Travel begins!!! January 12-13, 2008

January 12-13, 2008

What a day this wasn't! It was really two days in one with intended transit from Portland to Seattle to Paris to Johannesburg... I got a ride to the airport with a new intern I'd only met in passing on Friday. As we were driving down the mountain, he said one reason he was going to Portland is to get his brakes fixed. When he'd hit the brakes the whole car would shudder. I was unsure about this car after less than a mile, but we made it in one piece. More worrying:

I noticed my connecting flight from Seattle was delayed and hour and thought I'd miss the connecting flight to Johannesburg, South Africa. I had to get to the Air France counter in Seattle before it could be resolved. On the quick flight to Seattle, I sat next to the director of the Northwest Habitat Institute. We talked about California, Africa, animals, and drones. In Seattle the delay turned out to be in my favor. Not only did I get to watch the first quarter of the Packers' playoff game, but I would get to spend the entire day in Paris. The flight was great with Ambien. The most memorable part of the flight was the meal. They served a nice assortment of airline gourmet and a Kozy Shack rice pudding that seemed funny. Arriving in Paris, I learned that the Packers had beat the Seahawks to advance to the next round of the playoffs. Very nice. Since my bags were checked through Johannesburg, I was free to explore right away. I went to the information booth to see how to get downtown and the ladies laughed at my Americanism. I asked about a bus or train and they directed me to the AirFrance bus service, which runs every half hour for 14 euro. (Don't do it! You can take the train for much less. It was expensive, but fast and a sure thing.) Getting off the bus just before noon, I hoped to find a church with a late mass, regardless of the fact that I don't speak French. I found a church pretty quickly on foot, and it seemed to be attracting a lot of homeless people. I realized I could almost be mistaken for one with that post-international flight look going on, accentuated by the fact that I was wearing clothes appropriate for camping. My old jeans, blue t-shirt with a big floral print giraffe on it, Miller High Life hooded zip sweatshirt, trail shoes, backpack, and plastic shopping bag left me far less fashionable than all the 5 year olds riding around town on their bikes. But that's a good way not to worry about getting mugged in such an international city when you have no idea where you are going, I guess. Anyway, there was no obvious service, and I thought it said one would begin at 12:30, so off I went to explore. A little later I came to another church, went in to no service, and realized it was the other side of the first church. I sat for a little while and admired the details of the stained glass and the remaining manger scene with all the hand-made Christmas decorations that remained on the altar. Writing off mass since it was after 12:30 with no sign of progress, I caught a bus to Bastille and walked around the market where fish and t-shirts were about the same price. Then I took the subway to the louvre, walked around the mall for a while, checked out a nearby bookstore, got a nice warm crepe, and then got on a bus to the north end of town. I quickly determined that I did not want to be in that Little India area and headed back toward a more authentic French experience. I took the bus again, heading to the west end of town. I walked around a little more, then I took the subway toward the Eifel tower. At the stop, I was really thirsty and went to get a soda in the machine. It ate my coins and I remained thirsty. To the Eifel tower I went. The sign for the line to the elevator said minimum 45 minute wait, so I decided just to take the stairs to the first platform and skip the rest. This line was still about 25 minutes. It was at this point that I really began getting cold. Notice the photos of the people at the louvre. They're all bundled up for a reason: January in Paris is actually cold. The sweatshirt hood went up, which prompted the cashier to charge me the 25 and under rate to climb the stairs! I still had to walk up all 328 steps to the first platform before I could get a drink, but it kept me warm. Up, up, up, up I went, arriving just in time to get a water and catch the sunset. It was truly remarkable. I could see so much of the city from above and it was beautiful. People were jogging with their dogs, or without their dogs, and it was amazing to look out over the city I'd been exploring all day. I noticed all these bins for snowshoes and found it odd. Why would anyone need snowshoes on the Eifel tower? Well, there was an exhibit about global warming going on around this first platform, complete with snow machines (umm, isn't it supposed to be about preserving the environment... a little irony) so I put on snowshoes and walked around in the fake snow, reading about the shrinking polar ice and how this is changing the patterns of all sorts of animals. That was quite nice and totally unexpected. I'll never forget walking around on the Eifel tower observation deck through fake snow in snow shoes. I skipped the part where you could get your photo taken with a fake penguin in a fake snow village, and walked back down the 328 steps to the night streets of Paris. Walking toward the bus I noticed a disturbed man zigging and zagging along, darting through people and laughing. A pair of affluent middle aged women turned around alarmed by the man approaching them, and diverted their paths in apprehension. Oh, now that the sun was down I began to appreciate my perfect outfit more.

Not knowing how long it would take on the train back to the airport, I decided to hop on a bus toward the north station where I'd catch the train. I realized I'd spent the last eight hours in Paris and had only eaten a crepe and croissant, which seems like a grave gastronomic sin in such a city. Back at the airport with just under 2 hours until my flight and attire less important, things turned out in my favor once again when I found a bistro with a nice prix-fixe menu offering. There were a lot of business people and couples, but I was seated in my trail attire. My meal was fabulous: grapefruit with guacamole; salmon with stuffed cucumbers, triple mushroom medley, and vegetables in a nice sauce; and creme brulee for dessert. It was more of a French twist than the true Paris dining experience I'd always hoped for, but still better than skipping a meal in Paris and leaves a reason to go back. And, boy was I tired! I couldn't wait to board the plane. I had just enough time to change my remaining euros to Rand and get to my gate.