7 July 2019
Not much of a mountain
Montmarte, pickpockets and a great view with beautiful weather
There are no mountains anywhere near Paris. Failure.
The best I can do is go to Montmartre. The global epicentre of pickpockets. It has Mont in the name so you might think its a mountain, but it barely qualifies as a hill.
I have been here before, it might be referred to as Montmartre, or Sacre Coeur, but it should be renamed scammers paradise. Also it is full of hippies and people smoking illegal substances. Dirty people.
It is actually not far from my hotel to Montmartre, so I went on foot, through some of the roughest parts of Africa, I mean France. Lots of eyes following me, strange shops selling empty plastic coke bottles full of strange looking nuts and nothing else, a huge line of people waiting to use a strange looking ATM at the post office, perhaps to get welfare money? Also lots of fried chicken (mild racism!). Basically no one was speaking French but I dont know what part of Africa they came from originally.
Now for an unrelated story because all of that was a bit boring.
Earlier I had to do my ironing, of course my hotel room has no iron, so down to the laundry room with my clothes I go. There is an African lady who I presume works for the hotel ironing some guys shirts (because she was wearing a uniform not because shes African!), so I wait politely, she looks at me suspiciously.
When she is done, she asks in French first, then in English, what do I want? I told her I wanted to use the iron. Long silence.
She said, 'ok then' and backed away slowly. It was a weird sort of an iron, connected to a hose and the wall, but it worked well enough despite the ironing board cover being a towel.
Anyway, I can see her standing in the corridor looking at me funny. Soon after there were 2 more of the African hotel staff looking at me. Eventually they get brave and come back in, and ask, 'Why are you ironing?'.
I told them I have to work tomorrow, need to iron my shirts and pants, I will be done in 5 minutes.
That was not the answer they were looking for, one of them states, 'But you are a man, men should not iron, it is womans work!'. They then continued to talk about me in a hushed African language, laugh occasionally, and generally wonder what the hell is wrong with me.
I approached Mont Sacre Martre Core from the rear, and found some staircases to take as a shortcut. Nice view.
Here it is from the back. The weather was a little cooler this evening, quite a strong breeze.
Around the summit of this challenging peak there are a lot of tourist shops charging $10 for bottled water and $3 to urinate.
The mountain is too challenging for many, who instead take this train that is usually used to transport crippled children around the hospital.
Some thieves are setting up their blankets full of stolen goods. Actually I read these vendors are breaking the law, and are often seen hastily folding up their blanket and running away when the police approach. I did not see that happen today.
More.
There is Paris. All the same height and color.
Filthy Hippies. The guys playing the guitars are terrible. Worse than the piano accordion train beggar from earlier.
Still more.
In these gardens were the same scammers as last time I was here, who specialize in tying your finger to theirs while they rob you. I had some specially prepared insults I was able to unleash upon them.
Indeed.
I took this photo to see if I could encourage a pickpocket to come and find out my shorts have zips. No such luck.
The streets at the bottom are full of slightly less expensive but still price gouging shops specially set up to annoy tourists.
And here is Gare Du Nord station, where I stood up and had a falafel for my dinner, eating one handed while using the other to fight off pickpockets. I am working tomorrow, dont expect pics until the evening.