Paris: Day One

We arrived in Paris around 11:00 a.m. local time, and then spent about half an hour taxiing around the airport before the plane parked, then we walked down a ramp to the tarmac, where a series of busses took us to the actual airport.  The driver seemed to not care that he had people in the back of the bus, a bus with no seats, mind you, just some rails to grab ahold of.  Now, I know that you can go through turns faster by accelerating into them, but it wouldn't occur to me to try it with human cargo in the back of a 40 foot bus, but it didn't stop him.  When two people who have spent as much time riding on hay racks as Holly and I nearly lose our footing, you know it's bad.  I heard some of the other passengers gasp as they tried to hold on for dear life.

We made our way to passport control then, which was such a confusing mess that even the French people in our plane couldn't find the line dedicated to them.  It took us about 20 minutes to make our way through the queue.  The officer didn't even look at the silly yellow card they make you fill out on the air plane, and then he neglected to stamp my passport as well.  Holly's was stamped, as she went to a different officer, so maybe she'll be allowed to leave, and I have to stay here?  I'm sure it'll bite me in the ass later.

We collected our luggage, and then proceeded to break our first law, which has to be a record, even for me.  I knew we wanted to take the RER trains to our hotel, and so I purchased two tickets from one of the automated machines.  This wasn't difficult, you just told the machine you wanted to go to Paris, and that you wanted quantity of 2 tickets.

So, I walked through the turnstile with my ticket and luggage, and then Holly attempted to follow me.  Even though the automated machines took my ticket, it wouldn't take hers, and there was no one in sight to help us, so, with my encouragement, she jumped the turnstile.  Somehow I doubt we're going to wind up on France's Most Wanted for this, and we had purchased a valid ticket, but we felt like rebels.

After a half-hour ride to the Notre Dame station, where we had to change trains, we met a frenchman who detected from our general cluelessness that we were lost, and he helped guide us to the right platform to make our connection.  He also helped me find the ticket counter to buy a ticket for that next leg, and started to explain how the "Visite" passed work, but we'd already purchased those before leaving home, so I didn't need that much help.

I then annoyed the ticket counter keeper by charging the 4 Euro fare to my Visa card, but I'm hoarding the currency, as it's a pain to get more, and I don't want to waste it when I can use plastic.

It took me a few minutes to find my way back to where I'd left Holly (at the Frenchman's urging) by the platform with our tickets, as the RER stations aren't quite as well-marked as the Metro stations, and they're darker and probably have a higher urine content as well.

We made our way onto the RER train, and headed towards the Eiffel Tower stop, as we're staying at the Hilton Paris hotel, which is quite near it.  I knew our hotel was only a couple of blocks from the train stop, so I figured we'd spot it easily.  We exited the train station and began walking down the street, but didn't spot the hotel.  After about 5 blocks, and some nagging from my wife about the state of her bladder, I dug out the paper which showed the address of the Hotel, and realized we'd gone three blocks too far.  We retraced our steps, then realized how easy it was to miss the Hotel, because there are literally no markings on that street to indicate that it's a Hilton, but if you pay close attention, the H logo is on one of the glass doors.  If you go to the North side of the building (which is not the street given as the address), that's where the main hotel entrance is, you just can't see it from where we were.

I declined the four offers from various hotel staff to carry my luggage while thinking  "I lugged it from Charles De Gaulle, I can manage the last 50 feet on my own, and I'm not giving you a tip."

This brings me to Seth's Paris Travel Tip #1: This is probably going to sound like a commercial, but it's not.  I used Hotwire.com to book our hotel, and saved a fortune.  The Hilton Paris has a "rack rate" of $289/night, and via Hotwire.com I paid $116/night for our hotel.  The downside of Hotwire is that you can't see what hotel you're buying until you pay for it, but you can use BetterBidding.com to "decode" the Hotwire star ratings and amenities, and usually narrow it to one or two hotels that fit the description.  In the case of the Hilton Paris, it's the only one in the area that fits the BetterBidding.com profile, and it's very nice hotel for the same amount as you can spend on far worse hotels elsewhere in town.

We checked in around 2:00 with a girl who spoke English so well, I'm not sure if she was French or not, though I think she was.  In any case, we got a room on the first floor (up one floor from the lobby) with a view of the Eiffel Tower.  I was encouraged by that, as often Hotwire customers get the crappier rooms, because we pay super discounted rates, but I can't complain about this one.  Our room is pretty large by European hotel standards, though it has twin beds, which is another European hotel standard, though the girl at the desk told us to just push them together.

