Paris at 7AM - Pictures of the Seine and The Louvre
I dont have to be at the office until 10am, how luxurious, and it is only about 10 minutes walk from my hotel. That meant I could get up early, catch a train to the nice part of town, wander around, gawk at tourist things, all on a Monday morning.
First, the weather update, not so hot this morning, quite cool in fact, but still sunny. Now the jetlag update, strangely I have none? Seems impossible. I slept from 10pm until 6am both nights I have been here without waking up. On past trips the first night is a decent sleep due to exhaustion from the flight, but then the next few nights I tend to wake up at 2am and cant go back to sleep, not this time so far. Also I have not found myself yawning in the afternoon / evening at all.
Now for the Paris at 7am update - ridiculously quiet. Even at 8:30 many stores, cafes and bakeries are not open, and there is no one on the streets. What time does work start? No wonder my meetings dont start until 10, thats what time people wake up.
Now for an escalator update - none of them work. Ever. There are no working escalators anywhere in Paris. They all became filthy metal stairs about a decade ago and there is no plans to fix them. People sit on them and eat the food they bought because theres no seats in restaurants. More great culture.
And then as I returned to the train station by my hotel to go to work, very loud alarms were going off, people ran out of the station, all the ticket gates were open and waiting on the other side were soldiers with guns and police with dogs. I have no idea what was going on. Of course I stood around trying to find out what was going on, because I am a fool.
Its the Louvre, from the outside of course, pyramid shot coming up later. I went here last time and photographed people photographing the mona lisa. Even at this early hour there were South American girls trying to get me to fill out a survey / petition. They either try and rob you, or once you sign they demand 20 Euros, as you just signed to agree to sponsor a Peruvian childs education, or to provide clean drinking water for Ugandan nuns or some such nonsense. I had some choice words for them, they ran off and hassled a young Korean couple, even grabbing at them. I would kick them in the face if they grabbed me.
Probably shot of the day. Really happy with this camera in conjunction with auto settings in lightroom. I basically dont edit these photos, just enable lens profile corrections and hit auto.
The bridges are all vandalised with locks.
Is everyone (no one) getting tired of photos of old buildings taken square on, centered and aligned? I am.
Here is the pyramid. A big line is already forming. Hours before it opens on a Monday. Apparently there are other entrances with no queues, but I guess the pyramid thing is a line experience.
I went to relax in the park. You are not allowed on any grass anywhere in France.
I thought I better take a photo of me, to prove I was here and didnt just steal photos from google image search like the Indian family that faked climbing mount everest.
Near the park is a spooky abandoned fun fare. I dont think its actually abandoned, but it is not open at 7am.
Now for a couple of shots of streets that all look the same. This one has a pole sticking up.
Most streets have foul smelling water running down them for some reason. Who is the water authority of this city?
Last photo of the morning, a bunch of old cars on the back of a few trucks in the 'opera' area. It kind of looks like what we call in Australia the variety club bash, or the shitbox rally.
Pictures of the Eiffel tower and eating a hamburger in Rosa Parks
Something truly extraordinary happened tonight. I ate a hamburger. And not because I wanted to.
Paris is rude. So rude that I was outright told by 3 places 'we do not seat solo diners'. One of them added on 'go to mcdonalds with the other losers', another said 'come back when you find some friends'. So that was great. The come back when you find some friends was even a Korean place.
Before being forced into a hamburger (that was not mcdonalds), I went to see if I could get scammed at the Eiffel tower. It is actually quite far, on foot, but on foot I went. I did not get scammed, but the guys selling mini Eiffel towers got into some kind of a territory war. I left that area quite quickly. It was interesting to see how when they set out their wares on a little rug that it actually has handles on it so they can pick it up quickly with all the stuff instantly wrapped up inside it while they run off at top speed. Quite interesting to watch.
The area in and around the tower was very busy despite it being a Monday night, it was also very dusty. At times it was hard to walk with my eyes open due to the dust. This also makes it hard to take photos because I dont want to get dust in my camera. The dust probably has something to do with the recent run of 40 degree plus weather killing off all the grass you are not allowed to sit on.
Thats enough text, its late, I have to get up early for work.
Here is a sneaky photo I took at lunch time when I was at work. There is a canal near the office, and someone thinks people will pay to go on his barge that has a dodgy looking submarine made out of cardboard mounted on it. No one paid while I was there.
This is the mega mall over the road from my office, it is much like an Australian mega mall. The food places in here have seating, very convenient and useful. It also has free toilets, but when I used these toilets, there were 5 guys sitting on the floor of the toilet watching people urinate. Great entertainment!
I approached the tower from the Seine. It was a decent walk.
This is about as close as you can get now.
These guys hang around just outside the exits from the secure area and harass white girls as they come out.
