"It doesn't look all that big, does it?"
When I saw it from the tour bus at a distance, that iconic lacy black arrow looked just as I imagined it would. As we walked right up to it, however, it just didn't look very ... I don't know -- imposing, I guess. I thought it'd look more massive from the ground when we were close up to it.
Up until that point, we'd been lucky with the weather -- it was cold and windy but at least it was dry. But as soon as we got in line to go through security and buy tickets to go up, the wind picked up, and for the first time on the whole trip I wished I had my warm gloves. I'd packed them but never needed them until now, not even during the snow flurries in Sweden. But that cold wind in Paris was something else. It really got miserable when it started raining hard.
If there's only one thing you do in Paris the first time you're there, it's gotta be the Eiffel Tower, even in the rain. In a way the rain was actually good because there weren't many other tourists as determinedly crazy as Andy and I were, to stand out there in the windy cold pouring down rain, inching our way along that snaky queue with all the hairpin doubling-back turns.
If you want to take the stairs all the way up, it's cheaper than taking the elevator. But even Andy was willing to pay extra for the elevator tickets. In spite of the rain keeping the crowd smaller than usual, we still had to wait a couple turns before we could get into the elevator.
There are at least three levels to the Eiffel Tower that are open to the public. The first elevator stop is maybe a third of the way up, at the top of the base level, where there is a kind of balustrade where you can walk around. The second elevator stop is almost all the way up, and opens out to a viewing area that's enclosed with glass windows so you can see out in relative comfort. Another comfort measure is the heaters all along the perimeter. It was so cold everyone was crowding around them. Posters all along the perimeter are full of interesting factoids and photos, including some of Sarah Bernhardt, Buffalo Bill, and other famous people who were among the first to ever climb the Tower when it first opened. (No elevator for them, nor nice heaters and protective glass windows either -- those all came years after the Tower was first built).
There were signs noting how far the Tower is from other parts of the world. I think it's something like 8,900 kilometers from New York City. One poster informed us that Thomas Edison designed the first electric lighting system for it, and there were several photos showing how the Tower had living quarters when it was first built.
I couldn't see much, of course, but Andy did a great job of reading and describing everything to me, and he had a good time taking in the view all around. He could pick out the Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe and other Parisian icons, and said the roofs of the city are almost all uniformly red clay tile. The Seine was a nice deep blue. I liked that. (I really was disappointed that the Thames was such a gloomy muddy color.)
He found a stairway up, presumably to the very very top, so I said I'd stay warm while he went up. He came back down and told me it was only about fifteen steps, "and there's a little gift shop up there and you can get champagne."
"OK, let's go," I said, "If there's one thing I should do on the Eiffel Tower, it's have a glass of champagne at the top." I mean, really. A blind lady's gotta get some joy out of a view she can't see.
So we went up, and I had my little glass of champagne. Andy was a killjoy and wouldn't get a glass to toast with me, but I savored mine anyway and sent up a silent toast to Linda, who I knew would have been right in there with me, toasting with gusto. (And making me squat for a selfie.)
It stopped raining and the sun came out while we were up there. It was so deliciously warm, standing there in the sun, like having a cushy soft blanket thrown over my shoulders. Now everyone abandoned the heaters and crowded into the spotlights of sun.
We went into the gift shop and Andy helped me pick out an Eiffel Tower refrigerator magnet for Linda, to add to her collection. It was probably made in China, but oh well.
As we headed back down to the elevator, Andy found another set of stairs. These led down to a landing that had nice restrooms, a couple of gift shops, and a couple of food and drink vendors.
Just to look at it, you'd never know all this stuff is in the Eiffel Tower. There's a lot more in it than down on the ground at the base of it, in fact. On the ground there are just a couple of food vendors and touristy souvenir shops, and the only restroom is a stinky Porta-Potty kind of hole in the ground with walls around it (and no toilet paper. If we'd known the Tower had nice restrooms upstairs, we both would have waited!).
In addition to gift shops, food and drink vendors, and nice restrooms, the Tower itself is crammed with radar and communication equipment. The French seem to have done a good job of making the most out their lacy black arrow.
The Eiffel Tower is best appreciated from a distance, I think, rather than within it or even at the top of it. Now that l've had my champagne at the top, I have no need to do that one again. I don't think Andy does either, unless he wants to rectify his failure to make the appropriate commemorative ablutions, and go back up to get himself a glass of champagne.
