Advertisement
Published: June 14th 2006
Bonjour, tout le monde. Everything is fabulous in Paris. Had some trouble on our second flight...a very rude and grouchy cabin crew on Air Canada. Enough that I intend to write a letter to them when I return.
Enough of that. On with the good stuff! When we hit Paris, it was extremely hot -- 30oC +. Along with jetlag, Judy and I were wiped out. We couldn't sleep, either. The second day, I laid down for a "nap" and woke up 4 hours later and refreshed. It was so hot that our heads were laminated to our pillows.
Our hotel is very old, very quaint and very small. You know the poem from childhood that starts out "Our house is small, the land and all can scarcely hold the flowers"? Well, that just about describes our room. We have two single beds (smaller than twins), a miniature desk w/ a chair, one very small table and that's it. There is an aisle of about 20" around the periphery of the beds. Oh yes, I forgot to mention the french doors...thank goodness for the french doors. Without them, we would have died for sure. We have air conditioning: an oscillating fan with 4" blades that works so hard to try to make us comfortable. I look on it as about as authentically "french" as a room can get. We are on the third floor. If you go up to the first floor about ground, you can get into the elevator (as long as you don't breathe, you can close the door) to take you the rest of the way.
Yesterday didn't get off to a good start. The stairwell was dark and I managed to make it down one floor when I tripped on a stair that I didn't know was there, falling against the opposite wall where I broke my fall by reaching out my arms. That caused a problem. A big problem! You see, my right hand landed on a switch, of sorts, except for the fact that it was the FIRE ALARM! Judy was behind me and she saw me having trouble navigating and was just about to say something when she realised that we were in trouble. There was about a 6-second delay before the alarm sounded. Not so good. I immediately ran to the attendant who was in the kitchen preparing to serve breakfast to other patrons and told her that I had mistakenly hit the alarm. She started running around in circles. Another worker appeared and told the woman to phone 911 and report the false alarm. By this time, I was sitting on a small sofa in the reception/breakfast area, apologising to everyone. It was NOT the place to be. Judy later told me that while I was trying to tell the woman that it was my mistake, men were running down the stairs to evacuate the building, throwing their clothes one while they ran. Oh, boy, did I feel foolish! It was about that time that Judy suggested that we go out for breakfast and I agreed. It seemed like the thing to do at the time.
For the rest of the day, we explored our immediate neighbourhood. It is absolutely charming. It is a very old part of Paris known as Le Marais (The Swamp). That's what it used to be about 3 centuries ago. It was occupied by Jewish families and their business and many still remain today. There are dozens of small shops: bakeries, silver and other jewellery, artisan shops of every description, bakeries -- oh, did I mention the bakeries? You wouldn't believe how beautiful the buildings are and the decadence of the food.
Today was more low-keyed...no alarms! We had a lovely breakfast at the hotel before striking out on the subway. We went to two huge and very impressive (expensive!) department stores: Galleries Lafayette and Printemps. We had a blast taking it all in. We found a few items that we thought were absolutely necessary for our mental health and left sated. That's all I'm willing to share at this time.
So many adventures await. Stay tuned!
~Linda.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.09s; Tpl: 0.009s; cc: 5; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0379s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
norm
non-member comment
alarming!
very cool - lovin the updates. the fire alarm story is priceless