Paris is Intoxicating: Day One

I woke up early, still suffering from the Lufthansa Flu. Even at 5am there is life on the Boulevard du Montparnasse, although the pharmacies and patisseries are still closed. I walked for a few hours, watching the street sweepers remove a million cigarette butts from the sidewalk as the recycling trucks slowly prowled the boulevard to make room for another night of wine enhanced joie de vivre. I got back to the hotel at 7am and rested up while Jan showered in preparation for the day.



On our way to a neighborhood bistro the lens popped out of my glasses. There was an optician close to the bistro, so I stopped in to have it repaired. "Bonjour. J'ai casse mes lunettes. Povez-vous me les reparer, s'il vous plait?" The Berlitz French phrase book I picked up years ago before heading to Montreux has once again proved its worth. A few minutes later I could see again, Jan got an espresso and a smile at the bistro,



and we were on our way to Rue Cler.




We had lunch at a small cafe on Rue Cler, where Jan tried out her phrase book French on the waiter. After a great meal I stopped at the pharmacy to get some cold remedies while Jan shopped, then it was off to the Eiffel Tower.

Our three days in Paris were filled with clear skies and sunshine, but it was still windy and cold. Jan wanted to get to the second level of the tower, because there is a post office there that will stamp your postcards with an official Eiffel Tower postmark. We waited in line for about an hour and were rewarded with magnificent views of Paris.






After that it was back to the hotel to meet up with Indiana Jane and The Professor. The four of us took the Metro to the Champs Elysees to have dinner and pick up tickets to the Louvre.



We left the girls on the Champs Elysees and headed back to the hotel. Around the corner from the Edouard VI we saw a man actually roasting chestnuts. Being from Texas, this was my first experience with chestnuts. They smelled wonderful.




Tomorrow, day two.

Paris is Intoxicating: The Arrival.

We arrived in Paris the evening after Christmas for three sweet days of cliche busting wonder. The Eiffel Tower was dressed in blue, the Champs Elysees was decked out in all of its electric Christmas finery, and we all fell helplessly, eternally in love.



My friend Vince, who is originally from the south of France, once told me, "Willie, Paris is intoxicating." He was not exaggerating. After we checked into the Hotel Edouard VI on Boulevard du Montparnasse we grabbed dinner at a nearby Chinese restaurant, then it was off to bed for Jan so that she could rest up in preparation for the next day. The Professor, Indiana Jane and I made a beeline for the Eiffel Tower. We walked down the boulevard until we saw the Invalides,



then hooked a left and followed the beacon from Gustav Eiffel's marvel of the Industrial Age.

Paris is alive! Vienna was asleep when we were there, but from what The Professor has told us it barely has a pulse in the best of times. Paris, on the other hand, is vibrant, exciting, energetic, amazing, and a thousand other wonderful things. The three of us milled among the crowd, drinking in the sights and sounds and shaking our heads at our good fortune to find ourselves in such a magnificent place. Just before midnight we headed back to the hotel, each of us dreaming of the next few days.

Tomorrow: Day one.

Breathless in Vienna

I landed in Vienna with a bad case of the Lufthansa flu, probably contracted from one of the twenty or so people that bumped into me as I tried to sleep on the nine hour flight from Houston to Frankfurt. The seats were also tiny. In Frankfurt we changed planes and caught an Austrian Air flight into Vienna. The Hotel Herzherzog Rainer was beautiful. We checked in on Christmas Eve and tried to enjoy the mostly closed Christmas Market before meeting up with our oldest daughter, The Professor, who is taking a break from her studies to teach English in nearby Baden. She led me, my wife, and Indiana Jane into the subway and then the train station. Twenty minutes later she was showing off her culinary skills in her tiny basement apartment, and had just enough time to wow us before we headed back to Vienna and a few hours of blessed slumber.

We could have slept in, as it turns out. Vienna was mostly asleep on Christmas day, the cold I caught on the Lufthansa flight had strengthened to the point that I couldn't smell or taste anything, and all of the pharmacies in Vienna were closed. Oh, Vienna, you cold, heartless thing! Do the Viennese not get sick on holidays? And where was your Christmas cheer? I tried to speak your language through my painfully clogged sinus passages, but so many of you chose to be rude. A few of the souvenir shops were open and there were people milling about, so the day was not a total loss.



Tomorrow, Paris.