So, having done the Eiffel Tower, we decided we were done with the bus tour. It was another one of those big red double-decker tour buses, and like the ones in London, the top decks are open to the elements. Unlike the ones in London, however, the Paris tour bus drivers don't give you any live commentary. Andy was disappointed in the taped commentary he picked up through the headphones. He said it didn't give much information and was mostly music. All in all, we didn't get much out of the Paris version of the big red double-decker bus tour.
But at least we did the Eiffel Tower, and neither of us needed a guide to tell us when we were driving down the Champs de l'Elysee and under the Arc de Triomphe. As in London, there was nothing to indicate there'd been a recent terrorist attack there. And again, I felt spooky.
We took the subway -- in Paris, it's "the Metro" -- back to our hotel. The Metro station was a lot farther than Andy thought, and it was far more walking than I should have done on my bad feet. It was pouring down rain again when we got out at the station near our hotel, and by the time we got back to our room I was totally done for the day.
My feet hurt so much I didn't even want to go downstairs, so Andy went over to the superb little bakery across the street and brought back some wonderful quiches for dinner. Those quiches were so good we plan to stop there again tomorrow before we head for our train to Lyon.
It's been such a short time in Paris. We only just got here yesterday around noon after a nice relaxing ride on the Eurostar train.
Getting to the Eurostar was a piece of cake if your feet didn't hurt. We got on the tube a couple blocks from St. Ermin's, went one stop to Victoria Station, transferred to another train, went a few more stops, and voila, there we were at St. Pancras station.
Once we got to St. Pancras, it was a hike up and down escalators and stairs and finally a long straight walkway (at least a couple city blocks long) into the Eurostar terminal. We passed security (similar to but still easier than going through airport security), cleared customs, and had a little waiting time before we could board our train. I was very happy to sit down and get off my feet.
Happily, Andy bought first-class tickets, so at boarding time we got to use a less-crowded boarding ramp and were seated in one of the first two cars. We had opposing seats with a table between us, and could set up our laptops and even plug them in and charge them up. The seats were very comfortable, and we were served a nice breakfast.
The ride through the southern English countryside toward the Channel did not take long. It all looked gray and more gray to me, but I could imagine how green the gently rolling countryside really was. Then we went into the tunnel, and were back up and speeding through gently rolling French countryside before we knew it.
The entire ride lasted less than two and a half hours, and we only had to be at the train station about forty minutes before departure. Plus it took us only fifteen minutes to get to the Eurostar terminal. If we'd flown, the flight would have been about an hour shorter than the train ride, but we'd have had to be at the airport two hours ahead of time and it would have taken us an hour to get to the airport In the first place. Then, when we arrived in Paris, it would have been at least another hour and a half to get our bags and then to our hotel. When the Eurostar arrived at Paris Nord, we walked off the train with our baggage, found a taxi within minutes, and arrived at our hotel about ten minutes later.
Do the math, and it's a no-brainer. Three hours and forty-five minutes to get from St. Ermin's in London to the Hotel De La Porte Doree in Paris via train, versus five to six hours by air. And it's way more comfortable on the train. Even the toilet rooms are bigger, cleaner, and easier to use than on an airplane.
The Hotel De La Porte Doree is a cute little hotel located close to buses, subways, and major train stations, in a delightful neighborhood full of little shops of all kinds and cafes and restaurants. After we checked in, we set off to explore and find some lunch. We found a little brasserie about a block away, and we split a lentil and ham salad with egg (the egg on top of salad is a very French thing, especially in Lyon, and it's surprisingly good). It was just the perfect late lunch to tide us over until dinner at the little restaurant around the other corner from our hotel.
In France, unless it's a brasserie which is open all afternoon between lunch and dinner time, restaurants don't open for dinner until seven, sometimes seven-thirty, and most people don't eat until eight or nine. That's a nice way to do it, if you stay up later and get up later. But if you're used to the early rise-and-shine thing with dinner at six and bedtime before midnight, French time can take some getting used to.
The bakeries here all seem to open early and stay open late, and there must be two of them along with a chocolate shop or two on every block. As well as two produce and grocery stores mixed in with all the other little clothing, eyeglass, pharmacy, bicycle, and what-have-you shops. There's even a Midas muffler shop almost next door to our hotel. After Westminster and all the mostly uniform gray-white stone and red brick, this neighborhood is like a flower garden that includes a few flowering weeds along with the rose bushes. I'd love to live here for a month or two and get to know every little nook and cranny.
