The Wheelchair

Dad: Grandma K gets around just fine most of the time, but for the walking we did in Paris we decided to rent a wheelchair for her. Mom inquired at the Pharmacy on the first day we were here, and the pharmacist said he would have the next morning and that it would cost "not very much". True to his word it was there the next morning. We took it away without leaving so much as a deposit, name, phone number--nothing. We asked again about the cost: "Not very much." We needed the chair, so we took him on his word.

The chair was great for getting us around, but the Metro was difficult. We developed a system of splitting into two groups and loading through separate, but adjacent doors. This way we could all get on or off before the dreaded buzzer and the very strong closing doors. Paris Metro (and City) has lots of stairs, and while there are ramps in many places, they are often hard to find or even hidden.

We started with a rule that the kids could not use the wheelchair at all (push or ride). Mom offered to let the kids each have a turn with the chair before we returned it if they obeyed the "no playing with the wheelchair" rule. They did a good job of restraining themselves, so they got their reward.



C: I think it was fun to play in the wheelchair.

Mom: What if you had to be in it all day and couldn't get out of it?

C: That would be even more fun...until I got bored of it.

Dad: What about after you got bored of it.

C: Then I would just be wanting to get out.

Dad: Was it easy to steer the wheelchair and make it go?

C: Making go was pretty easy, but steering wasn't.

Sam: I thought steering it was pretty easy--you just turn one wheel and not the other.

Sam: I got out of it in the middle of my turn because I didn't want to go out in public in the wheelchair.

Grandma K: It was a big help to me!

Dad: Sam, would you use the wheelchair if you had to choose between going out in public or staying home all the time?

Sam: I'd use it then, because then I would have a reason.

Dad: Which would be more embarrassing to you: If someone saw you in the wheelchair and thought you were disabled, or if a disabled person saw you and thought you were making fun of them?

Sam: The second one.

Dad: We returned the wheelchair after four days and paid the pharmacist 20 euros--"not very much." The pharmacist was very kind and patient and trusting of us. Being a consumer in Paris was very different from our experiences in California. Prices here are high, things come in small packages, and with the exception of travelling to a supermarket, a shopping trip includes lots of stops. But people say hello, and in the case of the pharmacist, care to provide good service. Grown ups work in retail and service businesses, and seem to survive. At home price is the only factor and service is a childhood memory.

Our Apartment in Paris

The apartment we rented has been nice. It was a real crap shoot, considering you have to select one over the internet, and send off your hard-earned $$ by wire transfer, without any real guarantees, but it definitely turned out well.

This one is on Rue de Greneta, and we rented it through Home Rental Connections, via the internet. The apartment is nicely decorated, in a spare European style, so lots of room for our mess.

It was wonderful to be able to stretch out, and eat real-people food in between the extravagances of the bakery. And, it was incredibly quiet, considering all of the activity just down the street.

About a block away was Rue de Mortoguiel, an old shopping district with cafes, bakeries, fish & meat & produce shops, in addition to a couple of small groceries and a hardware store, which we had to make use of when one of us accidentally broke the showerhead.

Interesting to see that the trash is picked up daily in Paris.

Most people apparently don't have large washer & dryers like us, but hang clothes to dry (on the weekend, lots of windows had sheets and blankets hanging out of them).

We used the wireless internet with our laptop everyday, both for this blog, and trip planning, so it was a real asset. The cable TV was interesting to see how diverse the programming languages were (in Italian, German, French, English), but just as un-stimulating as US TV. Not so many commercials, however. In fact, I don't think I saw any, come to think of it.

The apartment was on the 3rd floor, (2nd floor, European style, where the bottom floor is the Ground floor). Interestingly, the apartment had a brick wine cellar with a barrel vaulted ceiling, which was four flights down a small tiled staircase. Very dark and musty down there, and mostly empty, but interesting to see. This building has 6 or 7 floors. Do all of the apartments have those cellars? It was another example of Paris underground (sewers, metro, catecombs, basements, there is a lot of this city underground).

Oh, and try to figure out appliance controls in another language (the photo on top, above, is of the French washing machine to the left of the stove in the kitchen). Also, cleaning supplies under the sink required translation, and so did packages at the store. We bought some sour cream at the which turned out to be tasty, but it had a strawberry on the container, so I thought it was whipped cream. Reminds me of a story I once read about some Chinese immigrants to America who bought a can of Crisco thinking it had fried chicken inside.

I also have to say, virtually everyone we have had any dealings with has been very friendly and accomodating with our terrible French. I've had much worse experiences as a tourist at home. Lots of people do speak better English than our French, but even if they don't, it works out.

