We're here

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We have only been in Paris a few hours and have already had three adventures:

1) finding the hotel;
2) finding the hotel again;
3) finding the cyber spot that costs the earth but at least connects us with everyone.

Someone should have warned each of us that each of us is as spatially challenged as the other. This means that when one of us says, "Turn left", the other says,"Turn right" and neither of us is totally right. Mind you, neither of us is totally wrong either.

Our hotel room is hilariously small in a building that is hilariously small. We are on the fifth floor so we can have a view. Yes, a view. Mind you, we have to step out of the window and lean precariously over the tiny railing in order to have it, but it is there. I think...in fact, I am certain...that many an artist starved to death in this garret. But at least s/he could risk life and limb for a view!! The Eiffel Tower is on the left --- way up the way but still in complete sight. The Pantheon is down on the right and I think...but am not entirely certain, that we can see St. Chapelle as well. If we could do Bruce Willis' style leaps from our window ledge, we could land on the ledge of a room at the Best Western across the street.

Charles de Gaulle airport is easier to navigate than Pearson Airport in Toronto. At least at CDG, the folks know that people coming into it need help moving from terminal to terminal and they have signs everywhere in English and in French. In Toronto, the attitude seems to be, "If you don't know where you are going, why are you here?" Nasty. We found the train into the city, popped off at the right spot, Brenda (God bless her) read the map accurately despite having left her reading glasses on the plane, and we came up out of that train station about 3 blocks from the hotel. Perfect!! Mind you, we didn't know that at the time and proceeded to walk half a block, turn around, come back to the corner, turn, walk another half block, turn around...and finally I listened to Brenda, shut up, did as I was told, and she got us where we were going.

Our room is accessed via a small winding staircase or via a lift that is so small, so small, that I don't think any sensible woman could actually fit her clothes into it. The guys at the front desk are now convinced that we are gay because we didn't argue when they only had one "big" bed (obviously 'big' in Paris does not mean what 'big' in Canada means). They also think we are stupid, I'm sure, because after our second adventure, when we returned our jet-lagged bodies to the hotel at last, we couldn't get the key to work in the door. Of course, when a man turned the darn thing, the door popped open like a charm and he looked at us like we were quite batty. By that time, of course, we were.

We had gone out for a walk to suss out the area for coffee, pastries, veggies, fruit and other manner of wonderfulness and, in true Margo style (to which Leslie can attest from our journey to Italy), I got us turned around so badly only God knew where we were! We found the Luxembourg Gardens, which are magnificent, and which contain statues of all kinds of powerful women....yes, ladies, women!! None of which I have heard of but I don't care...they were all magnificent. This is the point at which we made our first geographical error. We did not exit the gardens via the same gate through which we entered them. Ergo, we ended up on various sides of the triangular streets pattern that I should have realized we were about to end up on. Egad!!! We kept turning right, convinced we would end up back where we started from but the cool wind and a strong desire to sit down or go have a nap drove us inside. That's not bad because we found coffee, pastry and a sandwich (the latter of which we carted back to the hotel to serve as our supper). We dug out maps and my magnifying glass for the blind as a bat Brenda because, even though my eyes work just fine, my sense of direction is now totally fried and I am about to call upon the services of one of Paris' finest who, by the way, are every bit as gorgeously handsome as their Italian counterparts. Brenda once again saved the day and got us back to our hotel, by which time we were so tired we needed a nap.

We are now returning from jaunt #2 and even have some idea of where we are. We visited St. Germaine de Pres where we found the place where Rene Descartes is buried and also found Place de Sartre et Beauvoir -- GNST 300 and GNST 500 are alive here. Oh yes, we also came across the house in which Blaise Pascal died, and statues to various heroes of the French Revolution, some of whom lost their heads at the hands of their more enthusiastic buddies. But I digress. St. Germaine de Pres is a building that encapsulates the centuries of ideas we study in GNST 300 and 500. It was built at the time of St. Benedict, became a Benedictine Abbey, suffered various fires and assaults, saw 50 priests locked into it and burned alive during the Revolution, has been built, rebuilt, and such ever since. And it's still a functioning Catholic parish in the Latin Quarter after all these centuries. Wow. The stones in the place practically talk. Taking a photo is literally a waste of time. Nothing can capture the size of the place, the age, the spirit, the look, the awesomeness of its structure, windows, stained glass, history...any minute some medieval soul is going to pop out of a corner and start lecturing, I'm sure. I'm going to try to get to Mass there tomorrow, but not for the 0900 one, that's for certain!!! The Rosary is prayed on a daily basis at 6:30 p.m. and I think it would be amazing to be present for that just once.

Okay...time's up and it's expensive. We're here. We're safe. We've found food, coffee, chocolate, bookstores in English and French, more coffee, more pastry, more chocolate... we will be quite fine if we never go any more than 3 blocks from the hotel!!

But given that the hotel room has a bed and not much else, I think we'll be out more than we are in.

Gina, you do *not* want to stay here! In fact, if you are taller than about 4 feet, you might want to try another venue. Why??? Because one cannot, literally cannot, sit on the toilet in anything other than a sideways position ... it's too close to the wall of peeling paint. Ah well; it's clean enough to suffice, is close to what we want to see, and isn't costing the earth. So we'll sit sideways for a week.

Talk to you later.

Andrea, I'm going to try to phone you, too.

Love from Paris....

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