Our hotel is full of little nooks and crannies, too. One of the littlest nooks is the elevator, which is only eighteen inches wide and about four feet long. If you're wearing a backpack, there's no room to swing a kneazel in there, as Hagrid might say.
There's not much room to swing a kneazel in our room, either, as it's tiny, but it's lovely and for two nights, it works. It's on the first floor (the first floor above the ground level, that is; at home it'd be on the second floor) and our window looks right out onto the street. (Yes, it opens!) You can see where all the wrought-iron trim in New Orleans came from. Several buildings in this neighborhood, including our hotel, have decorative wrought-iron grills with flower boxes adorning the windows.
Dinner last night at "the little restaurant around the other corner" from here was wonderful. I had a bouillabaisse to start with, and then my main course was a beef bourguignon (classic French dish with beef, bacon, mushrooms and red wine). Andy ordered some kind of lamb, which he almost always likes, but after he tasted mine he wished he'd ordered the beef bourguignon, too. (And he doesn't like mushrooms!).
It'd be nice if we could go back there tonight, but, as I said, I'm done for the day and not walking anymore anywhere. We definitely need to come to Paris again and stay a lot longer. I'd stay here at the Hotel De La Porte Doree again, too, as long as we get a bigger room next time.
Short shots:
Parting flavors:
When we left St. Ermin's yesterday, we stopped at a little breakfast and lunch place on the way to the tube, because Andy wanted to try one of their breakfast fruit smoothies. He chose a combination of berries, coconut milk and other stuff he doesn't remember anymore. I tasted it, and was surprised he liked it. it wasn't very sweet -- in fact, it was the sort of thing he usually does not like.
I had avocado and chorizo sausage on toasted sourdough. The avocado had been mashed with a lot of lemon, and the chorizo was not the Mexican chorizo I'm used to. It tasted strange at first, but after the third bite I liked it and had no trouble eating the whole thing.
This trip has expanded both our palates.
Hotel De La Porte Doree:
The woman who owns the hotel is from Sacramento. I learned about it from my friend Rita Sudman who has stayed here. Interestingly enough, after I booked our reservations and told Linda about it, she said she has stayed here before, too. It is a good hotel at a reasonable rate and great location, both for the neighborhood itself and for getting out and about on good local transit. The hotel breakfast buffets are excellent, too, and the staff is very friendly and helpful.
The Metro:
Paris' subway system is effective and extensive, but not the most pleasant to use. For one thing, it's disability-hostile. Even if a wheelchair could get down to a train platform, there's no way to get on the train because you have to step up about six inches from the platform onto the trains. There are no announcements of the stops -- everyone is expected to keep track on their own -- and you get ten seconds max to get on and off.
And for another thing, it stinks. Andy says he didn't smell anything but I often caught strong Porta-Potty and sewage odors. And once, while we were on a platform walking to our train, Andy suddenly steered me around an obstacle that he told me later was a pile of dog poop.
Disability consciousness:
On this whole trip so far, disability accessibility is overall lousy, and it's easy to see why. It's an impossible task \to bring everything up to a standard building code when you're working with architecture and infrastructure that's hundreds, even thousands, of years old.
So far, I have not encountered a single other white cane user, although I did see a few wheelchairs in Amsterdam.
I notice some different attitudes. In Copenhagen, for example, big red double-decker bus tours are free to blind customers. The Brits didn't give me any free rides, though. (Not that I'm asking for any.). And when Andy tried to get a refund from the tour bus company here in Paris when he learned that none of the buses here provide live commentaries (I can't pick up the taped audio commentaries), they refused.
The Paris Metro is NOT disability-friendly but that doesn't necessarily apply to its riders. Every time I got on the Metro (or almost any other public transit anywhere), someone almost always offered me a seat right at the door. It's nice to know simple humane courtesies are still universally in practice.
I was interested to notice a huge monument honoring French soldiers who were disabled in the Second World War. From what I could see of it from the tour bus, and gather from Andy's description, it's a large circular or oval park, with a big building in the center, and a constant honor guard. I don't remember the details of the building that Andy described to me, but I do remember the bullets. I could see those. They were shrubs trimmed in the shape of bullets, and rose out of the surrounding green lawn like sharks breaking water from the deep.
