Paris / San Francisco Travel Log 2007-01-02

Black holes are all fundamentally identical. You can completely describe a given black hole by stating its mass, spin, position, and orientation. That's it. So they're like electrons. Or plane trips.

My plane trip was from Paris directly to SFO.

Departure: 35 minutes late at 10:50am, Paris time.
Arrival: 80 minutes late at 2:15pm, San Francisco time.
Total flight duration: 12 hours, 25 minutes.
Length of my lanky body: 6 feet, 7 inches (or 2 meters if you're so inclined).

There are only three things to note about this trip in prose, then:

• I didn't really believe Dad when he talked about Charles de Gaul airport before the trip, but now I'm convinced. It's not just a bad airport. It's not just the worst airport that happens to exist right now. It's the worst of all possible airports. It's some kind of anti-Platonic form of an airport. But hey, I eventually got on my plane. :)
• Business or first-class seats have been a decadent luxury in my mind since I can remember. They were just a means for suckers to toss their money away. Honest, smart, frugal folk would never bother with them. However, I've decided that I'm an honest, smart, frugal guy who's taller than Michael Jordan, and the next time I fly across an ocean, you'll find me up front if there's any way I can afford it.
• Planes are still amazing. I was in Paris, France. And then 12 hours later I was in San Francisco, California. It's easy to forget that this is probably the greatest time and place in history to be alive.

Since this has ended up being a travel blog, I guess I'll sign off now. Until my next trip then, thanks for reading, and au revior.

Paris Travel Log 2007-01-01

After eating a quick and tasty breakfast, we headed toward the two chosen sights for our last day in Paris: Notre Dame and St. Chapelle. Both would be repeats for me from my earlier stint in Paris this month, but I was happy to revisit them.

Sadly, it was not to be. The holiday crowds had formed a line to get into Notre Dame that stretched all the way out of the large square in front of the cathedral. The presence of such a line also sent an ominous signal about what the crowd would be like inside Notre Dame. Since we'd all been in the cathedral before, we decided to give it a miss and move on to St. Chapelle.

Nathan had been waiting for a sunny day to go visit St. Chapelle, and on this early New Year's afternoon, we finally had one. However, as we drew close to the chapel's entrance, we were again worried by the line, or more accurately, by the absence of a line. We all guessed what we would find as we rounded the corner: the dreaded ferme sign. Ah, well. One more good reason to come back to Paris someday.

We split into two groups, with Anna and Nathan going the nap route. Lauren and I headed to the Shakespeare and Co. bookstore by the banks of the Seine. Very small, very hip, very City Lights. The staff apparently get free board upstairs (and minimal pay) as long as they read a book a day and are writing something. We spent an hour there, partly because I was indecisive about plane reading, and partly because I was just so happy to be around so much English text after more than two weeks in France.

We met back up with Anna and Nathan for an early dinner. Nathan had really wanted to head to Montmartre before we all left Paris, and so we jumped onto the metro for the long ride up to the Abbesses station. Station had been closed for renovation until very recently, and renovations obviously weren't complete. I commented to Lauren that it reminded me of stories of London tube stations used as bomb shelters during WWII. Also worth noting was the spiral staircase we hiked up to get out of the station, which gave no indication of its Dante-esque proportions to the unwary traveler.

Since it was before 7:30pm, many Paris restaurants were not yet open for dinner. So we killed some time with an unplanned stop at the Chapel of St. John right next to the Abbesses station. Church had a red brick facade and more modern feel, but still had many Gothic accents like all the other churches we'd visited in France. Interesting.

From there, we started walking up the steep hill, toward a cluster of guidebook-recommended restaurants. Along the way, we passed the fruit shop that featured prominently in the movie Amelie (a fact that you can't miss, since the shop has dozens of newspaper clippings mentioning it as being featured prominently in the movie Amelie). Anna was tickled and wanted a picture; Nathan was embarrassed and wanted to keep pretending he was a Frenchman and not a tourist. You can guess how that turned out:Finally, we made it to La Maison Rose, a small, quiet bistro where the food was French, but was lighter and simpler than much of the fare we'd had so far. Very tasty onion soup, pastas, chicken, and cheese. Even a slightly gruff waiter couldn't bring down our spirits.

