Paris travel log 2006-12-17

The downside to jet lag is obvious: hours lying awake in a dark hotel room. But there’s also a huge upside that’s easy to miss: when you finally do take to the streets of Paris at 7:30am on a Sunday morning, the whole city is yours alone. And when the distant flap of pigeon wings is the only sound accompanying your own, private sunrise over Notre Dame, you’re happy to be alive. Here’s a representative shot of early-morning Paris, with not a car or person in sight:

And here’s a post-sunrise view of Notre Dame from just across the Seine:
A quick note on this last picture: literally five seconds after snapping this shot, while still gawking at the cathedral, I planted my foot in the largest pile of dog poop I’ve ever seen. “Merde!” I said. But the moment made a strong impression. I’m not sure that I’ve ever been so intensely aware of the transcendent and the mundane at exactly the same time. Beautiful cathedral across the river. Smelly glop all over my shoe. There was something profound in it, but I haven’t quite figured out what it was. At the very least, it’s a moment and a feeling that would be impossible to manufacture: if I’d planned to step in dog poop, I’m sure it would not have had the same effect.

After leaving Notre Dame, I bumped into some other early risers – Asian tourists who tried to ask me for some directions in (bad) English. I asked where they were from, and when they said “Taiwan,” my eyes lit up. I’m sure they didn’t expect the stream of Chinese that then came out of my mouth, and I’m really sure that they were a little confused as to just why I was so eager to speak Chinese. But they humored me, chatted for a while about this and that, and ended up complimenting my Chinese. Hooray!

So why was I dying to speak Chinese? It’s hard to explain, but ever since I’ve landed in France, a rather dim neuron has been firing in my brain that says, “I hear language, and it’s not English. Must be Chinese. Bombs away!” And when I don’t then speak Chinese, it’s left saying, “Umm, bombs away? Seriously, man, you can do this!” In other words, every time I say “Parlez-vous anglais?” I have to consciously avoid the impulse to instead say “ni hui bu hui shuo yingwen?” Dad reports a similar problem with his old German skills trying to take over.

After some more wandering around, it was time to return to the hotel to meet Mom and Dad for a lovely continental breakfast at 9am. Mom’s jetlag was expressing itself differently, meaning she wasn’t able to make breakfast. But Dad, being the rock that he is, showed up at 9am sharp. Breakfast included a free history lesson from Dad, who always astounds me with just how much he knows and how quickly he can skip between topics.

Mom finally showed up, and we were off to the Musee d’Orsay, which is best known for its collection of Impressionist paintings. While waiting in the short line outside the museum, Mom spotted TV and movie star Brendan Frasier step into line behind us. He was all alone, and looked taller and a bit older than we expected. He hung around the line for a minute before deciding to head elsewhere, and snapped a few photos on his way out. I gave myself a pat on the back for not yelling something stupid like, “You were awesome in ‘Scrubs!’”

The Musee d’Orsay was incredible. Monet, Manet, Renoit, Degas, Gaugin, and on and on. I figure that if I of all people recognized and remembered details about so many of the paintings there, then the exhibit must be world-class.

After leaving the museum, we stepped next door for lunch at Les Deux Musees (“The Two Museums,” presumably referring to the Orsay and to the Legion of Honor museum next door). My lunch of salad and beef with shallots was tasty but way too big.

From lunch, it was a hop across the Seine (it seems there’s a bridge every block around here) to the Musee de l’Orangerie. The only exhibit on the museum’s upper story is the two-room, circular display of Monet’s water lilies. The lower story contains mainly paintings from an early-20^th-century art dealer’s collection. He was apparently a big fan of Picasso, Matisse, and other amazing artists, which is great luck for modern museum-goers like us.

To close out the day, we took a long walk home parallel to the Seine, eventually cutting through some of the courtyards in the Louvre and snapping some nighttime photos there. Dinner was at a tasty brasserie called Lipp, which specialized in regional cuisine of some sort (all runs together for me).

Then finally, it was back to the hotel to try to sleep off the rest of the jetlag.

SFO to Paris, and first evening. 2006/12/15 – 2006/12/16

My trip began in San Francisco International on the afternoon of 12/15. After a small flight delay and a couple of pleasant hours in the terminal, it was finally time for a yoga-like folding of my 6’7” frame into the small, blue Airbus seat. Air France doesn’t skimp on the food (or champagne!), but the lack of legroom was surprising, given the number of tall Gallic folks Mom would soon point out on the streets of Paris.