It is good that France honors its disabled veterans, and I wonder how the disabled veterans feel about that monument
Parisian color:
It seems almost everyone in Europe, Paris included, wears mostly black. Sometimes I feel like Polychrome of Oz peeking through a black mesh curtain when I'm gadding about in my purple leggings under a royal blue parka ornamented with a Laurel Burch scarf in all the brightest jewel tone colors of the rainbow.
Today when we were talking to a woman at the tour bus company about getting a refund (and being refused, albeit nicely), I wondered if maybe in Paris the new color was khaki. She wore khaki leggings, a khaki jacket, and a beige scarf around her neck.
Then I wondered if maybe it was all really gray instead of khaki. "Hey Andy," I said, "what colors is that woman wearing?"
"Who, the one we were just talking to?"
"Yes."
He took a good long look. "Well," he said, "I suppose her pants are a kind of deep pink, no, more like a dark salmon color." I looked at him, astonished that his color discernment has evolved to the point of distinguishing "deep pink" from "dark salmon." He took another look at the tour bus lady. "And her jacket is a mustard yellow." And he said her scarf was "soft purple."
I looked at the tour bus lady again, and lo and behold, there she was in a happy riot of dark salmon, mustard yellow and purple. That made me happy.
I'm even happier about Andy's color discernment. There was a time when, if I asked him if this was blue or green, he'd say, with utter absolute finality, "it's blue."
"But does it have any green in it?"
"Well maybe a little. There are kinda green specks."
"So is the green in this a teal green or more of a grass green??"
Upon which he'd sputter in exasperation, "Mary, it's blue with some green in it and that's all I can tell you!"
Metro shopping:
I don't care for the Paris Metro much but there is one station I'd cheerfully visit again. I don't recall the name, but it's the one with the little shop that sells silk scarves. Andy saw it as we were exiting the station, called it to my attention, and helped me pick out two scarves. One has hummingbirds and dragonflies on it, and the other is a Laurel Burch scarf, featuring her signature cats in all the jewel tone rainbow colors. The shopkeeper had the Laurel Burch scarf in a black background and a deep purple background. I was going to go for the black but Andy and the shopkeeper both said the purple was better.
So the Paris Metro serves up sewer smells, dog poop and silk scarves. Only in Paris, I guess.
On to Lyon tomorrow.
When I saw it from the tour bus at a distance, that iconic lacy black arrow looked just as I imagined it would. As we walked right up to it, however, it just didn't look very ... I don't know -- imposing, I guess. I thought it'd look more massive from the ground when we were close up to it.
Up until that point, we'd been lucky with the weather -- it was cold and windy but at least it was dry. But as soon as we got in line to go through security and buy tickets to go up, the wind picked up, and for the first time on the whole trip I wished I had my warm gloves. I'd packed them but never needed them until now, not even during the snow flurries in Sweden. But that cold wind in Paris was something else. It really got miserable when it started raining hard.
If there's only one thing you do in Paris the first time you're there, it's gotta be the Eiffel Tower, even in the rain. In a way the rain was actually good because there weren't many other tourists as determinedly crazy as Andy and I were, to stand out there in the windy cold pouring down rain, inching our way along that snaky queue with all the hairpin doubling-back turns.
If you want to take the stairs all the way up, it's cheaper than taking the elevator. But even Andy was willing to pay extra for the elevator tickets. In spite of the rain keeping the crowd smaller than usual, we still had to wait a couple turns before we could get into the elevator.
There are at least three levels to the Eiffel Tower that are open to the public. The first elevator stop is maybe a third of the way up, at the top of the base level, where there is a kind of balustrade where you can walk around. The second elevator stop is almost all the way up, and opens out to a viewing area that's enclosed with glass windows so you can see out in relative comfort. Another comfort measure is the heaters all along the perimeter. It was so cold everyone was crowding around them. Posters all along the perimeter are full of interesting factoids and photos, including some of Sarah Bernhardt, Buffalo Bill, and other famous people who were among the first to ever climb the Tower when it first opened. (No elevator for them, nor nice heaters and protective glass windows either -- those all came years after the Tower was first built).
There were signs noting how far the Tower is from other parts of the world. I think it's something like 8,900 kilometers from New York City. One poster informed us that Thomas Edison designed the first electric lighting system for it, and there were several photos showing how the Tower had living quarters when it was first built.
