Day 0 - Paris: How to blend in like a peacock.

I landed in Paris last night and quickly found that all efforts I have made to blend in were pointless. I can barely start to say "bonjour" before people immediately abandon their native tongue and "speak the language" so that they can hurry along the interacting with my ignorant ass. Perhaps they appreciate my struggled effort and quiet demeanor so much that they are more eager to assist me. It has been quite the contrast to my trip to Paris 13 years ago which started with a seemingly endless bus ride from Germany and witnessing a young girl being mauled by a delivery truck when I arrived. "A bummer," as The Dude would say.

The majority of my interactions with locals and fellow travelers have been warm. Before I even left the country I met two people on the train from San Jose to San Francisco. One from Eritrea, a small country that shares Ethiopia's northern border, who with a group of friends drove from Argentina to the USA. The other just moved back to Santa Clara after living in Thailand for four years teaching and chasing skirts. Before that he lived in Hanes, Alaska where he was a backcountry/helicopter snowboarder. Apparently, it's a very popular spot to film ski and snowboard movies.

On the flight over I sat next to Johan, a Norwegian feature journalist who had just finished touring the USA writing pieces on the poverty of Native Americans and preparing for his book "The Death of Capitalism," a working title. Once I find some links to his past pieces I will share them.

I landed in Orly Airport (ya rly) on the southern border of Paris. After struggling to find a detailed enough map of the rail system I found my route to the hostel and even got to help along a couple from Ecuador who were having the same frustrations I had earlier. Happy trails Julio and Margarette!

Further along the rail system I found that I had purchased a ticket for a different transit system which resulted in myself and a guy from Kenya hoisting each other and our baggage over the barrier so we could make our train. Transit police yelled after us but we slipped onto the train before they got to us. Renegade status achieved!

Around 9pm local time I found my hostel, checked in, left my things and set out to find some food and conversation. I stumbled upon a Lebanese restaurant whose owner greeted me warmly and brought me samples of their more popular menu items along with a pint of Afflegen beer. If you can find Afflegen, I suggest you try it. The beer was a brown ale with a slightly sour taste to it, similar to a hard cider. He and I then sat on the patio, had an espresso and shared a hookah while watching folks stumble home from their late dinners. Here's a link to the cafe: http://www.beyrouthcafe.com/

I returned to the hostel where I probably had one of the worst nights of sleep that I can remember. My restless night wasn't so much a result of my sleeping arrangement but the fact that it was 5pm PST. I'll buy anyone a beer who can get a decent night's sleep with a tummy full of new food and espresso on top in an alien place. Consider the gauntlet thrown.

Traveler tip: Anyone who says "Don't worry, wifi is everywhere!" is a god damn liar, idiot, or both. The only "public" hotspots available are reserved for people with certain mobile phone users much like how AT&T's hotspots used to be. The hostel's Internet, when up, was barely usable and they disable it at 10pm. Buying a SIM card for your compatible device (Yeah, don't get me started on that either.) is your best bet for navigating, translating and communicating with home on the fly. The simplest solution: iPad mini with cellular and a SIM card from keepgo.com. This gets you a device that has a decent sized screen, tons of travel apps, GPS (the wifi version does NOT have GPS.), and always available Internet. I can't stop patting myself on the back for my over-planning in this case. Everyone else around me is struggling to get around while I can pretend to be "in the know."

Enough auto-fellacious banter, here's some photos from Day 0:

Flying into London.

More London.

Last shot of London, I swear.

The view from my hostel window.

Some pro-cycling street art / graffiti.

 

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