Feux d'Artifice

End of the fireworks for La Fête Nationale 2011.

Happy 14th of July - that's right . . . 14th

Pompier Ball.

Cyn and I went to one of the Pompier balls. We were told that they had an open (free) bar, so I gave 10 euros to get in. It's free to get in but they as for donations. I thought 10 was cheap for free drinks, but they didn't have free drinks. Instead is was 5 euros for a small glass of champagne or 3 euros for a Heineken--ouch! I think some have open bars, but this one was in a more upscale neighborhood and they had a huge stage with great sound and lights (expensive--tres cher). The Dj was great and he filled in between bands. I enjoyed getting to hear an actual DJ that truly mixes beats and music.

A le moulin rouge.
Not smoking--just for pic.

After 3 glasses of champagne, we left and went by the Moulin Rouge just to see it.  We took a few pics, bought a big Kronenbourg and headed towards the Sacré-Cœur . Cyn wanted to find the Chat Nior first, which we did. Then we found the tram up to the Sacré-Cœur . I'd been telling Cyn about it and wanted her to see it. Thankfully we had our Navigo passes and could ride the tram up top for free. This night was no different than the last night I was there--lots of people drinking wine and Heineken. There are even people who walk around selling Heinekens. I thinks its great, but both Cyn and I thought it was interesting that such partying was allowed at the doors of such a religious place. We drank the Kronebourg and experienced the view then made our way back home, I think we got in about 1a.m.

Cyn and I at Sacre Coeur

I woke up in the morning and went to the big military parade on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées , Cyn didn't feel well and didn't go. Seeing the Arch de Triumph sans the insane raceway of les voitures around it was interesting.  I felt like I was witnessing the Germans taking over Paris in WWII.   The Arch was surrounded by military vehicles in formations that encircled it as if they were trying to subdue / capture it.

Arch De Triump Surrounded

What I saw of the parade was nice.  I didn’t want to fight the crowds so I stayed out on the edge, but was still able to see well. 
At night Cyn and I went down to the Seine to watch the fireworks by the Tour Eiffel.  We went on the Metro bridge, but I thought it would be better to go back down by our apartment.  The bridge was packed and getting worse every second.  Down by our place we had pretty much the same view, but less people.  What I didn’t think of was that the fireworks are really meant to be seen from the  Champ de Mars (park in front of the Tour Eiffel).  So, we didn't have the best view, but the grand fanale was amazing--have video and will post soon. 

Grand Finale

Tour Eiffel After
feux d'artifice (fireworks)

La Fête Nationale - Pompiers Ball

Woke up early aujourd’hui.  Need to study and wanted to get my blog up to speed.  After stressing about trying to catch up, I decided I just need to start posting recent things and slowly post the past stuff.  So, I will post tidbits of past stuff while keeping up on present.  
 

Anyway, today is the day before La Fête de la Bastille or La Fête Nationale.  Fête means “party” en la langue française and from what I’ve seen from the other Fêtes here, they it’s not just a name; they really mean party.  La Fête Nationale is like the 4^th of July in the U.S. and celebrates the storming of the Bastille.  From what I know it’s a celebration of the break away from feudalism and the monarchy . . . rebellion against tyrants and unjust power.  La Fête National celebrates the rebelliousness of the French and reminds them of who they are and what they believe in.   

 

Today the sapeurs pompiers (fire fighters) have balls and the entire city is supposed to party.  The city will be open all night and bars will have very cheap drinks.  So, Cyn and I will try to go out, but not get too crazy.  We’ll see how I feel in tomorrow’s post. 

Oh yeah, Paris is suposed to have the some of the best fireworks shows in the world around the city the end with a giant show at le tour eiffel. 

Nous Commençons L'école Aujourd'hui

School begins aujourd'hui.  Cyn and I get in same class.  The teacher doesn’t speak English at all.  Instruction is entirely in French.  Our professor is amazing; I can’t say enough good things about her.  Still, the class is très difficile.

Errands and Street Music:

Thursday 30^th

• Metro passes, School restaurant, Louvre, Touleries, Cindy Laupur tickets      

• Metro Pass went smooth, don’t know if were getting better at handling French, but the ticket girl was very friendly and helpful.   Others seemed to be more helpful and nice as well (Virgin cashier and franprix)

• Man walks the street playing tumpet while his friends asks for donation--some money rains down from the windows above.  I find this, and the musicians that play on the metro, interesting culturally--I feel it is somehow Parisian. However, the people of Paris seem anoyed by it. The acordian players play songs (My Way), which I don't like.  I want to hear traditional Parisian accoudian sounds. 

Are parisians annoyed by the song choices? 

