Thu, 30 Oct 2003

author Tim	location Paris, France
posted 23:16 CET 31/10/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/France/France 2 ( all photos )

Suprise Meet-up ( 14 photos )
First task for the morning was to move hostels - I came downstairs to find Liz had been up for ages already, thanks to the large noisy single-sex dorms.
We ate, exchanging our breakfast tickets for nasty coffee from the I-hate-my-job-and-I'm-going-to-take-it-out-on-you kitchen helpers, seemingly quite common at hostels in this part of the world.
The move proved little hassle, and we dumped our bags in the far-cheaper Auberge Internationale des Jeunes where we had a room of our own, but couldn't get into it until 3pm (the joys of hostel living).
It was another great day weather-wise, so we picked out Jardin des Plantes just across pont d'Austerlitz (from where we could see the next bridge, pont Charles de Gaulle bears quite a resemblance to a bridge of our own) on the Left Bank for a wander. It was a nice little place, the gardens full of roses being tended at the tax-payer's expense. At the end there was an interesting-looking museum which we couldn't see the price for. We decided to wait the twenty minutes in the sun until opening time (the weather was better, but still no more than six degrees or so), when we learnt that it was quite expensive. Besides, we wanted to make the 12pm tour of Notre-Dame.
It was around then that we got a phone call from Jono and Penny - since we had seen them they had flown to London for a few days and then back to Paris, since that was cheaper than flying direct or train! Or, notably, our fifteen hour bus ride. It pays to be organised in advance, which Liz and I definitely aren't.
We arranged to meet them for the 12pm tour as they weren't staying far from there, and set about our business. In the back streets, we stumbled across a likely-looking internet café where we were able to plug the laptop in for the first time in ages and update the website!
Just before the tour, we wandered back up to Notre-Dame and found the guys out the front. We managed to get on a tour run by a retired history professor who really knew his stuff - this was obviously his life and he kept us totally entrhalled for an hour and a half, talking about the facades, history and various parts of the interior. Far better than some of the tours we have paid lots of money for, and hence well worth doing.
But being interesting didn't change the fact that by the end we were freezing cold, so the four of us set off in search of coffee somewhere warm. Our wanderings took us past the bizzare Centre Georges Pompidou where the architect has been given just a little bit too much freedom. It is built mostly out of plastic, and all the pipes, lifts, stairways, etc. are on the outside. Apparently it is the city's most visited attraction (yes, even more than Eiffel Tower and Louvre), and the queue out the front certainly seemed to match that. We had no desire to queue in the cold, so we wandered on.
No cafés were found in this area of town in our budget, so we ended up in a supermarket grabbing picnic supplies, which we ate at a bus-stop area, much to the entertainment of the locals. One asked us kindly not to feed the pigeons, and a couple of others wished us "Bon Appetite", while everyone else just looked at us kind of weirdly.
They had train tickets to organise, and we had to move into our room (since if we left bags in luggage storage at the hostel past 8pm we couldn't get them, which was better than if we had left them longer than twelve hours total when they would have been taken away and destroyed. Serious.), so we split for a while, Liz and I wandering back to our hostel past Bastille.
This non-existant monumental prison was destroyed in 1789 after being stormed, and the place is now marked by Colonne de Juillet in the centre of yet another crazy traffic intersection.
We met up again just after 5pm at their hostel, wandered to a local pub for some more-expensive-than-expected beers with free tapas thrown on the table to make up for it. Next we decided to do another supermarket run and take the spoils back to Liz and my room. However, this plan was foiled when the rather rude guys on the door wouldn't let them in, even to sit and eat for a while.
So, instead we went back to Penny and Jono's hostel, where we were looked at a little strangely but otherwise left to eat our bread, cheese, ice creams and bits and pieces in peace. After which, they needed to organise train tickets for the next day over west to visit their friends. We walked down to Gare de Lyon, where tickets were purchased, Jono excited that they had tickets on a nice fast TGV in the same way that I was.
We had purchased a six-pack of beer from the supermarket, chosen from its price tag purely on price per litre (a fantastic law that exists in many countries over here is that this has to be displayed, making bargain shopping much easier). However, what we had actually ended up with was a peach-flavoured lemonade and beer drink. Yuk. Liz managed one sip, me three, Penny about half a can and Jono crazily most of the rest of it all, before we decided enough was enough.
So, we needed to get that really nasty taste out of our mouths, wandering to a random back-street café for an intensive coffee and 500 (cards) session, before bidding them a farewell. It turns out we may actually cross paths in Utrecht sometime in the next couple of weeks.

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