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Published: July 28th 2009
So I wasn't able to start this blog in real-time on account of the strange wireless I was forced to use in Paris. But I wrote everything anyways and I promise I haven't gone back and changed any of what I said at the time, no matter how stupid it may have been. The first couple of posts are mostly descriptions of what I was up to, but I want this blog to be more about my reactions to what I'm seeing and reflections on the culture. I'll try to throw in some jokes, too. Some may even be funny. Enjoy!
July 24th 2:30pm GMT+1
While I realize that the problem is by no means unique to me, I have great difficulty sleeping on planes. The noise is definitely part of it, though, as I found out today, earplugs can make a significant difference in that department. There’s also the matter of the people behind kicking or otherwise applying pressure to my seat. For this flight I, of course, only noticed this when I was actively trying to fall asleep. The real problem for me, though, is that I just can’t get comfortable when staying in one position for extended periods of time. This is true all the time, in fact; however, when I’m in a bed I simply roll over when I become too uncomfortable in any given position. This option is sadly absent in the cramped confines of an airplane (unless you can afford to upgrade, in which case I hate you). Thus the only time I would ever be able to fall asleep is when I was totally exhausted. Unfortunately, the point at which I wish I could have fallen asleep came at about 10pm on my internal clock (AKA eastern time), a time at which I am almost never exhausted. To make a long story short (too late!), I didn’t sleep on the flight over and it has now been over 24 hours since I woke up. I just finished up several hours of walking around the area of the hotel and through Les Jardins de Luxembourg with a moderately heavy backpack. I am completely spent and very out of it (for all I know everything I’ve written so far is complete gibberish), yet I would like to be able to make it another 5 hours at least without sleeping so my sleep schedule can get itself in the right ballpark. I’m not very optimistic. I think I’ll go splash some water on my face and maybe segue from that into shaving.
July 25th 7:50pm GMT +1
So yesterday I only made it until about 4:30pm without going to bed. However I managed to sleep until 5am with a couple additional hours of half sleep, so today I’ve been completely free of jet lag so far!
I walked all over today, starting at the Champs de Mars and going North under the Tour Eiffel (without going up), then to a crepe stand and down along the Seine to the Place de Concorde where I saw all of the seats set up for the Tour de France. From there I went through Les Jardins de Tuileries to the Louvre (without going in) and then over to the Centre Georges Pompidou and its fabulous modern art museum. Over the next four hours or so I maxed out on looking at art. Honestly I didn’t ‘get’ most of the pieces on display, though many were certainly cool to look at. There was a special exhibition of a large collection of pieces by Kandinsky. I decided that I prefer his earlier work. After the museum I decided I should take some pictures of Notre Dame while I was in the neighborhood, so I did that before heading off to the train station to reserve a seat for myself on the next leg on my journey.
I’m currently resting in my room before I head out to diner, probably in the Quartier Latin. Unfortunately I’ll probably be dining alone because I haven’t met any other fellow travelers. That is definitely the drawback of staying in a place like this with a bunch of private rooms rather than a hostel like the one I in which I was staying in Boston. The benefit of course is that I can get 12+ hours of uninterrupted sleep. Anyways, most of my other stops will be in crowded dormitory-type situations, so I’m sure I’ll meet people there.
July 26th 11:45pm GMT +1
This will be a pretty quick post since I want to get up fairly early tomorrow.
I’ve decided to stop with the play by play for each day since it really isn’t all that exciting. I will mention, though, that I did not see the finale to the Tour de France today. My general lack of Internet has left me severely lacking in the information department, so I had no idea when I could expect the riders. So I showed up in the early afternoon and found a whole bunch of people lining the streets on both sides. I learned fairly quickly however that the race hadn’t even started. Once it did I walked through the crowd up the boulevard to the Arc de Triomphe and back, which took about an hour. In this time the riders had traversed about a quarter of the total distance. With nobody to talk to I decided it wasn’t worth waiting around for 3 hours so I returned to the hotel and did my laundry and never made it back in that direction.
