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.