Ah, Paris!!

After visiting Heidelberg, I got back to Frankfurt and decided to head off towards Paris. I decided that since I was doing the expensive portion of Europe, I may as well get it all over with at once. Paris is supposed to be one of the most expensive places to visit. Period. So, like with a band-aid that you have to rip off and get the pain over with, I decided to head to Paris and see what I wanted so that I could avoid it thereafter, if I wanted.

I tried to buy a ticket on the ticket machines at Frankfurt station. But when it came time to pay, the machine wouldn't allow my credit card to go in. Thinking I might have done something wrong, I went into the speak-to-a-person center and see if I could get it fixed. I was approached before I ever got to the place to take a number by a “helper.” He asked me what I wanted. I told him that I had had trouble buying a ticket to Paris. He took me to a machine and then proceeded to hit exactly the same buttons to get a ticket that I had done. But then he came up with a screen that said there were no tickets. Hmmm? I had just tried and had had a ticket waiting for me. I just couldn't pay. What had happened. He, with exaggerated patience as though he were talking to a child (which really annoyed me), explained something that made no sense and still did nothing to answer the problem that I had had paying with my credit card. I ended up heading to get a number to get help. But then I turned around because it just didn't make sense to me that that would have happened. So I punched up the same sequence one more time. It got to where I needed to pay again. I turned to the guy and asked him why I got a different result than he had. He explained something to me that I didn't understand and did nothing to make my mood better, as he was still using that you-are-a-silly-child-and-I-have-speak-to-you-in-short-one-syllable-words-so-you-will-understand tone. And this time it took my card just fine. So I told him there was a machine outside that was malfunctioning. He said he couldn't do anything about it. Where do they find people like this? I keep running into them and I don't know how they can have that little sense. I was giving him some information and I figured he might be able to pass it on. I didn't expect him to be able to do anything about it, but I thought he might be able to pass it on to someone who could. He did eventually get there himself, but with some prodding.

But I had my ticket.

The next morning, I headed over to the train station and caught my train. It was a nice, albeit gray ride to Paris. The countryside was green, but the sky was cloudy and rainy.

My seatmate was a woman who was going to Paris to participate in a ceremony at a museum to repatriate a bunch of shrunken Maori warrior skulls to New Zealand. They had been being kept in a museum in Paris, but the museum had agreed to send them back to New Zealand. Unfortunately the ceremony was going to be on a day when the museum was closed and the public wouldn't be able to attend. I was jealous. But such is the lot of the public and the privilege of those who are archaeologists and have access to such circles.

She did give me some other information about what to see and do in Paris. And that included the museum where she would be attending that ceremony. There were other days when it was open and it was supposed to be quite a good museum.

Once in Paris, I found a reasonable place to stay, in a dorm room with three beds. That first night I was the only one in the room, so I had paid a small price for a private room. Yea!!

I then walked around for a while in the city as night fell. I don't think I have been to a city that has as much history just sitting around everywhere, in easy reach of a fit person with two feet, as Paris. It's an amazing city. And this is from someone who doesn't really find architecture interesting. But it is also a fascinating city architecturally. And it is easily walkable.

I found the Louvre museum, with its much maligned pyramid entrance.

It was all right by me though. I asked about the best time to visit. I was going to be planning my times, as I had bought a two day pass that included many of the sights in central Paris, far too many to manage in just two days, but with most of what I was going to want to see included. I got the times for a visit and departed into the rainy evening.

Next I found the obelisk that France has from the Karnak Temple in Luxor, Egypt. I keep following things around that form threads to my visits and travels. But there it was on the Champs Elysee.

And the Eiffel Tower was in the distance. I got my first glimpse of that icon on my rainy first night in Paris. It was suitably impressive, all lit up against the night.

Then I returned to my hotel for some sleep, to get ready for what promised to be a very busy day the next day, starting with a visit to the Palace at Versailles, and then to three or four more sites in the central area of Paris. Whew! I was going to be tired by the end of my time in Paris.