Le Tower

Ok, so we had to go to the Eiffel Tower. Of course, everyone who comes to Paris must do this, and they were all there. I (mom) had the brilliant strategy to wait until late afternoon on Sunday, thinking the lines would be shorter, and perhaps they were, but there were still tons of people. It took us almost 45 minutes to just get to the elevator to the 2nd level, then another 20 mintues or so to get to the top, squished in the whole time. Then at the top, you had to wait just to get to the railing. Squished. And, of course, all of the tourist predators were in residence- scam artists, mediocre performance artists, overpriced food, souvenier hawkers. Why don't the tourist websites and photos describe all of this? And, did I say, it was really crowded?

Dad waited at the bottom, and enjoyed two hours of peace and quiet, I suppose. The external view of the Tower, is in fact, lovely, and I can't say I would have missed it if we didn't go up. Dad went to the top of the Arc (which was free) and enjoyed the view there just as much. However, the kids were absolutely thrilled, loved every minute of it, including the bickering in line, talking to the little British-Indian kid eating cashews behind us, and coming back down the stairs, and their enjoyment, of course, made it all worth it.

PS- it was definitely a good thing to do on our last day, as we had some idea of what we were looking at, and Sam was able to point out several landmarks on her own.

PPS- we spent several hours in the playground below the tower, near the Museum of Man, and had a relaxing time while the kids played in the sand with their new cars. It was a much needed outlet for them, and a nice pause for us.

Velib (Velo Libre, or Free Bikes)

Dad: Paris has a public transit bike program that we were hoping to try out. Google "Paris Velib" for details. The bikes lock onto special racks located throughout the city, especially near Metro stations. To use the bikes you can purchase a magnetic stripe card for limited term use, you can get a smart card for the yearly rate, or you can link the deposit for the bike to your Metro/bus card. It appears to be a useful and very popular system, but it wouldn't work for us.

Our only option was to use our credit card or atm card to pay the deposit and get cards for the bikes. As it turns out, the machines only accept bank cards with chips in them which are not used in North America. We also ran into one station semi-permanently displaying the Windows start-up screen.

Most conspicuously, you don't see high-end bikes or even low-end road bikes in Paris. The style is upright with traditional French very shallow frame geometry. We didn't find a bike shop here. It would be interesting to find out how they keep all these old bikes going. I suspect they must have fabulous piles of old three-speed parts in dark basements.

The Two Towers

Grandma and I were going to get some Eiffel Tower keychains from a man who had them on a pillowcase thing in the tunnel (on the way to the Arc de Triumphe). As we were waiting in line, with the keychains in our hand, for the other people to buy what they were getting, and all of a sudden, his phone rang, he picked it up, answered it, put all of his stuff in his bag and ran for it. Which all added up to free Eiffel Towers.

We think that it was illegal to sell stuff in that tunnel, and he had an accomplice waiting on the other end of the tunnel who cell phoned for him to go because the police were coming. Later, we saw two policeman near the Arc.

Techno Parade

One of the interesting conundrums of being in a foreign country and with a different language and culture, is not being aware of what is a routine occurance, and what is a special event.

This morning when we were leaving the apartment, we saw a full-sized police bus, heading east, with the siren on. We could see uniformed policia inside, but assumed this was a normal occurance.
We took the metro to the Bastile station, with the intent of getting off, and walking east towards the Marais, where apparently there is a thrift shop. Lots of young, trendy French kids on the train. Wonder where they all go on Saturdays? (as this was Saturday). Many wearing all-black, many with striped shirts, wide belts, etc. French teen trends?

As we moved with the swarm out of the Metro (geez, the metro sure is more crowded on Saturdays!), the sound of a train overhead was louder and louder the more we went to the surface. The Bastille was jam-packed with 17 year olds, dancing to the loudest techno-music you ever heard, policia everywhere, kids mixing drinks in the streets. What is going on? Riot? Maybe one of those French anti-war protests? Hmmm.

C was in misery, his hands locked tight over his ears. Finally I asked one of the policia. The answer, in French, was Tecno Paris. Or was that Techno Parti? or Techno Parade?

We wedged ourselves into another train to get out of there. At the next station, booming again! Hmm. Must be Techno Parade, since it seemed to be following us. We headed out and away, lunch and a park.

Another stop, two hours later, guess what? Techno Parade was following us!

Further research revealed that the annual Techno Parade circles around our apartment from noon to 6 PM. Over 400,000 attendees, 20 floats, and lots of loud techno flooding down the long sound channels formed by the tall buildings!

Recycled Dragon