What is traditonal Parisian accoudian music?  

What do parisians like and dis-like?  

What traites and traditions, makes up a parisian?

• Cyndi and I were seprated at metro station.  I jammed into the packed train and the doors closed before Cyn could get in. THe plan we had for such an event didn't work well, because there are two stations with the name louvre in them.  I knew we needed the second louvre and Cynd thought we needed the first station.  We both sat patiently waiting for ecah other to show up. 

Le Guard de Nord - Home Sweet Home

Sitting on Blvd de Rochechouart
near Moulin Rouge
at 1:30am with no place to stay.
Link to Location Google Maps

Tues June 21^st

Brief notes on our second day in Paris. . .

·         11am - Sadly, we had to leave nice place – luggage back down from 8^th floor

·         Back to le guard de nord – luggage back to lockers

·         Hopeful that Air BnB would produce results

o   Struggle to figure our WeeFee place and Language problems (finally figured out WiFi is pronounced WeeFee)

·         Noval resturaunt provide food and WeeFee

·         Had great lunch at Novel—macaroni avec fromage and omelette

·         Searched city for hotels…nothing

·         Tried Sorbonne but closed – saw Sam Jazz (guy who cancelled our reservation)

·         Tried to enjoy some of the music of Fête de la Musique – accordion band, two kids jamming

·         Cyn befriends Antoin?  Hotel Famile Desk

·         Back to Novel to check if anyone returned request on Air Bnb - - NO

·         Ask American Engineers(guys taking hotels), they tell us to look up by Moulon Rouge

·         Trapes through La Fette du Music partiers stopping at every hotel and hostel –Complet Complet Complet (full full full)

·         Hate word Complet

·         Talk to Candians who were kicked out of their room cause verfull

·         1:30am - Sat on street wondering what to do-

·         Back to le guard de nord—really beginning to look like need to fly home

·         Sat and ate at place outside le gare—good food

·         Sleep at le gare de nord

Perfect Storm of Unavailability

Mon June 20th

Left London for Paris at 4:30 on Eurostar train.

Arrive at le guard du nord, put luggage in storage locker and begin what will be a long, frustrating and fruitless journey to find a place to stay. 

Bi-annual air-show, la fette du musique and a plethora of other events = no rooms anywhere in France (not an overstatement) – the perfect storm of events. Hotels and hostels would actually laugh at us.

Air BnB shout out finds us place for one night.

Small part of stairs to Sacre Coeur

Drag luggage all over Montmartre (about Montmarte). Bring them half way up the Sacre Coere to find out need to be at the base. Lugged them one bag at a time down a billion stairs in small incruments so we could keep an eye on them.   
Very nice place at base of Sacre Coeur


After a brief nap I woke up and walked to top of Sacre Coeur to see awesome view of Paris-Tour

Eiffel sparkling. Everyone comes here and drinks wine and Heinekens (people here seem to like Heineken-yuk) while watching the sun set over the city. It one big party at the doors of the Sacre Coeur.
Make interesting dinner, lay on bed and take in nice view. . . pass-out trying not to worry about tomorrow.



View From Sacre Coeur-Tour Eiffel
would be to the right but building in the way.

Change the Guard - he's tired. . .

Off to see the changing of the guard and to find some fish and chips.

Cyn and I at Guard Change

I was very surprised that the music the "guards"  marched to was so "non-formal."   I expected strong and serious, instead, it sounded like a circus was parading by. 
Yum, fish and chips with viniger and peas.  Forgot to get the mushy peas, still very good.

Our Fish and Chips

After the changing of the guard and the fish and chips, we strolled though St. James garden in front of Buckingham palace along the Mall heading towards the Hourse Guard.  We were pleasantly suprised by the amount of bird species in the park. We even saw a Magpie. Cyndi made friends with some pigeons--they even sat on her hand.

Moi At Gardens

The gardens ended at the Horse Guard.  The guards there are more impressive than the guards at Buckingham Palace.  Their uniforms are amaizing and the horses are pure strength and beauty.  They almost seem fake, even the horses don't move.  My picture doesn't do justice to how amazing they look.

Horse Guard

After that we walked towards the Eye (the big ferris-wheel).  I tried to convince Cyn that we had to get on it, but she wouldn't do it.  The problem is that it moves very slowly, so you're at the top for a long time. We wonderred around the area and explored the amazing buildings.  Next, we got back on the Underground and went to Picadilly Circus--not impressed.  Could be because there was major construction, but it just seemed lame to us.

Magpie

Cyn's Pigeons

Banksy or Bust

London Tower,Tower bridge and a Banksy location is our goal today.

