Paris!

I survived the night and made my train to Paris!!

At 08.00h I went into the shopping level of the station to the Euro World store and bought a scarf and gloves for 1€ each. I wish I'd had those last night! After getting those, and a cup of coffee, I saw my train had arrived. I boarded and absolutely loved the warmth from the heaters but stayed bundled up in hat/gloves/scarf and two jackets until well after we were under way. Deutsche Bahn pleasantly surprised me by providing a rather large breakfast to all passengers going to Paris--I guess since it was a 4,5 hour direct train, a meal made since... but that's not something I'd expect in the States... at least without an extra fee!!

The train ride was rather uneventful but I got some much needed rest before getting to Paris Est. I'd been texting Karen and apparently the French rail strikes were worse than German--many rail lines in Paris were totally closed down! She recommended that I try to take the Metro as far as I could towards her and just let her know how far I got!! Fortunately, the Metro line 4 made it far enough and I met up with her rather quickly.

I was going to explore the touristy sections of Paris this afternoon but wound up joining Karen while she went to north Paris to try to find a man selling a bicycle. It sounded really sketchy at first and I was more than willing to join Karen as she searched for this mystery man. Once we got there, it turned out to be a massive flea market of many of the Parisian immigrant groups all peddling their wares. We never found the bicycle man but spent several hours wandering the many kiosks. As we were leaving, we bought a roasted ear of corn from a man on the sidewalk with a charcoal grill. Again, that sounds pretty sketchy but it was really, really good!

Tonight's dinner was a my first experience with a European McDonald's. It tasted pretty much the same. :P Although, I was shocked by how environmentally unfriendly the store was! Maybe I've gotten so used to the German obsession with minimizing one's environmental impact, but the amount of waste created just at the McDonald's in serving product to be eaten there was shocking. I can only imagine how weird it'll feel once I return to the States! I've grown rather accustomed to having four different trash cans everywhere I go and having to bring my own bags to buy anything. I'm always impressed in Germany when someone freely bags something for me. (Which reminds me, I got a really cool gift bag from the European Central Bank because after I bought a Euro knit cap and the cashier offered to bag it for me.)

After our McDonald's dinner, we went to a movie (I can't recall the name) that was about a French army unit operating in Algeria during the independence struggles there in 1959. It was a good movie (despite the lack of subtitles!) but I unfortunately full asleep halfway through because of my lack of sleep the night before. Now I'm going to bed after staying up far too late catching up with Karen. (We worked together last year as RAs and she's now in Paris attending law school.)