London trip, part 2

[Kragen Sitaker]

On December 27, we went from London to Paris.

Beatrice wanted to walk to the Tube, then take the Tube to Waterloo
station to catch the Eurostar to Paris, but after walking a couple of
blocks on her sprained ankle, she finally accepted my suggestion to
hail a taxicab.

I noticed that the taxicabs in London have several design features in
common with American police cars: the back windows lock (although
under passenger control), the back doors lock under the control of the
driver, and a transparent partition separates the driver's seat from
the back seat.

I don't think I mentioned this in my last note, but I enjoy this trip
very much, and I like London, despite my griping about its
inconveniences.

I began this email from the TGV, speeding through the French
countryside at hundreds of miles per hour.  I hadn't ridden a fast
train since I visited Japan at 15.  The experience impressed me less
than I'd hoped; it looks much like traveling through a smaller
countryside on a normal-speed train.  I only noticed differences when
we passed another train going the other way or when we passed cars on
a highway.

After we zipped over from the TGV station (Gare du Nord) to our hotel
via Metro, we went to bed immediately (around 16:00) and slept nearly
until the next morning.  Beatrice got up briefly and bought some food:
four hot potstickers with shrimp, some pitas, some delicious, fresh
oranges and pears, some ham, and some Babybel cheese.  We dined
briefly, then slept more.

On December 28, we visited the Musee d'Orsay on the Seine in central
Paris.  I saw many beautiful works of art; I stood for a while and
chatted with Rodin's bust of Victor Hugo, but he didn't say much.

Young people with backpacks and bedrolls filled the Metro on the 27th
and the morning of the 28th.  Apparently some 80 000 people came to a
small town near Paris for a gathering of some Christian sect, whose
name, unfortunately, I didn't understand.  The Metro had signs warning
us of the crowds.

On the 28th, we changed hotels; our new hotel has hybrid
French/American electrical plugs and a bidet, but the phone doesn't
work.

I have this idea that the British BT Cellnet phone we brought from
England should work here, and it does seem to know the names of the
local cellular providers, and one of them sent me a "Welcome to
France" message when I got off the train, and it even lets me hear
their helpful French-then-English error messages, but I haven't
figured out how to get it to call any people I know, in any country,
including France.  Even the instructions in the SMS I got from SFR
when I got off the TGV don't help; they suggest dialing 100 for "home
customer care", but dialing 100 gives me a voice message explaining,
in French and English, that the cellular phone I have dialed does not
respond, and perhaps I should try again later.

Paris bursts with music.  I haven't heard such beautiful street music
since an incident in Union Square in San Francisco in 1996; the sirens
I hear at night consist of two alternating assonant tones; the Metro
doors warn you that they will imminently crush your hand by playing a
tune; the SFR cellphone network error messages have such loud music in
the background that I have difficulty making out the words.

At the Musee d'Orsay, we passed a mime outside who simulated one of
the statues inside, an unfinished marble statue of Camille Claudel,
whose name I unfortunately forgot.

We ate at the restaurant in the Musee, which had excellent food.
Beatrice had a cup of coffee, and declared that the coffee alone
justified moving to France.

Beatrice photographed many of the paintings and sculptures at the
Musee.  Signs everywhere forbade flash photography, presumably because
the pastels in the darkened rooms suffered from its intense light.

On the way to our new hotel, we passed some street musicians playing
in the Metro station.  I bought a CD, which, as I write, my computer
encodes with Ogg Vorbis so I can listen to it without carrying the CD
around.

-- 
<kragen@pobox.com>       Kragen Sitaker     <http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/>
Edsger Wybe Dijkstra died in August of 2002.  The world has lost a great
man.  See http://advogato.org/person/raph/diary.html?start=252 and
http://www.kode-fu.com/geek/2002_08_04_archive.shtml for details.