We reached our room, then dropped everything and crashed for a two-hour nap, as it had been a short night.

We managed to drag ourselves out of bed around 4 p.m. and showered before setting off to see the Eiffel Tower.  It's only a few hundred yards away, and we weren't feeling ambitious enough to venture farther into the city.  We walked towards the tower, saw the rather long lines, and decided we should eat first, as we were both pretty hungry.

On one of the sidestreets near our hotel we found a cafe with the magic word "cheeseburger" on the menu, though listed at a price of 10 Euros, which, while not cheap, was about what we were willing to pay, as we were pretty hungry.

A waiter showed us to a tiny table inside the smoky cafe, and we each ordered the Cheeseburger & Frites (fries) as well as a Coke.  Herein lies Seth's Paris Travel Tip #2: Always find out the price of your beverage before ordering it.  After eating our cheesburgers, which contained so little beef that they make a McDonald's cheeseburger seem positively beefy, and the fries, which were actually quite good, and quite a large serving, we had the displeasure of receiving our bill (after I had to ask for it, 15 minutes after we finished our meal).  I need to check the travel book, as this may be the custom in France, and it just didn't sink in, so I'm not judging the place based on me having to request the check.

However, I will not be going back, as I was shocked to be given a bill for 36 Euros, or about 48 dollars.  While our cheeseburgers & frites were only 10 Euros, the "medium Cokes" were 8 Euros each, which is about 11 bucks.  Holy shit, an 11 dollar Coke.  I thought the 6 Euro Coke in my hotel mini-bar was high, but thus we learned the importance of pricing not only meals, but beverages as well.

I paid the check, while trying not to think about dropping 50 bucks on sub-par burgers, when we could have had fillets at the best restaurant in town back home for what I just spent, and headed back towards the Eiffel Tower.

Seth's Paris Travel Tip #3: We bought tickets, and stood in 3 separate queues to reach the top of the Eiffel Tower.  There's really no reason to go above the second tier, however, as the top tower is more expensive, takes longer, and the view is worse.  It's kind of neat to be at the top when the wind is blowing at 60mph like it was while we were there, but you're so far up in the air that you're looking down on the rooftops of the city, rather than getting a good view of it.  The second tier is cheaper, avoids the longest queue, and you can walk down, rather than having to wait in yet another queue to do that.

Since we didn't have my advice, we went to the top, though Holly was rather uncomfortable riding in the glass elevator all the way up there, as she's a bit of a wimp.  The view from the Tower is really spectacular, though, and going early in your stay gives you a good feel for the various landmarks, and the relative distances involved when visiting them.

We got a bit chilled out on the platform, as it was qutie windy, and the sun was going down, so we risked our mouths on a shared 3 Euro cup of hot chocolate, which was served at approximately 211 degrees F, so we sat around starting at it for another 10 minutes until it cooled to a drinkable termperature.

After making our way back down the elevator to the second tier, with the best view, we decided to take the stairs the rest of the way down, as to avoid yet another queue.  It seems like walking down stairs should be easy, but the Eiffel Tower is very tall.  By the time we reached the bottom, we were pretty well beat, and after snapping some more photos of the tower at night, we limped back to our hotel room, and promptly crashed, but not before enjoying a brief but spectacular light show on the Tower, when they made it sparkle.  Ironically, I wasn't looking out the window at it, but was watching CNN, where they were covering the French election results, and the Tower was sparkling behind the reporter they were talking to via Satellite, so I looked out the window, and sure enough, it was sparkling here too.  I'm not sure what schedule the "sparkling" effect is on, but it's rather spectacular, especially when you can see it from your bed.

Joining the 21st Century

I'm sitting at my parents' new house, waiting for their DSL installer. I've only been pestering them to get broadband internet for most of the last decade, and their new house is in range of DSL service from WCTA.

Word 2007 Blog Publishing

One little-advertised feature of the new Word 2007 is that you can use it to post to your weblog. In fact, I just wrote this in Word. J

Liar, pants on fire.