When I was last here, you could walk right under it. Now there is a lot of security and fences and checkpoints and soliders.
I got in the way of everyone taking a photo to take a photo of them.
The scourge!
Last tower shot. The grounds were closed in a few spots for Bastille day preparations.
The streets around the tower are nice, there are a few shopping streets like this one, mainly everything was closed despite there being 4 hours of remaining daylight.
Just another bridge, with lots of gold paint on display. The big building in the background is the war museum, currently hosting a Picasso exhibition?
CHAMPS. I snapped this shot while scurrying across the road. There are a lot of temporary grandstands erected either side for Sundays big military pride parade.
This is what French people look like. It is an actual Gucci advertisement, not a joke.
Apparently this spot is quite famous, the main Chanel store is here, but right now, no one is here.
Until you see the people standing at the bottom you cant really tell how big this place is. Its the Mary Magdeline historical society or some such thing.
PROOF. I did not make up eating a hamburger. At least I managed to get it with salad rather than chips. This confused the guys serving me thats for sure. It was a gourmet burger, New York style. I have no idea what that means in relation to burgers.
Final pic of the evening, the area surrounding my hotel. The actual suburb is called Rosa Parks, the 'get to the back of the bus' Rosa Parks. Also this was taken at 9:30pm, yet its still perfectly light. Tomorrow there really will only be one update, I have to go to work early.
Submarines, canals and homeless people at La Villette
This will be a micro update, as I am sitting in a meeting room waiting for a meeting while my guests are late, lets see how far I get before they arrive.
This morning I awoke at 6:00, still no jetlag. I had to be at the office by 8, but that left time for a lengthy stroll. This took me to a strange abandoned huge arts precinct known as La Villette. According to the signs hung up on the building it is now becoming a shopping mall? I dont know, maybe my French is wrong.
The giant building and spherical silver monument and submarine all look new, but abandoned. Perhaps it was a failed experiment. There was also a sad looking fun park and an ice cream stand. It is a very strange location for such a place, I suspect it is a contaminated industrial site that was cheaper to turn into a CULTURAL ZONE rather than demolish and clean up. Now for a few pics then back to work.
Very near my hotel, a market is setting up. They seemed quite angered that I wanted to get past on the footpath.
There are lot of canals in the area. This one seems to be called Danube, but I kind of doubt its the Danube.
La Villette, probably photo of the morning. There were a few people out jogging, including old Chinese people jogging backwards. If you look closely you can see rubbish and filthy water at the bottom, I think there is nothing at all inside this huge building currently.
A giant silver ball.
One of the canals. Another day of perfect weather in Paris, set to continue until I leave for London on Saturday, the long range forecast for London looks good into next week too.
I have now seen 2 submarines in 2 days. I suspect this was at some point an actual real submarine unlike cardboard barge monstrosity submarine from yesterday. I am starting to suspect this canal area was a ship and submarine building area, but can you get to the sea from here? I really have no idea.
The playground is nice, that metal tube is an enclosed slide, who knows what horrors await within. I saw a lot of people urinating nearby! Not joking, at least 10 people in the space of my 10 minutes walking through here, mainly people out exercising.
I was finding it hard to find a spot open for breakfast, I though Spock might know? Eventually I found Pain and croissant, in that order. Also the worst coffee ever. And actually a bit later I ran into a French person I worked with 5 years ago who recognised me, and the first thing he said was, I bet you just had the worst coffee you ever experienced because French coffee is terrible compared to Australia! He is right.
Between my hotel and work is a large tent city. This is just a small part of it on the outside of the enclosed area behind that fence. I am told the government forcibly evicts everyone once a month, knowing that they will return the next day.
Last photo, when in Europe I always see these plane trails. Chemtrails. Mind control. Deep state.
Looks like I managed to sneakily create this entire micro update before my guests arrived!
All the wonderful pay toilets of Champs de Elysees
My destinations are just about as creative as my titles, my photographs even less so.
Tonight I walked up and down the Champs de Elysees to gawk at the Arc de Triomphe. Which 99% of the worlds population has done.
The main type of store along the famous street is currently the toilet. Theres more advertising for pay toilets than any other kind of store. I wanted to take a photo of every singe one of the toilet signs but decided I would run out of space on my memory card. The price seems to be 2 euros, but you can pay more for a better toilet or extra services (?!!), or to jump to the head of the line. These places also take credit card, very convenient.
The arch at the end of it is suitably large and I have been there before. I dont really know what else to say about it.
Then I went to a pub for dinner. It was a pub / kebab shop, run by criminals wearing tracksuits and gold chains. I got a lot of culture all at once.
The reason for my visit to this fine establishment was, they did not turn me away. A true rarity.
