Paris: Day 3

Took the metro to the Opera house to obtain tickets to Giselle, only to discover it completely sold out. Disappointed, we headed across the Seine in search of Notre Dame, Musee D'Orsay and anything in between. We walked down the banks looking at the outdoor side shops we had no idea existed until this moment.We took an excessive number of photos at Notre Dame, but forgot to include the gnome.
Spent a good portion of time in the garden behind the Cathedral watching a couple have a fight while we enjoyed the air, the flowers, and the architecture.
We strolled down the Seine again until we found D'Orsay.
We had lunch in the cafe behind the clock tower.
We also received reduced admission for people under 30! How strange!Saw the shadow puppets used at Le Chat Noir shadow puppet theatre.
Rodolphe Salis is a genius. Many other great works were viewed, but closing time came before we got to any Monet.
We also discovered a vertical urban garden.
I want one.
We went to the park just beside the Eiffel tower, then to the base. I cracked my back hanging upside down from a bench.
We watched crows romp in the nature preserve in the garden beside the tower.
We got lost in the rain looking for the metro, and soaked doing the same. We loitred in a station until it let up a little, then ran to another to purchase tickets.
We all but skipped to a grocery store for wine, and the patisserie for a huge chocolate meringue and a fruit flan. Spent the evening dining on eggy potatoes, wine, dessert, and listening to the rain on the windows and the puddles.

Paris: Day 2

(Table at Cafe Chat Noir)
We have not had success with Jim's computer today. We've mostly lost the past few days to inconstant and incomplete memory. (NOTE: Writing this blog using my journal notes written sometimes days after the actual events has sparked a surprisingly good amount of memories; stories, feelings, sensations, even tactile responses. Memories are so cool.)
Today I watched a raven SKIP along the stones of the concourse of the Louvre.
I revisited old art friends
(Jaconde, Psyche, Mercury, Jupiter, Diana).
I saw the medieval underbelly of the louvre as it was at one time a massive dwelling castle. We took a different route to the museum and found Paris Ghetto full of sketchy jewelry stores, nail salons, and places offering hair extensions.

The Louvre was exhausting and beautiful. Jim was pleasantly surprised by his level of interest and happiness in such a touristy activity.
My feet have become the abassadors of Blister Town. We strolled (read: limped) down the Champs-Elysees, sitting to rest on each bench we encountered.
We enjoyed overpriced beer at Cafe Montecristo (7 euros for the tiniest beer you've ever seen [nearly 20$ for a half pint of stella]). Because of the pain and massive amounts of rain we discovered the subway system wherein I nearly lost Jim to a faulty ticket until I convinced him to join the other Parisians and hop over the turnstyle, brandishing the ticket to any disapproving authority (who never even batten an eyelash).
We found our way to the now-familiar hood where we dined at "Les Deux Singes." They created a vegetarian entree for me involving salad, boiled eggs, potato and cheese.
We had a bit too much wine with not enough food, bought and utterly destroyed chocolate cake from the patisserie next door, stumbeld home and somehow managed to fix the mac. It can only be charged in the bathroom, which is apparently way-okay with me.
Cheers to the happy day!

Paris: Day 1

We left the train station having not paid any extra charges (or, rather, having not paid what we should have in the first place). Our taxi driver into the city was a very fragrant man. I'm quite sure he was also somewhat ageist, as the couple in front of us at the taxi stand were over 50 and he idled on the sidelines until they were taken away. The drive through the city was a trip down memory lane for me, and a whole new experience for Jim. We didn't pass too many landmarks during those few moments, but I did point out the Bastille and the Republique. Turns out, that was the closest landmark to our new temporary home.

We arrived at the apartments many hours before check-in. We handed them our bags (for a fee); I changed outfits in the luggage holding room (because I smelled like train), then we headed out on the town, rather fragrant ourselves.

We accomplished a great deal pre-shower:

Petit-dejeuner at Cafe Temple, which is decorated entirely in leopard print and full of altars and homages to Marilyn Monroe. Even the toilet seat cover is covered in Marilyn. There are posters in the washroom whereupon she is done in sepia, but her lipstick is made of red rhinestones. We had espresso and sheep's cheese omelettes.

We strolled to Palais Garnier, passing a surprising and saddening number of Starbucks, noting that there had been NONE of these in Venice. We found Eglise Madeleine (which we noted is Presbyterian, although for the life of me I don't know why).
We walked to Place de la Concorde, where I cheered Jim with the sight of the Eiffel Tower (he was as tired and smelly as I, and did not approve of my cherriness). We strolled down Rue Rivoli, passed les Jardins, passed the Louvre, up Ponte Neuf and eventually back to Apartments St Martin.