Lauren and I had an early morning of trains, plains, and automobiles ahead of us, so we skipped the hike up to the Sacre Coeur church and instead went straight back to the metro after dinner, marveling as we walked at the crystal-clear view of the city lights below. What a relaxed and relaxing way to end our stay here.

Thanks to everyone who helped plan the trip, who joined us in France, and who sent good wishes from far away. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, everyone.

Paris Travel Log 2006-12-31

We began the morning with the Rue Mouffetard market just a stone’s throw from the hotel. On each morning except Monday, the entire street gives way to vendors hawking fruit, bread, cheese, seafood, and most other things you could imagine. It looked like a supercharged Whole Foods had been turned inside-out and dropped onto a narrow street in the heart of Paris. Lauren picked up some fruit and we all ate some pain chocolat to tide us over.We then looped back to the hotel to pick up Anna, who’d been feeling under the weather earlier, and it was officially time for Second Breakfast. We walked to the nearby La Contrescarpe café, where I had an omelet and the others stuck to pastries of various kinds.

From there, we walked to the day’s main stop, the Pompidou Centre. This is to modern art (post-1905) what the Louvre is to classical and renaissance art. The museum itself had a controversial design where all the ductwork and such are on the outside. Looked just like a Borg cube to me. Inside, we found that the Pompidou is much like the Louvre in another important way: it’s just too big to take in one gulp. Anna and Nathan, getting hungry, put on the jets and ended up speeding through the museum faster than Lauren and me. So we planned to meet up afterward at a certain bridge on the Seine, which made me feel like a Cold War spy. Which was awesome.

Anyway, the museum contained some art that disturbed, some that intrigued, and much that just confused. I was partial to the Robert Rauschenberg collection that we saw first. We each had our favorites, but all agreed that the massive Yves Klein exhibition was our least favorite (big, blank, blue canvasses; nude women spraypainted as a string orchestra played a single, sustained note; a self-absorbed and self-aggrandizing artist … really, it was like a spoof of modern art).We left the museum around 4pm, and after meeting on the bridge we headed to a nearby creperie for some food to tide us over until our late dinner. We were trying to pace ourselves so that we’d be awake and excited for midnight. The crepes were tasty and wonderfully soporific. We all headed back to the hotel afterward to nap and gather our strength.

After waking up, we drank one of Dad’s going-away bottles of wine in Anna and Nathan’s room (a bit of New Year’s Eve pre-partying; thanks, Dad!). And then we took to the streets to find a late dinner around 8pm. We ended up going back to the Rue Mouffetard that had been so lively in the morning, and found that our top choices from Lonely Planet Paris were sadly ferme. Undaunted, we looked at all the lively activity around us and decided to choose a place at random. So we walked into Sushiko, and I can honestly say that there could have been no better choice in the world.

Sushiko served cheap, plentiful, and absolutely delicious Japanese food. And they had plenty of vegetarian options for the seafood-impaired (me). And they let us crack open the bottle of wine that Anna had brought along, with no corkage fee. And they had the best desserts we’d tasted so far. And they gave us some free sake as we ended the meal well after 11pm, just to say merci and bon annee (“Happy New Year”). They left loyalty cards with our check (“buy 9 meals, get one free”), and we all bemoaned our Tuesday departure. Otherwise, we’d certainly be making some trips back to Sushiko.

Leaving the restaurant, we had only minutes to spare before 2007. We hustled to the small roundabout at the Place de la Contrescarpe, which Hemingway once overlooked from his Paris apartment. We caught our breath, grabbed café tables, and got hold of some beer just in time to toast the new year.I’m not usually one to assume that everything will “just work out,” but honestly, I couldn’t have planned this night better if I’d tried.

Hello, 2007. Bonne année.