/that. We even walked to the very top and was able to stand on the edge. I even got Sophia to pose like she was holding up a tower. Looks like they use it for events, as the arena had a whole stage setup, but we weren't allowed to go down into the area to see closer. Driving back, we checked back into hotel to unwind a few, and then ended up going to some BBQ place near the hotel, which felt like a TGIF restaurant. No problem, was a pretty simple day. |
| Next day we were ready to hit it and go to the city of Lavendar. Sophia plugged in the address, and we were on our way. We found it very challenging to get there, as the Tour de France was happening, and they had blocked off a lot of roads we were using to get there. As we got closer and closer, we weren't seeing lavendar anywhere, and thought that was strange. When we arrived at our destination, we were in someone's dirt driveway out in the middle of nowhere. Hmmmm, it must be around here, so we back tracked to a town that we drove through. This town was so French, we couldn't find anyone that spoke any english to help at all. Since we made a 3 hour drive, we figured we better get a few photo's while we were there of the nice little brook water area. So realizing that we went to the wrong place, we started our drive back, but routed to go to city of Gorges(city of stone). We had to take a picture of our car along the way, and Sophia had to show up the car, which was fine by me. We got there as the sun was going down, and we walked around the town a bit, and then had dinner at a cool restaurant there. The people working, or young kids were funny jokesters, but since we had been driving all day, we were a little out of it. We had a great dinner, I had pizza, think Sophia had lobster. Took a few pictures as we were leaving and nightfall was happening. Made it back to the hotel for more fruits and checkup on where Lavendar really was to make sure in the morning, we didn't get confused again. |
| Next day, we were ready to roll, we had the location in the GPS, and we were going to make it. We did, we started seeing lavendar fields all over the place, and we eventually found one that was so huge, that we knew it was the best one to take photo's. The temperature was really hot, about in the low 90's, so we didn't stay too long. Was cool being out in the field, the bumble bees gave a buzz sound that was surround sound, and they didn't bother you if you touched a plant, they just moved to another one. As for my photo's, not sure what I could do to take a better picture, but I tried. After snapping 100 photo's or so of Lavendar stuff, we headed to the town. We got there about 1:30 in the afternoon on a Saturday. Cool, we looked at souveniuer shops, and Sophia loaded up on items for her coworkers and family. After shopping, we went to find a place to eat. Well, we found that all places to eat closed around 1 - 2, so we couldnt' find a place to eat. Grrrrr Ok, almost 3, and we are starving. We go ahead and head out and back to one of the larger cities, and being so hungry, we finally gave up and stopped at, where else, a McDonald's!!!! ughhhhh. After finally getting some food, we headed out to check out where France gets its bottled water from. While the water was so clear, and the small town looked amazing, we didn't stay very long but to snap a couple pictures, and get back in the car, cause it was still pretty warm. |
| Up again the next day, we headed back to drop the rental car off, and get back on the TGV to head to NICE. This time, didn't miss the train car cause we were together the whole time. While we were waiting for the train, we heard it was delayed cause of animals on the track. Nice they said it in english after french, right? Arriving in NICE, the train station was under construction, so once we found our way out, we then had the challenge of again finding the hotel. The street signs were a little easier to read, but was still challenging, and when we did find the street, it was quite the hike to get to the hotel. The hotel was definetely nice, quiet, and nice chill cool temperature inside. Was only a 2 story hotel, so no one above us, and we were in a corner room. We got settled in, and again went out to stock up on water and cherries/strawberries. Settling in for the night, Sophia came out of the bathroom to tell me there was a flood. Sure enough, there was no drain on the foloor, so when she was washing her dress, she made a big puddle of water in the bathroom. A few towels, and a lot of hair drying the floor, managed to get most of it dried up. I loved the shower in this hotel, the water was fast, and a lot of it, never had a shower pour that much water our from a shower head the size of a frisbeee. We went to walk downtown, and found a lot of restaurants downtown that served a lot of seafood, so I knew Sophia would be enjoying her meals! Headed back to the room for a good recovery. |
| Next day, we went out to check out the beaches and some buildings along the beach. Met a couple the day we arrived that had gotten there and was also looking for their hotel. We had just gotten a map from our hotel of the area, so we were able to help them out. That evening, we ran into them again blocks away from our hotels, and they were able to snap a few photo's of us. The beach was pretty rocky, but was fun to skip rocks out onto the water. As night fell, buildings really lit up, and it was nice to walk back through downtown. We even got some ice cream that was really tasty on the way back. We stopped at some clothes stores so Sophia could try on MANY outfits, which she looked good in all of them, so I wasn't much help. Was funny, some outfits had Made in China on them, so we tried to avoid finding those if possible. We walked by a church that night that was also nicely lit up, had to get a couple photo's. Above the street had streaks of blue and purple neon lights, which was a nice touch. Another dinner in downtown area, and headed back to room. |