The apartment itself was extremely cute. It reminded me of our friends' bachelor apartments in Toronto, but with a much tinier kitchen. On the plus: it HAD a kitchen (!), the bed was unbelieveably comfortable, and it smelled nice and clean.

We spent the afternoon showering, napping, grocery shopping, cooking and convalescing after several nights of bad bad sleep.

I set up the washroom to accommodate our needs for a week and a half.

I made a dinner of red wine, mashed potoatoes, salad with lemon juice, baguette, hummous, and cut veggies.

It even started to rain! One must order some rain on one's first night in Paris.
We took in a few (english) episodes of Grey's Anatomy before falling completely, utterly, blissfully asleep.

Venice: Day 3

Awful awful sleep. Neverending stream of mosquitoes, feelings of dampness preventing slumber.

Final day saw espresso, the acquisition of a Team Italia Football hat for Will, serpent necklace for me, and a glass cow for Jim's mom.

We took a trip to the other side of the Rialto, which was much more residential, and full of beautiful personal terraces on rooftops.

We visited the interior of San Marco, wherein we were prohibited from taking pictures AND from walking on the floor. They set up wood planks over the tile to prevent wear, which is both really smart AND a little ridiculous.

We also spent some time at the fountain outside. This is the lion I fell in love with. He was pretty popular with the ladies. I had to wait a good ten minutes before I got to get a picture with him.

We took a picture of the gnome at the pigeon fountain. People loved it. Another tourist actually waved me away from him in order to get a picture for himself. We also re-visitted Chaos Church, which was suddenly chained off to visitors.

We went back to Cafe del Doge, our now favourite espresso place in Venice.

We went to say good-bye to our 200 Year Old Hero.

He was a great landmark for many adventures, including the now-infamous complete disorientation brought on by Chaos Church the previous afternoon. We wondered if maybe the dates were some sort of chisel-typo, but we had no idea who to ask. (He seemed important and we didn't want to accidently case offense.) We also found a unique, unmarked building that was clearly some sort of occultish church in days gone by.

I fell in love with it almost immediately. I'm pretty sure it's a residence now, and I want to live there.

We pre-visited the train station, took the last of our photos then headed to Venezia-Mestre... much too early.

So early, in fact, that we were still hungry. I ate like a normal person. Jim on the other hand.....

He claims it wasn't very good. I'm unsurprised.

The scene we were met with when escorted to our shared quarters on the Euro Rail train:

6 tiny bunk beds in a tiny train car

6 giant suitcases

Top beds that are lying-room only

An entire family of 5 already ensconced in the cabin, plus their 12month old daughter who was not wearing any pants. They were extremely nice and helped Jim and I put our suitcases on the top bunks (as we were assigned), welcomed us nicely, shook hands, etc.

Once we settled in, we discovered we hadn't paid the proper price. Marciano, the ticket-checker, promised to do his utmost to hide it, but warned that we may be asked to pony up at the end of the line. Then he took our passports and left. This completely freaked me out. I thought for sure we were going to be left stranded in a European jail with no proof of Canadian citizenship. Minutes into the journey, Marciano returned and asked us to follow him. I nearly passed out. He lead us down the hallway, through the connecting doors to another car, then motioned to a different door. Turns out, he was moving us into an empty car! He wanted to allow the family we were staying with to stay together (the 5th person was an uncle who bought his ticket late and was put into the cabin next to his family). Being as this cabin was empty, he thought it would be nice to allow us to be alone; just us. So not only did we save about 100 euros on the journey, we got upgraded.

During this exchange, we discovered that ticket checkers are required to hold on to everyone's passports in order to show them all to the various border-guards as we would be travelling across a few (Italy, Switzerland, France). Relieved and palliated, Jim and I finished the bottle of vino we purchased the prior day in Venice, talked for a long time, watched the dark Italian countryside fly by, and eventually tried to get to sleep. But even in private quarters and after a terrible night's sleep, one was able to maintain her traveller's insomnia. I woke at each stop to see where we were, despite knowing we were going to be in transit for more than 12 hours. At one stop, something lurched extra hard, and suddenly the wall next to my face was rattling uncontrollably until I MacGuyvered a method of keeping it steady (involving plastic sheet wrap being stuffed into the crack between the wall and the ceiling.

I was tired, smelly, without passport, completely at the mercy of Rail Europe, but still somehow excited and happy to be exactly where I was.