Impressions
Friday, October 17th, 200824 hours of London has left with me a couple impressions:
1. No one says “bloody hell” except for Josh and loud people out on the street in the middle of the night.
2. Hearing people speak English-english instead of American-english is an odd sensation. It’s like you can sort of understand them, but you’re not sure. I feel like since we’re technically speaking the same language we should be able to have a conversation, but it doesn’t quite work out that way. In that same vein, half the people we’ve spoken to don’t seem to speak either English as their first language, which is also cool. Nobody can understand anyone else, so there’s a lot of us in that boat, even if they live here and we don’t.
3. There has been wi-fi available nearly everywhere we’ve been, which is super nice. I’d like to think that Josh and I aren’t the only people in the world that say “Hurray, we’re on vacation, let’s get out our laptops”, but there was only one other dude with his out in the train station. Geeks on holiday, go!
4. When our train sets out shortly, I’ll be cramming my french language/customs/directions hardcore. This evening is sure to be exciting (and probably stressful) since we’ll be descending onto the city’s metro around rush hour time. Oh yay.
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Update: We had a tense moment on the train when my bag wandered (I guess I’d put too small a bag in the big bag area and someone relocated it) but other than that it was uneventful. The trip through the tunnel under the English channel — the “Chunnel” — just meant it was dark outside for a while. We fell asleep.
When we arrived to Paris’s Gare du Nord train station: holy smokes. There were zooming bodies everywhere, and our luggage was a definite hindrance. We found the right metro line to get to our apartment, and got to the right stop to emerge onto the bustling streets of Paris… and then promptly got lost. With all our luggage. In the rain. In rush hour.
Le sigh.
Josh was the hero here. He got us turned in the correct direction and we finally figured out where to go. The apartment was a very welcome break, but we were starving, since we hadn’t eaten since our yummy English breakfast. We set out to find food.
I have to say that not speaking French is definitely a major disadvantage. Everyone posts their menus in the window, which is nice, but the servers/bartenders also loom out in the doorways smoking cigarettes which can be intimidating, especially when you can’t properly interact with their greeting. We were also ready to eat a lot earlier than the rest of the city, so we encountered some places that weren’t open yet (at 15:00). We stepped into an empty establishment with one really ill bartender, and left when he started weaving and may very well have vomited behind the bar. Nice.
We finally found a pizza place and, emboldened by the “Meet the family” in the window, made our way inside.
It was a success. They served a tiny appetizer of olives and some kind of bean, one of which Josh courageously tried. Josh declared his pizza was the best he’s ever had and my “salad du saison” was a tasty blend of romaine, tomatoes, pecans, bleu cheese and a mysterious yellow dressing. Tasty. We had cappuccinos to finish it out, and Josh bravely asked for the bill (”la note”).
Parisians eat much later than Americans - when we arrived, there were three other tables being used. By the time we left around 8:30, the place was full. It was a great learning experience. You can order a carafe with wine for either 2 glasses (1/4) or 4 glasses (a 1/2), as opposed to an entire bottle. (The 1/2 will be our future winner).
Tomorrow, we’re buying a good map, a metro pass, possibly a museum pass and exploring some more.
Unfortunately, we’ve currently got no internet at our apartment that is supposed to have it. We’re investigating our options today. I’m totally bummed, since this will seriously hamper our chances for blogging. Updates when possible.