I couldn't see much, of course, but Andy did a great job of reading and describing everything to me, and he had a good time taking in the view all around. He could pick out the Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe and other Parisian icons, and said the roofs of the city are almost all uniformly red clay tile. The Seine was a nice deep blue. I liked that. (I really was disappointed that the Thames was such a gloomy muddy color.)
He found a stairway up, presumably to the very very top, so I said I'd stay warm while he went up. He came back down and told me it was only about fifteen steps, "and there's a little gift shop up there and you can get champagne."
"OK, let's go," I said, "If there's one thing I should do on the Eiffel Tower, it's have a glass of champagne at the top." I mean, really. A blind lady's gotta get some joy out of a view she can't see.
So we went up, and I had my little glass of champagne. Andy was a killjoy and wouldn't get a glass to toast with me, but I savored mine anyway and sent up a silent toast to Linda, who I knew would have been right in there with me, toasting with gusto. (And making me squat for a selfie.)
It stopped raining and the sun came out while we were up there. It was so deliciously warm, standing there in the sun, like having a cushy soft blanket thrown over my shoulders. Now everyone abandoned the heaters and crowded into the spotlights of sun.
We went into the gift shop and Andy helped me pick out an Eiffel Tower refrigerator magnet for Linda, to add to her collection. It was probably made in China, but oh well.
As we headed back down to the elevator, Andy found another set of stairs. These led down to a landing that had nice restrooms, a couple of gift shops, and a couple of food and drink vendors.
Just to look at it, you'd never know all this stuff is in the Eiffel Tower. There's a lot more in it than down on the ground at the base of it, in fact. On the ground there are just a couple of food vendors and touristy souvenir shops, and the only restroom is a stinky Porta-Potty kind of hole in the ground with walls around it (and no toilet paper. If we'd known the Tower had nice restrooms upstairs, we both would have waited!).
In addition to gift shops, food and drink vendors, and nice restrooms, the Tower itself is crammed with radar and communication equipment. The French seem to have done a good job of making the most out their lacy black arrow.
The Eiffel Tower is best appreciated from a distance, I think, rather than within it or even at the top of it. Now that l've had my champagne at the top, I have no need to do that one again. I don't think Andy does either, unless he wants to rectify his failure to make the appropriate commemorative ablutions, and go back up to get himself a glass of champagne.
So, having done the Eiffel Tower, we decided we were done with the bus tour. It was another one of those big red double-decker tour buses, and like the ones in London, the top decks are open to the elements. Unlike the ones in London, however, the Paris tour bus drivers don't give you any live commentary. Andy was disappointed in the taped commentary he picked up through the headphones. He said it didn't give much information and was mostly music. All in all, we didn't get much out of the Paris version of the big red double-decker bus tour.
But at least we did the Eiffel Tower, and neither of us needed a guide to tell us when we were driving down the Champs de l'Elysee and under the Arc de Triomphe. As in London, there was nothing to indicate there'd been a recent terrorist attack there. And again, I felt spooky.
We took the subway -- in Paris, it's "the Metro" -- back to our hotel. The Metro station was a lot farther than Andy thought, and it was far more walking than I should have done on my bad feet. It was pouring down rain again when we got out at the station near our hotel, and by the time we got back to our room I was totally done for the day.
My feet hurt so much I didn't even want to go downstairs, so Andy went over to the superb little bakery across the street and brought back some wonderful quiches for dinner. Those quiches were so good we plan to stop there again tomorrow before we head for our train to Lyon.
It's been such a short time in Paris. We only just got here yesterday around noon after a nice relaxing ride on the Eurostar train.
Getting to the Eurostar was a piece of cake if your feet didn't hurt. We got on the tube a couple blocks from St. Ermin's, went one stop to Victoria Station, transferred to another train, went a few more stops, and voila, there we were at St. Pancras station.
Once we got to St. Pancras, it was a hike up and down escalators and stairs and finally a long straight walkway (at least a couple city blocks long) into the Eurostar terminal. We passed security (similar to but still easier than going through airport security), cleared customs, and had a little waiting time before we could board our train. I was very happy to sit down and get off my feet.
Happily, Andy bought first-class tickets, so at boarding time we got to use a less-crowded boarding ramp and were seated in one of the first two cars. We had opposing seats with a table between us, and could set up our laptops and even plug them in and charge them up. The seats were very comfortable, and we were served a nice breakfast.
The ride through the southern English countryside toward the Channel did not take long. It all looked gray and more gray to me, but I could imagine how green the gently rolling countryside really was. Then we went into the tunnel, and were back up and speeding through gently rolling French countryside before we knew it.