London Tower

Stopped at tower for some pics, but didn't go in. It was closing and I only wanted to see the Ravens. They wanted way too much money to get in.

Walked across the Towere Bridge and it was amazing. Then we strolled up the Thames to find the next Undersground station. We saw many interesting things and stopped in to get a pint of Stella at a really old pub: The Salty Nail, or something like that was the name.

London Tower Bridge

While drinking our Stellas, we made a plan to find the Banksy (www.banksy.co.uk/) piece. We decided witch Underground we needed and headed out after we finished our tasty pints of Stella.

The area was a little rough--lower working class, but probably not any worse than Washington St. in Clinton on a Saturday night. We had no idea if the piece would still be there since they usually get coverred or cleaned of. It was there and only mildly defaced--awesome!!! Thanks Cyndi for knowing about this.

Banksy Piece

One the way back we decided to step into a pub and listen to the band playing. The locals in the pub gave us some funny looks, but after a few more pints of Stella I didn't care. We made a friend out in the smoking area and started buying rounds back and forth. The "band" was a woman and a man and they sounded great. The woman had an amazing voice and the guy played guitar very well while he ran sequencers and keyboards. It was very nice to see how the locals let loose.  A few times the whole bar would sing along and everyone would be dancing.  Our new friend (Terry) told us that this was one of the only bars that has live music.  Very cool to experience. 

On our way back to the Underground station we witnessed a good old London street brawl. When we arrived at the station a man outside was telling people it was closed for some reason.  So, we had to figure out the bus system to get back.  Well, we got lost and ended up packed on a bus that headed way out to the suburbs of London.  We found ourselves standing in Stratford at 2am trying to figure out how to get back. Thankfully a bus driver helped us and let us transfer our ticket. 

The hotel room was a welcomed sight when we got back about 3am.  Great day in London.

Swanky Move



Hotel Indigo Room

Today we moved to a very nice hotel that we were able to afford because of our save Holiday Inn points.  The Hotel Indigo, located in the finacial / tower hill district.  When we checked in they upgraded us to a better room for free--NICE!!!

Cyn at Tate

After we settled in to our room we cleaned up and headed to the Tate Modern Museum of Art.  They were having an exposition of Joan Miro that we were looking forward to seeing.  We actually have a real signed Miro lithograph that we found at a junk store for 40 dollars--it's worth about 2,000 dollars.  The expostion was incredible.  They had most of his famouse pieces and many of the things I didn't know he did.  He did a lot of works on canvases and then would burn them, which produced a very interesting effect.

Rob at Tate

Unfortunatly we were too tired and burnt-out to look at anything else in the museaum--next time.



My first of many Stella Artois (arr twah).  Great beer. Sorry for the bad picture.

Look Right

Get into London after an 8 hour ride in the most uncomfortable seat ever, but happy to land safely. I parade through customs and find Cyndi in a dazed (Xanax) state at the baggage carousel. We collect our bags and begin stumbling through the busy commuters--it's 2 am to us but 8 am in London-- trying to find our way outside. Outside it's grey, cold and raining. The little London taxis are buzzing around everywhere and are the only clues that we are indeed in London. Cyndi smokes and tries to get her head together . . . it's not working well for her. She can't remember the name or location of our hotel. Panic shoots through my body--was this a mistake?  After a few minutes Cyn gets her head together and we try to find internet access, which was somewhat difficult. 

• ADVICE: if going to Europe don’t just expect to find internet service/wifi (pronounced weefee in France) for free.  You either have to pay or find a restaurant that has free wifi, still have to buy something. 

Anyway, Cyn finds the hotel and its location.  We find the Underground station in the airport, study the map and get on our first of many wonderful Underground rides. 

• ADVICE:  don’t bring excess luggage.  I don’t know how many times we heard this from advisors.  We even though we brought a small amount—NOT.   If you think you have your luggage sized down. . . think again.  Lugging suitcases up and down stairs, through crowds and on the streets is at best a huge downer and at worst dangerous (make you a target for thieves). 

We get to our station, come outside and start walking towards the hotel.  At the first intersection confussion hits us . . . the cars are on the wrong side of the road.   Fortunately the city helps with this confusion by painting on the road which way to look before you cross the road.  We checked right and crossed.  Made it to our hotel for the first 2 nights, which is very nice, got to the room and took a nap. 

London Calling . . .

My Plane to London

Off to London and Paris aujourd'hui.   Cyndi recieved a message yesterday that the apartement in Paris is no longer available because the current tenet refusses to leave.  Well, shouldn't be to hard to find a place when we get there.  If things were easy life would be dull.

Let's get it started . . . off to Illinois . . .

Flying home to Clinton, Illinois.  Can't wait to see everyone.