Paris

I’m in Paris to meet my niece, 13, who’s coming to stay with me for a couple of weeks. 13 year olds are no longer considered unaccompanied minors by airlines so in theory she could change planes and fly to Toulouse but that seems a bit much. I figured that if she was flying to Paris and I was coming anyway we might as well spend a few days here. I arrived yesterday and she arrives tomorrow and we leave for Toulouse on Thursday. Tomorrow will be a write-off so the tourist tango starts on Monday. I hope I have the strength!!!

The only two things she said that she absolutely wants to do are go up the Eiffel Tower, and shop. I figure we need to at least go to one museum so my pick is the Quai d’Orsay and I think Montmartre should be on the agenda.  Maybe at night. And the Champs Elysees. Oh, and Notre Dame, maybe Ile de la Cite. Wait, we only have three days!! It’s the shopping that will probably kill me. 

That and the Americans. (My father’s American – I figure I can say at least 50% of whatever I want about them) And to be fair, it isn’t the Americans, it’s the crowds. But most of the crowd seems to be American. You have to get pretty far off the tourist trail to even hear anyone speak French. I guess they’ve forgotten freedom fries and all that no to the war stuff.

I was here a month ago – no I don’t come to Paris all the time, it just worked out that way – and it wasn’t nearly this crowded. Much nicer. Arrival is always stressful. There’s always a metro station without an escalator or with miles of passage way to the connection. Yesterday was worse than usual. The RER train stopped and there was an announcement that suspicious packages had been discovered at Gare du Nord and Chatelet and that we had to wait til they were dealt with. We started again and at the next station there was an announcement that there had been an accident and we had to get off the train and wait for the next one.

The next train was crowed before all the people from my train got on. It was jammed afterwards. And people kept getting on at each stop. I’m not fond of crowds. I’m pretty claustrophobic. It was hell. At Chatelet I started walking to the Metro. It’s about 10 miles away. Just an estimate, it may be further. All the people from my train were apparently walking there too. I finally had to get above ground. Thank god I recognized where I was. Close enough to where I’m staying but too far to walk with luggage. It was worth every penny of the 5.35 euro cab fare.

I unpacked and discovered that I had forgotten my modem. Went out to find somewhere to buy another one and got a wireless card at the same time. Good thing, the computer or the modem isn’t hearing the dial tone so I can’t connect here. And I tried. Everything. Even used my cell phone to call my daughter’s partner in Toronto. They were out so I had to call her cell. Even he couldn’t help me.

Finally in frustration I read the faqs in the manual. The very last one said that if there was no dial tone open the phone jack – the thing on the wall – and reverse the position of the red and green wires. So I opened it with my fake Swiss Army knife, you know the little key ring one with the pen and the light? It’s not bad; I used it to fix the showerhead too.

The red wire wasn’t connected. I think I spent at least an hour trying various wire combinations but no joy.

The upside is that the wireless thing works and I sat in a really nice bar in a really nice hotel last night checking my mail. The downside is that my battery doesn’t seem to last very long so I have to do the business stuff first. Today I found a café that’s open til 2 am every day and it’s a lot cheaper to use the free wifi there.