The entire ride lasted less than two and a half hours, and we only had to be at the train station about forty minutes before departure. Plus it took us only fifteen minutes to get to the Eurostar terminal. If we'd flown, the flight would have been about an hour shorter than the train ride, but we'd have had to be at the airport two hours ahead of time and it would have taken us an hour to get to the airport In the first place. Then, when we arrived in Paris, it would have been at least another hour and a half to get our bags and then to our hotel. When the Eurostar arrived at Paris Nord, we walked off the train with our baggage, found a taxi within minutes, and arrived at our hotel about ten minutes later.
Do the math, and it's a no-brainer. Three hours and forty-five minutes to get from St. Ermin's in London to the Hotel De La Porte Doree in Paris via train, versus five to six hours by air. And it's way more comfortable on the train. Even the toilet rooms are bigger, cleaner, and easier to use than on an airplane.
The Hotel De La Porte Doree is a cute little hotel located close to buses, subways, and major train stations, in a delightful neighborhood full of little shops of all kinds and cafes and restaurants. After we checked in, we set off to explore and find some lunch. We found a little brasserie about a block away, and we split a lentil and ham salad with egg (the egg on top of salad is a very French thing, especially in Lyon, and it's surprisingly good). It was just the perfect late lunch to tide us over until dinner at the little restaurant around the other corner from our hotel.
In France, unless it's a brasserie which is open all afternoon between lunch and dinner time, restaurants don't open for dinner until seven, sometimes seven-thirty, and most people don't eat until eight or nine. That's a nice way to do it, if you stay up later and get up later. But if you're used to the early rise-and-shine thing with dinner at six and bedtime before midnight, French time can take some getting used to.
The bakeries here all seem to open early and stay open late, and there must be two of them along with a chocolate shop or two on every block. As well as two produce and grocery stores mixed in with all the other little clothing, eyeglass, pharmacy, bicycle, and what-have-you shops. There's even a Midas muffler shop almost next door to our hotel. After Westminster and all the mostly uniform gray-white stone and red brick, this neighborhood is like a flower garden that includes a few flowering weeds along with the rose bushes. I'd love to live here for a month or two and get to know every little nook and cranny.
Our hotel is full of little nooks and crannies, too. One of the littlest nooks is the elevator, which is only eighteen inches wide and about four feet long. If you're wearing a backpack, there's no room to swing a kneazel in there, as Hagrid might say.
There's not much room to swing a kneazel in our room, either, as it's tiny, but it's lovely and for two nights, it works. It's on the first floor (the first floor above the ground level, that is; at home it'd be on the second floor) and our window looks right out onto the street. (Yes, it opens!) You can see where all the wrought-iron trim in New Orleans came from. Several buildings in this neighborhood, including our hotel, have decorative wrought-iron grills with flower boxes adorning the windows.
Dinner last night at "the little restaurant around the other corner" from here was wonderful. I had a bouillabaisse to start with, and then my main course was a beef bourguignon (classic French dish with beef, bacon, mushrooms and red wine). Andy ordered some kind of lamb, which he almost always likes, but after he tasted mine he wished he'd ordered the beef bourguignon, too. (And he doesn't like mushrooms!).
It'd be nice if we could go back there tonight, but, as I said, I'm done for the day and not walking anymore anywhere. We definitely need to come to Paris again and stay a lot longer. I'd stay here at the Hotel De La Porte Doree again, too, as long as we get a bigger room next time.
Short shots:
Parting flavors:
When we left St. Ermin's yesterday, we stopped at a little breakfast and lunch place on the way to the tube, because Andy wanted to try one of their breakfast fruit smoothies. He chose a combination of berries, coconut milk and other stuff he doesn't remember anymore. I tasted it, and was surprised he liked it. it wasn't very sweet -- in fact, it was the sort of thing he usually does not like.
I had avocado and chorizo sausage on toasted sourdough. The avocado had been mashed with a lot of lemon, and the chorizo was not the Mexican chorizo I'm used to. It tasted strange at first, but after the third bite I liked it and had no trouble eating the whole thing.
This trip has expanded both our palates.
Hotel De La Porte Doree:
The woman who owns the hotel is from Sacramento. I learned about it from my friend Rita Sudman who has stayed here. Interestingly enough, after I booked our reservations and told Linda about it, she said she has stayed here before, too. It is a good hotel at a reasonable rate and great location, both for the neighborhood itself and for getting out and about on good local transit. The hotel breakfast buffets are excellent, too, and the staff is very friendly and helpful.
