Blogs from Paris, Île-de-France, France, Europe - page 339

paris is heating up! the misery level has been on the rise in the past 3 weeks and may become unbearable soon. so best to avoid pounding the city streets at high noon. coolest places in paris in the summer? here's my list: louvre ... enjoy the sculptures and antiquities section and walk through the cool, wall to wall marble areas. the airconditioned carousel du louvre is an entertaing place to hang out. avoid eating at the food court though. well if you must or you're not bothered by blah food, it won't kill you. 4star hotel lobbies. sit on the sofa's for a cool down freezer section of the monoprix grocery stores lounging around the fountain at the jardin palais royal at sundown shaded café away from the main streets with a coca light...ask for ... read more

I took the EuroStar to Paris to meet up with Dan (a friend from UBC). Dan did a study abroad in Paris this past semester and has been using a friends apartment as a home base for traveling the rest of Europe for the summer. Dan, his girlfriend Christine and his friend Joey from UBC as well all came to collect me. Joey´s close family friend was arriving on a train an hour after I arrived so we went to "Buffalo Grill" for some wine. Kind of funny that my first restaurant was one serving Mid-Western American food. Our waitress was completely drunk so that was entertaining. When we got back to the house we played cards and chatted for a while. Eventually we made our way to the supermarket to make dinner. Joey was a ... read more

We arrived in Paris searching for a hostel to stay in the first night and had quite a hard time finding one. After purchasing a book about getting around Europe on a budget, we took the advice of the guide and went by Metro/foot to hostels seeking a room. One of the hostels actually laughed at us when we informed them we had no reservations and told us to follow the guy they had just sent out before us. So...we followed him, not in a stalker way at all, we actually talked and shared the map and found a hostel with open rooms that was cheaper and cleaner than the latter. With that settled we wandered our way around the city visiting the Notre Dame and Louvre. Both predictably pleasant as seen on postcards. Coolest Museum ... read more

This morning I went to the US Embassy here in Paris to renew my passport. It should come back to me in two weeks. A new fresh passport is an exciting thing - when it expires in ten years where will I have been? (Thailand and Laos for sure and I hope some other interesting places as well. Anyway, speaking of the US Embassy it is sad but true that in the 20 years I’ve lived in Paris they’ve really gone downhill. Does anyone remember the Marines? Used to be that they were the ones who checked you through to whatever service you were going to. I think they were picked on the basis of how good-looking they were because they were all tall and fit and really cute. Nowadays, there is a just bunch of ... read more

Day 33: Saturday, June 24: London I'm going to admit.. I didn't think I'd like London.. but so far it has been a wonderful city to hang out in. I'm sure part of it has to do with the fact that the last two days have been a perfect 80 deg. Today I headed down to the Tower of London before it got to busy and walked around, toured all the towers, saw the Crown Jewels, walked through the White Tower and just had a nice morning out in the sun. After I caught the tube to Maritime Greenwich, home of the Prime Meridian and where all Time is based off of. If you ever get to London, go down to Greenwich, I thought I was going to pop on down, straddle the Eastern and Western ... read more