Eleven hours of awkward sleep, deep breathing, and tasty morsels later, my flight touched down at CDG airport in Paris. It was just after noon, Paris time, on Saturday, 12/16. Customs and baggage claim whirled by, but it was all in that peculiar airport non-language. I was happy in a way, happy that “France” and “French” would be hitting me all at once as I stepped out into real Paris air.

All I was missing as I cleared customs were the smiling faces of my parents, who had (hopefully) arrived a couple of hours earlier and were thus (theoretically) going to be waiting for me outside of customs. As I later said to Mom, our “plan” – devised during a hasty cell-phone call just before her flight – had very bad failure modes, and the engineering part of my brain should have known better.

So, no parents. Options were limited. The cell phone that would have solved this problem instantly in America was a sleek, sexy paperweight in Europe. I quickly grabbed my laptop to check my email for word from someone. After 45 minutes wrestling with incredibly flaky wi-fi, I’d revised my plan down to sending the quickest email possible if I could ever connect. It was going to be something short and dramatic out of an old black-and-white. Something like: “Arrived safely in Paris STOP No sign of parents STOP Proceeding to hotel.”

Happily for everyone, Mom and Dad did finally show up. They’d had some minor problems with flight delays, luggage delays, and Air France confusion about where my flight was disembarking, but we had all arrived safely, and we were standing in France together. Bon!

After checking into the hotel, I took an intense two-hour nap before joining Mom and Dad in the lobby and walking down the block to our first French meal. It was at a quaint 101-year-old brasserie called Vagenende, which the concierge recommended. I had French onion soup (just called “onion soup” here, of course), a simple chicken-and-mashed-potatoes main course, and a piece of fluffy chocolate cake to top everything off. Onion soup may have been the best I’ve ever eaten, but then again the cold weather outside and the long day traveling may have influenced my judgment.

We wandered a few blocks each way after dinner, passing many tasty-looking restaurants and Irish pubs(?!). I caught my first glimpse of Notre Dame – from a distance, and at night, which as far as I’m concerned is a wonderful way to see it.

Then it was back to the hotel to pass out around 8pm, with a plan to meet in the lobby at 9am. My internal clock had other plans, of course, sitting me bolt upright a little after midnight. As I write this, it’s 1:40am, Paris time, and I’ve been listening to the nearby clubs slowly close down. (Perhaps I can make the jetlag work for me, becoming the party animal that I never have the energy to be in the US?)

Thoughts so far: The weather is cold but not freezing: my jacket, sweater, and scarf seems to match the standard outfit around here. The people have been very friendly, although my lack of French is so complete that there’s only a 50% chance that my victim will even understand my “parlez-vous anglais?” on the first try!

I look forward to lots more exploring by daylight tomorrow and in the days that follow. Also excited to really catching up with Mom and Dad while we have this unexpected time to ourselves.

Cabo Travel Log, 2/12/2006, 5:30pm PST

(Writing in Chili's at LAX).

Wanted to jot down last impressions while they're still fresh.

Rose around 9am, packed, checked out, then ventrued to the Playa del Amor ("Lover's Beach"), right next to land's end, and reachable only by water taxi. My taxi took a brief sightseeing trip around the cape. I got to wave at my old scuba instructors, Fausto and Mario, as we passed then, and I snapped some good photos of rock formations and sea lions.





They finally dropped me on the beach itself. My guidebook said that it was one of the world's ten best beaches, and I don't doubt it. Uncrowded, surf the only sound, with towering sandstone and granite formations in striking relief to sand, sea, and sky. I arrived early, beat the rush, and claimed the shade beside a large boulder where I lounged away my last, warm hours in Cabo.




A rush of water taxi, land taxi, and plane has brought me to the familiar, stress-filled cocoon of LAX. But my brows are light, and I smell like sunscreen, and my hands feel like Cabo sand.

Cabo Travel Log, 2/11/2006, ~5pm

El Quetzal was great! Very laid-back, simple, authentic, and cheap. It sounds ridiculous, but I wasn't really prepared for the amount of Mexican food I'd be eating on this trip. Still, even if you're getting tired of meat, tortillas, and cheese, El Quetzal does meat, tortillas, and cheese better than most. Also enjoyed a cerveza Pacifico with lime. The limes are remarkably flavorful here, as the guidebook predicted.

Now off for a quick splash in the pool followed by a much-needed siesta.

Cabo Travel Log, 2/11/2006, 3:50pm

After being a beach bum for 3 hours, I've stopped for lunch at El Quetzal. Everyone here is speaking Spanish, which is a good sign! The beach was lovely. Tortilla soup has just arrived. More later.