The Metro:
Paris' subway system is effective and extensive, but not the most pleasant to use. For one thing, it's disability-hostile. Even if a wheelchair could get down to a train platform, there's no way to get on the train because you have to step up about six inches from the platform onto the trains. There are no announcements of the stops -- everyone is expected to keep track on their own -- and you get ten seconds max to get on and off.
And for another thing, it stinks. Andy says he didn't smell anything but I often caught strong Porta-Potty and sewage odors. And once, while we were on a platform walking to our train, Andy suddenly steered me around an obstacle that he told me later was a pile of dog poop.
Disability consciousness:
On this whole trip so far, disability accessibility is overall lousy, and it's easy to see why. It's an impossible task \to bring everything up to a standard building code when you're working with architecture and infrastructure that's hundreds, even thousands, of years old.
So far, I have not encountered a single other white cane user, although I did see a few wheelchairs in Amsterdam.
I notice some different attitudes. In Copenhagen, for example, big red double-decker bus tours are free to blind customers. The Brits didn't give me any free rides, though. (Not that I'm asking for any.). And when Andy tried to get a refund from the tour bus company here in Paris when he learned that none of the buses here provide live commentaries (I can't pick up the taped audio commentaries), they refused.
The Paris Metro is NOT disability-friendly but that doesn't necessarily apply to its riders. Every time I got on the Metro (or almost any other public transit anywhere), someone almost always offered me a seat right at the door. It's nice to know simple humane courtesies are still universally in practice.
I was interested to notice a huge monument honoring French soldiers who were disabled in the Second World War. From what I could see of it from the tour bus, and gather from Andy's description, it's a large circular or oval park, with a big building in the center, and a constant honor guard. I don't remember the details of the building that Andy described to me, but I do remember the bullets. I could see those. They were shrubs trimmed in the shape of bullets, and rose out of the surrounding green lawn like sharks breaking water from the deep.
It is good that France honors its disabled veterans, and I wonder how the disabled veterans feel about that monument
Parisian color:
It seems almost everyone in Europe, Paris included, wears mostly black. Sometimes I feel like Polychrome of Oz peeking through a black mesh curtain when I'm gadding about in my purple leggings under a royal blue parka ornamented with a Laurel Burch scarf in all the brightest jewel tone colors of the rainbow.
Today when we were talking to a woman at the tour bus company about getting a refund (and being refused, albeit nicely), I wondered if maybe in Paris the new color was khaki. She wore khaki leggings, a khaki jacket, and a beige scarf around her neck.
Then I wondered if maybe it was all really gray instead of khaki. "Hey Andy," I said, "what colors is that woman wearing?"
"Who, the one we were just talking to?"
"Yes."
He took a good long look. "Well," he said, "I suppose her pants are a kind of deep pink, no, more like a dark salmon color." I looked at him, astonished that his color discernment has evolved to the point of distinguishing "deep pink" from "dark salmon." He took another look at the tour bus lady. "And her jacket is a mustard yellow." And he said her scarf was "soft purple."
I looked at the tour bus lady again, and lo and behold, there she was in a happy riot of dark salmon, mustard yellow and purple. That made me happy.
I'm even happier about Andy's color discernment. There was a time when, if I asked him if this was blue or green, he'd say, with utter absolute finality, "it's blue."
"But does it have any green in it?"
"Well maybe a little. There are kinda green specks."
"So is the green in this a teal green or more of a grass green??"
Upon which he'd sputter in exasperation, "Mary, it's blue with some green in it and that's all I can tell you!"
Metro shopping:
I don't care for the Paris Metro much but there is one station I'd cheerfully visit again. I don't recall the name, but it's the one with the little shop that sells silk scarves. Andy saw it as we were exiting the station, called it to my attention, and helped me pick out two scarves. One has hummingbirds and dragonflies on it, and the other is a Laurel Burch scarf, featuring her signature cats in all the jewel tone rainbow colors. The shopkeeper had the Laurel Burch scarf in a black background and a deep purple background. I was going to go for the black but Andy and the shopkeeper both said the purple was better.
So the Paris Metro serves up sewer smells, dog poop and silk scarves. Only in Paris, I guess.
On to Lyon tomorrow.
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