July 28th 10:45am GMT +1
Hold on, the clouds outside look pretty amazing. I’ll start writing in a minute.
Okay, so here I am taking the TGV down to Grenoble and it is awesome. It’s way more fun than an airplane. There’s no security to worry about. Even second class has more space and legroom than Economy Plus on an airline. I could go on. We really need to get the high-speed rail up and running in California. In fact, maybe I’ll just stay on the east coast until a high-speed line gets built. That’ll show ‘em.
*Note: at this point the post veers off on a long tangent that amounts to a stream-of-consciousness diatribe on issues relating to driving and public transportation. I am by no means an expert on these issues, but I make up for it with passion. Anyways, there's some non-wonky stuff at the bottom.*
I was, of course, also very pleased with the transportation in Paris. Between the Metro and the RER trains, it was super easy to get around. Which is to say nothing of the many bus lines and the free bikes. It’s strange that when I come to think of it, there aren’t and freeways going through any part of the city center. Remarkable. I’m not sure what the situation is for the folks living and working in the outer suburbs (banlieue). They definitely get some trains and buses, but I imagine that they are more car-dependent.
I definitely enjoyed my time living in San Diego, but the transportation comparisons (to Boston even) leave it looking pretty bad and I might hesitate to move back because of them. Of course they layout precludes San Diego from ever having a great transportation system, but there is still plenty that could be done. Having a subway would clearly help a lot, but I don’t know how feasible that would be. The trolley could certainly be expanded and the amount of parking at trolley stations could be increased. What they should also do is improve the bus system and so that it is more convenient and so that many more people would actually PREFER to take the bus than to drive. They need to add additional lines, especially express ones that connect areas that a lot of people go between. Buses on existing lines need to come more often, especially during commute times. The fares definitely need to be reduced. With my hybrid and gas prices at a fairly low level it was quite a bit cheaper for me to drive than it would have been to take the bus. That is ridiculous.
This brings me to the other side of the equation, which is making driving a less attractive option. The easiest way to achieve this would be to increase the gas tax and make it more expensive to drive everywhere. As a bonus, this could help fund the better public transportation AND encourage people to buy more fuel-efficient cars. As time went on and more public transportation options became available, one could also institute congestion pricing that would charge a daily fee for, say, people driving from North County into downtown. For these purposes, this might even be a better option than a gas tax hike since it would only affect the (generally affluent) people taking up the road during the time in which it is in most demand. It makes perfect sense: a scarce resource that is in high demand should cost a lot!
This of course also applies to parking, though expensive parking really demands that progress is made on other fronts. There is nothing more sadistic than charging a fortune for parking when driving is the only viable option. Merchants, of course, hate it when potential customers are charged money for parking near their shops, but the truth is that right now the one thing the buses in San Diego actually well is dump people on Broadway downtown. This of course is right next to Horton Plaza, where most of the major merchants are, and to the rest of the Gaslamp where most of the restaurants and bars are. My gut tells me that very few people going to these places use the bus to get there. The people who do use the bus are, for the most part, poor, which is why, I suspect, Broadway itself has so many check-cashing places. If middle and upper-class people started taking the bus in large numbers, there would be lots of choice real estate in that corridor, allowing the city to increase its tax-base, something that cities are never shy about doing.
*End of tangent*
So anyways, my hope is that I’ll get some good hiking in during my short stay in the Alps; however, I’m worried that my legs might be a bit fatigued from the constant walking I’ve been doing the last few days. Yesterday was especially bad, though they aren’t explicitly sore today, so that’s good. Still, I’m going to try to rest them today. I’m not really sure what that means for my afternoon once I arrive in Grenoble, since I would sort of like to explore the city a bit. Do you think they rent Segways?
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anonymous
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Post pictures!!!!-eva