12 July 2019
Back in Paris
A stroll through the northern parts of Paris
As the creative title says, I am now back in Paris, in the same hotel in the same room, for one night. Tomorrow I go to London on the Eurostar, assuming there is no sudden strike.
I was able to get a lift back to where I needed to be in Paris in the afternoon after work, this was very convenient as it allowed me to do my washing, more on that shortly.
The journey back was not without incident, the traffic situation is terrible and I was only trying to get to the outskirts of Paris, still there was a major motorcycle accident, and then when stopped at a freeway offramp, small immigrant child beggars raced over and tried to open the car door to beg for money / rob / stab me. There was a huge amount of rubbish and junk in this area, it was unclear if its because beggars pull it out of cars by opening the doors, or if motorists throw it at them. I was deep in some culture.
As is usual for the hotel laundry, the dryer cooked my clothes to the point of immolation. I burnt myself on a zip removing my clothes from the dryer.
The laundry was finished in good time, which meant I could walk all the way into the middle of the city from my hotel and gawk at tourists enjoying Friday night. There was a huge amount of people around, and despite eating a ridiculous amount of cheese and meat and cake in the last 3 days, I managed to choose the worst dinner of all time!
These wont quite be the last Paris photos, I have time to take a few more photos of identical looking streets again tomorrow morning before heading to the station. I think I have seen all there is to see, it all looks the same to me. Most people think its the most beautiful city in the world, yet to my eyes it looks like rows and rows of prison cells, no views, no trees, no variety, lots of litter, basically no parks, uninviting shops, nowhere to sit, no toilets, everyone smoking, you get the idea, I am wearing out my comma key.
I think this is a combo of a housing project for immigrants, a supermarket, and a reconstructed ancient gate possibly celebrating Levi Strauss, the guy that invented American blue jeans in the wild west that Russians will trade for military secrets.
Here we have a section of track where the metro goes above the road. It is very loud and rickety.
My walk took me past the other big train station, Gare de L'est. Trains from here seem to go mainly to Germany. Apparently tonight is the start of the 8 week official French / German holiday period, and possibly the worst night all year for traffic escaping Paris. The train station was very busy. I am trying to use up my remaining Euros, so I drank 5 litres of water before setting off on my walk so I could keep paying to use the toilets. There was no need for cash, everywhere takes card, and by card I mean I paid with google pay via my phone everywhere. That would be fine except I took some Euros out before I knew that, so now I have to use them, which is annoying. I could give my cash to the immigrant children but they already tried to rob me.
A rather picturesque street.
This is the biggest park in the entire greater Paris metropolitan area. These two ladies and their babies are enjoying the lovely gravel.
All white delivery vans are conveniently painted a few times each day to prevent rust.
This is African hairdresser street. Every shop here is a COIFFEUR. I speak French now.
Arc de non triomphe.
Now for my dinner. Everywhere is a crepe shop, so why not a crepe for dinner? See below to find out why not.
I got talked into a crepe combo, savoury and sweet. I expected the savoury one to be more than just cheese. It was just cheese. The chocolate one was nutella from a jar. Why are they this dark brown color? I have so many questions as to how a crepe shop in Paris can stuff up crepes. I have regrets.
Lots and lots of people had amassed to watch this busker guy. I made sure my pockets were zipped up and took up a spot. First he spent 5 minutes untangling his blue rope to music, occasionally jumping in the air or standing on one leg while his music was playing, then when he was done, he just stood like this until the crowd dispersed. So cultural.
Tonights photograph of the sun.
TIN TIN WAS GAY! Finally the truth comes out.
And what might this building be?, gallery? church? embassy? military? No its a bank branch.