foto by smith
in these 14 months of traveling anywhere but america, i’ve found 2 things generally true: the bigger the city, the fatter the people and the unhappier their faces – and – the less the sun shines, the fatter the people and the unhappier their faces.
i’ve also found in our journey 2 cities i think i could live in – paris and amsterdam.
we left for 4 day paris trip saturday. ominous beginning – the sky was grey and rainy, and an email from our airline back to the states saying homeland security wanted us to email our passport numbers, names, sex, address, and date of birth. scary overtones of big brother other when our government demands foreign airlines collect data on americans. spy versus why.
arrived in paris. our hotel was only 3 kilometers away, so we walked. turns out we went the wrong way to a wrong rue voltaire. took an anonymous french old man angel and 3 subway rides to get to the right rue voltaire. next day we even found a 3rd rue voltaire.
in the subway i saw a blind beggar look at his watch to see what time it was.
at a cafe, an arab woman sent her 4 year old son in to beg money. i’ve found here and in morocco they teach the children to go straight to the woman of the couple to beg, to look straight into their eyes and look sorrowful while they plead. in essaoura i said no and interposed myself between the kid and lady, so the kid went around to her other side whereupon i interposed myself between them again and said no. this happened 4 times. it’s all a scam, part of their scam clan. what a horrible thing to do to a kid.
french folk don’t realize lady can understand much of what they say. one young male duo wondered if we were italian because italians like em young and they said i was going with an infant. another real old couple across from us on the subway wondered out loud if i were her parent – told lady she should have replied “no, he’s my husband – by the way you humping that old person you’re sitting next to?” teach them some manners.
went in search of the smoke merchants – tried 3 places per instructions we downloaded from webehigh.com – first two failed because it was sunny midday and the dealers don’t much come out before dusk, and the third and most assured failed because it was sunday night and the park closed at 4. it doesn’t matter that we failed, but it does matter that we tried.
also tried to see the catacombs, but they closed at 4 also – guess the dead had to get ready to go out or something.
my digital camera is dying – big black spot has appeared somewhere in the inner programming – my foto of the eiffel tower looks like a large black alien blob is attacking from the sky.
the hotel’s balanced breakfast was really an unhealthy unbalanced breadfast… white bread, brioche bread, rye bread, baguette bread, bread sticks, cake bread, bread crisps, french bread, jam, honey, butter, cereal, applesauce, small chunks of soft cheese, and coffee – for $6.
in spite of what this sounds like, i had fun and enjoyed paris – all except lady k’s vomiting diarrheic food poisoning last night as a result of our dinner at a mexican restaurant on rue sartre just off notre dame.
write more tomorrow.
foto by smith