Now tomorrow, I dont know if there will be any update, after work I have to go to some place far away for a dinner which is an hour on a bus each way, and the bus does not depart the restaurant until 11:30pm. This is a problem for someone like me who does not drink, and does not speak French and who generally goes to sleep at 9:30pm.
Each time I go to the train I study up a bit more on Rosa Parks. The entire station area is a celebration of American racism.
I normally have been changing trains at Gare du Nord to get to Les Halles, today I stayed on and went to Gare Sain-Lazare instead, which is much nicer and probably better located.
Pay luxury toilet branding advertisement 1 of many.
This is the famous street. It is the only street in all of Paris that has any trees at all, thats why its famous!
Pay luxury toilet branding advertisement 2 of 2, I decided to stop taking these photos.
Here is a bit more of the street. If you zoom in, you can see 23 pay toilet advertising signs in this photo, they outnumber mcdonalds.
The Arc, the Frenc cant pronounce the h on the end of words.
More Arc. No sunstars, disappointing.
Iran and France are best friends.
Todays random street is just one of many that runs off the main street with the trees. Note theres no trees on this street, its forbidden.
I believe that unlike all the balsa wood F1 cars you see in various places, this is actually real. It is in the main Renault showroom for all of Paris.
This is actually the entrance to the Abercrombie and Fitch store. I did not go in.
Here is Printemps, near Galleries de Lafeyette or however you spell that. A busy area, I did not go into any of the stores.
Instead I took photos of pointless clock sculpture.
And here it is, Kebab on a plate with all the random mystery meats mushed together. I dont think the staff liked me at all because I did not order an alcoholic beverage. The meal was quite cheap, so I think I found a flaw in their business model.
There are currently 1 comments - click to add
adriana on 2019-07-10 said:
Arc bigger than I thought. Buildings in Paris streets all very similar. must be because the city was redesigned at some time after the revolution.
Paris at dawn, including the Academy of music
I woke up, immediately got into my inappropriate for Paris shorts and tshirt, realised I had time to take the train into the city and go for a 6:30am walk before returning to my hotel, checking out, and catching the bus to the monastery. Actually I am waiting for that bus now and think I probably have time to upload some extra boring photos. Hopefully this is where I am supposed to meet the bus, who knows, I dont speak French and have no instructions.
This morning I stayed on the train for 2 stops, got off at the main intercity French train station, which is actually open at 6:30am! Hooray! This meant I could have coffee 1 of 2 before setting off on a small triangular walk for 1.5 hours around the city before having another coffee and making the return 10 minute train journey against the peak hour flow of people.
That was all highly procedural, interesting things that happened included, I got sprayed with a hose twice, everyone washes the streets every morning, a muzzled dog tried to bite me, dogs generally do not like me, someone got knocked off of one of those silly rental scooters then various people hung out the window of their cars and shouted abuse at the injured scooter rider, a group of medieval knights arrived at the station carrying swords and armor and their gaming computers along with their nintendo bags. Some of them were wearing capes.
This mornings photos are all quite crap, mostly taken in the extended dawn twilight, while I was walking and not really lining up shots - my main goal on my morning walk around the city is to get as many steps as possible, as I am not sure there will be a chance to walk around at all this evening.
This mornings garish building with gold paint inexplicably added is the music academy. This is where they train people to make fountain music suitable for blasting out over the gardens of Versailles. There is a small canon mounted in the foreground that can be used to shoot at the gold targets on the roof.
The scourge of the mobile rental scooter. I have nearly been killed a few times, and today saw a scooter rider nearly get killed. Remember when people walked? Unfortunately no one has found a way to make an app that charges for walking yet, so its not on trend to walk.
This guy has quite the setup. A little tent, some fake grass, his own rubbish bin and garden. I dont even get a garden in my very expensive tiny shoe boxed sized apartment where I live.
More gold. It wont be the last gold shot.
Cultural misappropriation. This Australian themed alcohol consumption building has painted some 44 gallon drums with fake aboriginal art. Thats a pointing the bone offence in Australia.
This is some sort of famous theatre.
A bit more random gold for no reason.
And here is the busy station area, as seen through the double glazed heavily tinted window of the cafe where I got a seat for a second coffee. Color cast corrected!
There are currently 2 comments - click to add
David on 2019-07-10 said:
The work campus for meetings is an old monastery turned into auditoriums, labs and hotel rooms
jenny on 2019-07-10 said:
What's the trip to a monastery for? Are you going to become a monk?
There are currently 2 comments - click to add
mother on 2019-07-09 said:
Lots of interesting pics. Things certainly have changed around the Eiffel tower. No African, Chinese tourists or security back in the 60's and the trees lining the park were not there - it was all flower beds nicer than now.
mother on 2019-07-08 said:
Yes there were signs on all the grass areas when I was there in 1963 saying stay off the grass. Hope you have a successful day at work.