| Next day, we jumped back on the TGV, and rode over to Cannes. Of course, the movie festival area had to be checked out. We found the Star Wars popup poster, but I couldn't really fit my head through it. Again, weather was really warm again(90's), so we tried to find as much shade as we could, but also found some great places to take photo's just behind the festival building. The festival area was cute, it had hand prints of a lot of movie stars/producers, so we tried to get a picture with a few. We walked inside the building a bit, and saw some trinkets of things(can't remember much, so wasn't anything of significance obviously). Since it was too hot too tour, we headed back to the train, and back to the hike to the hotel. And again, back to towntown area to find some more seafood restaurants to eat at. |
| Up and ready the next morning, we got back to the TGV to ride back up to Paris. This time, I didn't get lost, and rode in the right car. While waiting for the train, we heard an announcement that the train would be delayed a little, as their were animals on the tracks. Wasn't delayed long, so we got on, and settled in for the 6 hour ride to Paris. Somewhere along the way, we stopped at an early station, and had heard a few announcements by the driver, in French about something. Assuming it was a slight delay, we didn't think much of it. While we were stopped, we heard some woman that had stepped outside exclaim "3 HOURS!?". Didn't think much of it. Train started going again, and we thought we would make it to Paris still pretty close to ontime(around 5:30). At around 7ish, we realized we were not going to make it at the time we thought, and had grab some more snacks from the snack car. Finally arriving in Paris after 9 in the evening, we were handed care packages leaving the platform, which were just bottle water, and some snacks(mini dinner) I guess since we arrived so late. |
| THANKFULLY, we had reserved the same hotel in Paris that we stayed at before we left for Avignon, so finding our way to our next hotel was not too much trouble, but was quite a long train ride to get there. Getting there around 10:30, we checked in, and headed up to the 6th floor this time, in which the room was very very large, spacious, and had a great view overlooking the Paris city area. Given the trip back, we quickly passed out in preperation for the morning. |
| Today was going to be an easy day, we had to get tickets for special area on the train again to go see the Paris Outlet stores. Was a pretty short walk to the area that started the outlet area. We found a nice cozy restaurant and sat outside and enjoyed a lunch. Then we tried to find the main outlet stores, which proved to be a challenge. After looking over a few maps, and a few people asking for money in 5-6 different languages, finally hiked a bit to where the outlets were. Lot of brand name stores, and places Sophia could shop and find wallets, and sunglasses she really liked. Walking back to the train station, we walked through a mall area, and grabbed some ice cream from a Ben and Jerry's shop. They gave us free straw hats with their logo on them. Didn't know what to do with them, just through them in our sack, and moved back to train station. Getting back to the hotel, we went out for dinner at the nearby restaurant that served us the Escargo, and Sophia grabbed another order of it. We hit the room for a good sleep, as we had to get up early, around 7, to catch the train to the airport for our flights. |
| Arriving at Denver internationally, same crap going through customs, except in this case, the line wrapped around carousel's, and took a while. And as with every unorganized lines, people always make cuts into the line and then play ignorant as other people try and direct them to the back of the line. Was quite funny, the woman that cut in a few women in front of me, ignored the women behind complaining, and then got really snotty when the women got her attention, and played stupid. Even her son and husband were embarrassed, but she was adament she was going to get in front of these women. Was funny to watch them go back and forth at each other as one kept running over the other heals with the cart, and the other would complain to no end to stop harrassing her. Oh well, guess I knew I was back home I guess.. =) |
My Thoughts on France
What to say about France, well let me see:
- Hope you like french bread, and pizza/pasta/sandwich shops, as it seemed to be super easy to find these types of restaurants.
- TGV train, pilots don't anounce things in English.
- If renting a car, make sure to do your gas fillups during the day, as US credit cards don't work the same, and you will not be able to use your credit card at a gas pump when no one is there working the counter.
- On the beaches, women were allowed to go topless(first for me).
- Be careful when going to smaller towns on the weekends. Restaurants will close around 1-2 and not reopen the rest of the day. Usually they do lunch/brunch, then want the afternoons off(even tourist areas).
- No tipping was awesome. If you felt the service was beyond exceptional, you could leave another Euro. Credit cards were charged in front of you at the table, so no taking your card and bringing it back.
- Service was great, you don't get pestered about your meal or checkups. You ask for something, and they get you what you ask for.
- As long as you weren't "acting" American, people in France were very cool.
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