Soooo, now that the Republicans have lost, Rush Limbaugh says he didn't really like them anyway:

The way I feel is this: I feel liberated, and I'm going to tell you as plainly as I can why. I no longer am going to have to carry the water for people who I don't think deserve having their water carried. Now, you might say, "Well, why have you been doing it?" Because the stakes are high. Even though the Republican Party let us down, to me they represent a far better future for my beliefs and therefore the country's than the Democrat Party and liberalism does.

Translation: I'll say or do anything to keep the Republicans in power. I'll lie, pretend to believe things I don't, and say whatever they ask me to, just because they're Republicans. How can even the die-hard people listen to him, when he doesn't even believe what he's saying himself?

Snarky Halloween History

For your Halloween enjoyment, a snarky history of Halloween:

Its that time of year again, when the trees vomit colorful dead leaves all over your lawn and the weather can’t decide if it’s hot or cold, or even both at the same time (as Lewis Black once said, "it’s not weather, it’s malaria"). Yes, it is fall and we all know what that means -- Halloween, that festive time of the year when kids dress up in fantastic costumes, bob for apples, and go trick-or-treating. Well, unless they live in a community that has done away with Halloween because some Christians say it’s a holiday for Satan, or some Jews say it’s too Christian, or some Wiccans say it makes fun of their religion (which has as much to do with ancient witchcraft as P. Diddy has to do with Bluegrass, but that’s neither here nor there). Actually, all of those people are wrong about Halloween (plus they are morons). The real roots of Halloween dig deep into the past and are entwined with more than one culture and religion, with Satan and witches nowhere in sight -- well, until the Middle Ages, anyway.

America's Dumbest Congressmen

Via Radar Online, America's Dumbest Congressmen.  I find it incredibly absurd when people attempt to blame Jon Stewart for making young people cynical about politics.  When these dipshits we elected (and even worse, re-elected) are the best people their party could find, we should be cynical.  My favorite entry has to be the one about Donald Young:

The scene: Fairbanks, Alaska, 1994. Congressman Don Young, already in office for 20 years, is on the stump preaching the virtues of Newt Gingrich's Republican revolution to a group of high school students. Just look at all the wasteful things the federal government does with taxpayers' money, he tells them. The National Endowment for the Arts, for example, funds art involving "people doing offensive things ... things that are absolutely ridiculous." One student asks, "Like what?"

"Buttfucking," replies the great scourge of obscenity and instructor of youth.

A Dying Population - Los Angeles Times

Link to A Dying Population - Los Angeles Times

The L.A. Times has an article about the declining population in Russia, and one of the reasons cited is the poor health of many Russians.  Indeed, that was one of the impressions that I had walking around Moscow and St. Petersburg when I was there.  Health conditions that would be routinely treated here are left untreated there, the majority of the population smokes, and pollution was rampant.

The scary thing is, here, we tend to think of most of those health problems as being long-term, and here they largely don't affect people of child-bearing age.  If conditions have become so bad across Russia that even the younger generation is having its fertility significantly reduced, then they are in serious trouble.

While we in the U.S. celebrated the fall of Communism, all has not gone well in Russia.  The "New Russians" (those who made fortunes in the unstable period following the collapse) are fabulously wealthy, the streets of Moscow and St. Petersburg are full of luxury import cars.  But the "average" Russian makes $38 a month.  Think about that, I spent twice that much on my last pair of shoes.

I think the real danger in this is that Russia will turn away from Democracy, toward a more authoritarian state.  Putin has already assumed quite a bit of power, and moved to squelch dissenters, and the sense I got is that the Russians admire, and need, what they perceive to be a "strong" leader, more than one with strong democratic values.

Get out of your SprintPCS contract for free

Sprint just raised the price of their text messaging to 15 cents/message. The good news is that this represents a "material change" in their contracts, and allows you to terminate the contract for free, as long as you do it right away. So, if you've wanted to switch cell phone providers, now is the time.

Student Life at UNI

If you're wondering what student life is like here at UNI, we have a few students now blogging on the weblog service I help run here at work.  While we haven't opened it up to our student body (yet), these three are giving a pretty unfiltered look at what life is like as a new or international student here.

University of Iowa computer containing 14,500 social security numbers compromised

Looks like the University of Iowa had another compromise, potentially exposing 14,500 social security numbers to a hacker.  It's not likely that the numbers actually were stolen though, most of these hacks are because someone wants to use the fast university servers/bandwidth to share pirated movies, music, and porn.