paris, day 1, september 02

date: 1094545445

mood:
listening to:

Trip to Paris
(typed from handwritten notes)

Since I am not taking laptop, the small handy booklet shall be my diary.

Before leaving the computers at UCM, I copied “iParis” from internet, to computer in UCM, to USB key generously provided by Ina, to laptop, and then I beamed it to palm. (All that could have been so much simpler if I just had internet on the laptop and installed the palm program! argh). I am so thankful I did that! It has a map of all Paris metro lines, with corresponding information about each station, which lines intersect at it, and a visual display of the location on the map.
I wil arrive at Gare Nord, via the pricey Thalys train, to quote Rick. Gare Nord est.. I mean, is, (for the unknowing: ‘est’ is ‘is’ in french) on line 5. My subway to hosten is on line 9. So using the program I calculaed the route! It has automatic route calculation, but there are only 6 free ones, so I will save them in case I will need them for an emergency.
I am technically in Belgim now. So far, the trip was fantastaic. At Liege, I got a croissant and a coffee. Even coffee at train stations, is so so nice, that even I can drink it. canadian coffee doesn’t even stand a chance!

I think after Brussles, to which we only arrive in 20 minutes – err, okay, maybe we’re arriving right now… Anyway, I shall go to sleep soon.
I am looking at Rick’s map of Paris. Paris overview. And it is incredible, how walkable it is. I am glad I shall already have a place to stay, and the rest will be fine. If my backpack is too heavy I can through out some of it (soap, toothpast), and wear the rest. [side note: I did not expect the security in the hostel to be good enough for me to leave stuff there!] (3 shirts might be a bit weird but … who cares.) [side note: at this point I had no idea what parisian weather is like, haha].
Anyway, I believe we are now in Brussles, I moved to the window since my neighbour left, and shall look asleep and hope to be left alone. Au revoir!

12:00am
wow. It is now exactly 6pm in Canada, and here it is officially thursday.
Holy shit, tea here is SO expensive! 4 euros! I am jumping between the wish to not do anything b/c even basic stuff is so expensive, and the wish to just forget about the conversion to CAD, and just spend money as I feel necessary.
The tea is lovely though. PERFECTLY sized mug, a fantastic tea bag (its like… special material teabag), and a small kettle with enough water for 2 perfectly sized cups. Considering I am not in the centre though – I just went to a place 2 minutes away from the hotel – it is likely as ridiculously priced in the center.

After arriving into Paris (I glimpsed upon the Eiffel Tower when the train was coming – BTW the speed of the train must have been like 300km/h, it was insanely fast, we passed with ease each and single car on the highway next to us) I went to the hostel, which was seriously too big for me.
I have a room with 2 twin sized beds, and I am alone there. Next time I must bring someone along.

I called dad and left msgs on his work machine, and then I called Luke and agreed to meet in an hour.

[at this point I switched to point form notes because it was late, i was tired, and i wanted to plan what i will be doing tomorrow. so i will retype my impressions from the point form notes]

The metro
The metro is absolutely humongous. I mean, it isn’t shocking, I knew it would be huge, but it is extremely cool to have all these amazing places to go to, and each has a subway station right nearby.
The walkways between the stations (when you transfer from line to line) are tiny. The constrast is like Paris – huge boulevards and tiny streets. Huge metro and tiny walkways.

The Louvre jumped out at me. Luke and I were walking towards the Eiffel tower (I think), and suddenly I see a building, and it says Palace Royal, and Luke says “oh, you definetly know this place”, and for some reason I kept thinking “the palace is versailles” and forgot that it is Louvre as well! So we cross the street, and he tells me it is louvre. That would make it the first thing that I have seen in Paris out of all the famous stuff. I was so surprised, that I had tears, like, I wasn’t crying, but I had many tears in my eyes, because it was just… well, something I expected forever, and suddenly it was here.
We walked around a bit, and the pyramids are fantastic. It was a pleasure to finally see some famous architecture that I studied in art oac, I.M.Pei. I have read so much about the controversy of the pyramids, so it was awesome to finally see them in real life.

Afte rwalking around Louvre (outside) for a bit, we continued to Champes d’Elysees, but it began to RAIN HARD. Of course when I was looking outside it was prefectly sunny so now I didn’t have a jacket, just a little shirt (the triped with white and beige). The street and the Arc looked fantastic, because it was already getting dark, and all the cars had their lights on, so it was extremely pretty. But also very wet. We ran for cover, found some sort of place to eat. Ate, it was too expensive and not that fanstastic. But I was tired, and hungry, so it was good for the time being.

After dinner I insisited that I go to see the Eiffel tower, because I always wanted to see it and I am my first day in Paris and still haven’t seen it.
the epxerience as fantastic. After coming out of the subway, I kept running around, becaues the tower was upposed to be like, right there. So the exit goes into an intersection of 4 streets, and I looked each and every way but I couldn’t find it. So Luke catches up to me, and we figure out which way to go. We follow one of the streets, and suddenly as we round hte corner, the Eiffel Tower, is right there. It was dark, and hte tower was lit up in tiny lights, and it just jumed out, and it was absoutely amazing, it just appeared in front of me. I took a lot of photographs, but I was really missing a tripod. It was absolutely breathtaking, though.

After that, I went home, got tea and wrote this, called home, and then went to sleep.

Next entry will come soon, I have them written, however I have to leave to class and to register for internet! It is 3:05, I shall dress and bike, so I will be there at 3:30, and class is at 4, so I have time.