::A Geek in Korea::

The last update I left was about being in Germany. From that hostel, we left for Paris, France. The entire trip we had been worried about how expensive France was going to be on our budgets. Out of sheer coincidence, we happened to be visiting during a peak conference time, as well as during the 2007 Rugby World Cup. There were games on while we were trying desperately to find a hotel room.

For all the flack Parisians get about being rude, the only rude people we encountered were the people forced to deal with complete asshole tourists. The rugby fans in front of us was really rude in the line to get tickets for a subway pass. One shouted, “CAN YOU JUST SPEAK ENGLISH!?” Another tried to correct the worker at the counter. He got all smug and pissy about being able to use his Eurorail pass to go to the airport. Eurorail doesn’t work on subways, but it does work on the light rail system in France to get to airports. He wasn’t smart enough to get in the right line, then took it out on the person. The entire lot of English rugby fans totally got this man in the counter really, really pissed off.

By the time we got to the counter we were afraid we were going to get yelled at in French. We said, “Bonjour,” and tried our best to work with the guy, who obviously hated his job. He didn’t do anything rude to us.

In fact, the hoteliers in France were the best in all of Europe. They’d tell us where their nearest competitor was when we couldn’t find a room. They even told us they’d consider a cheaper hotel down the block than stay at their own place. We found an absolute dive that went for 45 Euro for our first night. That’s not bad, considering it had a lift. Our second and third nights, we stayed in a family owned hotel that had six flights of stairs, and no lift for just a bit more. The prices weren’t bad considering the overcrowded streets full of fans.

I would have totally loved to get some Rugby tickets, but it was not to be. We had a limited amount of time, and the only games were being played while we arrived on the first day. The other games were later in the week, and we couldn’t see them and make our plane. Bummer. Rugby is a lot of fun to watch. It’s like American Football, except a bit more exciting because there aren’t breaks in the action every 7 seconds.

I’m a casual soccer AND rugby fan. Will Americans even accept me as one of their own if I returned? I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Anyway, the Paris subway is so much better than the London subway, so we had no difficulties or delays trying to get where we wanted to go. The more I think about it, I don’t understand WHY London sold their subway as part of the brand of the city. The London subway system was designed to imitate a pit of hell. The place in hell where people with bad body odor and no shame about their funk go.

Anyway, the worst problems we faced while traveling around Paris were excessive amounts of dog crap on the streets (ew!), and various strong odors on the subway. My nose, being hypersensitive to perfumes, had me sneezing and twitching my nose like a stock broker after a cocaine binge. My wife swore the subway smelled like urine in places, but I was choking on so much Dior and other overpriced things I label in a catch-all I call “stinky shit” that I couldn’t notice. It was still more pleasant that the B.O. stench that hung in the tubes of London.

We went to the Eiffel Tower. It’s big, I guess. I always pictured the Eiffel Tower being bigger for some reason. We didn’t go up. It’s kind of a thing where you have to go, even if you have no reason to be impressed. It was beautiful at night when it was lit. The whole city was a sight to see from a ferris wheel we went on. The pictures are too blurry to share though.

We saw the Louvre on our first free day in the city. It’s so incredibly large it actually does a disservice to people visiting only once. By the end, you could walk by ten masterpieces and not even care, because you simply want to escape to say you’ve “done” it.

We did the standard audiobook tour, but saw lots of people walking around on the “The Da Vinci Code” branded audio tour that was twice the price. People, that book was SO LAME. Seriously. I think a large number of these people were responsible for the insane crowd around “The Mona Lisa” too, but from what I’m told, there are ALWAYS people there.

The next day was a tossup. We could either do Versailles, or go to Musee d’Orsay. More art! I’m a sucker for Impressionist art anyway. If you want to go see Impressionism in France, this is where you go. But the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam is better. This had a lot of art in a smaller space, and some people that never learned how to turn off the FLASH from their camera.

They need to implement Code of Hammurabi style law for tourists like that. One warning, then chop off hands and place them on pikes to serve as warnings to other people that can’t work their own camera. I checked the Code of Hammurabi while I was in the Louvre, but it didn’t have ANYTHING to say about dumb ass tourists.

Of all the tourists, the most infuriating were the Chinese tours in the Church of Notre Dame on our last day. Yes, the state of China doesn’t really let people get into churches easily, but going into places of prayer, while in use, and going up to altars in sections not for the general public to take pictures in, and then to take group pictures in front of everyone is all kinds of rude. Even for me, that’s just really, really disrespectful. Keep those pictures for OUTSIDE. Don’t tour guides tell people these things? They all travel in groups of 20 that never leave each other’s sight. Someone spread them the notice to be better tourists, please.

Never mind that the Church of Notre Dame’s interior didn’t even crack the top ten best Churches I’ve visited in my life. Not even close. Other than the gargoyles and some cool sculptures on the wall near the door, it was a lame choice for the last day. At least it didn’t take a lot of time.

We did some serious shopping while we were there. We went to the hardcore upscale stores first. Louis Vuitton was so astoundingly expensive that it was actually laughable being in the store. It was one of those stores that had bouncers at the door to make sure you were clean and sober enough to go in. My wife bought some watches at Agatha, which was also on the “upscale” street, but was near the end in a tiny store off the side. It was expensive enough to get a duty free tax return paper, but not enough we’d have to sell our house to get a watch.

Anyway, on our second day we hit the outlet stores for some things for the wife. Shopping and Art in Paris. I must be a married man now. It’s utterly cliche. This is a lot different than my tour of Europe with my brother, where we basically did vagabond style travel the entire time. I had to actually bathe and shower, and reclaim duty free tax at the airport! Luckily, there was a light rail line nearby, so we headed straight to the airport. I had heard bad things about the airport, but it was largely French bashing on the Internet.

We arrived at the airport around two hours early for our flight. This is deemed “enough” time for people not trying to do anything unusual at the airport. We found the tax return line, and my wife got the paper to return her cash in under two minutes. Then, she had to wait in line to get her payment.

At the front of this line were two balding fat men. They had several bags as big as refrigerators full of items. They were probably doing something illegal, like trying to buy them in bulk for resale, then trying to get their duty free tax return too. Whatever was going on, they were fighting with police officers and people in the room that handed out the cash. The airport had ONE line to give out tax rebates, so despite there being a line stretching to the door, these two people wasted EVERYONE’S time. No one else could be processed because these people refused to move from their place in line.

Forty-five minutes later, when these two asses moved, the rest of the line started going. We had to get through check in twenty minutes pass the hour, but the line was still glacial. I was hoping to get a decent seat on the flight home, but we had no chance. We were one of the last five people to get a boarding pass for the flight back to Hong Kong.

My wife argued with a French police officer that kept sneaking people to the front of the line for returns despite everyone being late for their flights. He shouted her down saying, “I’m a POLICE OFFICER! UNDERSTAND?”

Yeah, a police officer getting bribed to help people cut in line. Be proud of that. I wasn’t there when this happened, but I was happy my wife didn’t get “disappeared” in the airport before I returned.

Despite that little hiccup at the airport we had a great time in France. People were really friendly. Every time I said “Bonjour,” instead of “Au revoir,” the people had a nice laugh. As long as you don’t go expecting EVERYONE to speak to you in English, France is a great place for a vacation. If you have money to burn, and you want to shop, it’s probably the best place to go.

I went in worried about everything I had read about being difficult to get around and whatnot. I can only imagine people that had a hard time getting around in Paris are pure novice tourists. It was easier to get around in Paris than in London or Seoul, and those are in languages I can read and pronouce.