Day 16 - A Good Idea While it Lasted

I dearly love slack days. Eulah let me peruse her copy of Europe for Dummies while I rested in the hostel room. Since the only chair is metal, that means I spent the majority of the day under the covers. It was very nice. Even the fact that a road work crew with jackhammers has been added to the elevated train and traffic noise didn't stop me from napping profusely. If the day had stayed that restful, it would have been fabulous. I would have gotten to chat with Eulah about her day, written down all the interesting sites that were in her book, and just generally felt refreshed.

As it now stands I spent the better part of my time between midnight and 2AM last night navigating the streets. It all started when I had dinner. The hostel disallows eating in the rooms (a reasonable policy), so I went to the courtyard to eat my yogurt and bread. There I met some fellow americans. It was fun to speak fluently for a while and be goofy. Josh in particular was a lot of fun, with a goofyness I miss over here. Eventually, most of the hostel seemed to be in the courtyard, with a lot of fluent English speakers, four from Canada, five from the states, and four from Australia. It was just like a party back home.

Then we decided to go view the Eiffel Tower at night. Every hour, they flash a bunch of strobes around the tower. It sparkles and is very beautiful. We were hoping to catch a quick metro and train and get there with time to spare. Groups of more than ten are never that quick. Plus there was a miscalculation regarding the trains, and five of us only made it two stops before our train shut down for the night. (Trains shut down before the metro.) So we walked a quarter mile or so to the tower, where we met up with two of our group. They said the rest were coming back for the midnight sparklies, but it was ten till and they were nowhere in sight. So we walked onto the Mars du Champs (the park next to the tower) to get a good view. It was delightful. Our friends apparently missed it. We took off for the metro (which runs until one), but weren't nearly fast enough. We were stuck at the Arc de Triumph, nearly all the way across town. We trudged until about 1:45, then broke down and got a taxi. That's the best 5.40 Euros spent so far. And because there's only one key per room, I had to knock and wake up Eulah to get back in and get to bed.

Sorry to sound all wet blankety, but if I'd just repaired to my room, I'd have had a much better evening. I missed Eulah's last evening here, and I'd grown rather fond of her. Ah well. I've still got a week in Paris ahead of me. I need to plan out the next leg of my itinerary and make train reservations. My eurail pass still hasn't been activated and I need to get the hang of train travel. I think I'll arrange a day trip to Versailles just to get some train training. But not today. Today d'Orsay. My first museum since Rodin. It's concentrated on French art as opposed the the broader perspective of the Louvre (which is closed today).

But first, breakfast! Well, at least after a small meditation on my eating abroad.

Food in England wasn't as bad for me as most people make it out to be, but then I didn't even bother eating out that much. It's so much easier and less expensive just to find a local market and get dinner stuff there (especially in the Astor Museum Hostel where there is always good company in the kitchen). I did have a nice pastie. But other than that, I left British cuisine for the brits. I've done pretty much the same thing in Paris. The first night I had a lovely veggie pizza and some wine. I thought it was the thing to do in Paris. But I just don't like alcohol. For me personally it provides no benefit. Lag sucks.

Otherwise, I've very much enjoyed my bread and cheese and fruit that most of my meals have been made of. But I suppose I should be more adventurous. After all, who knows when I'll be back?