Getting to France

In my ongoing tribute to Ricardo and wife being in London, I'm reprising the emails I sent home during my trip to both London and Paris. This is entry #5. My buddy and co-worker, Haywood, who reads 19th century French books in French, was meeting me in Paris.


Thursday July 6, 2000

Hello all! I haven’t been able to write the last few days as I was traveling and yesterday was busy sightseeing. Now that I’ve hooked up with Haywood, he keeps me hopping to see the sights. Plus they don’t have Starbucks here, because they’d run everyone out of business a la Walmart in a heartbeat. These Parisian cafes are waaaayyyyy overrated. They call a café a place with seats in the sidewalk next to a busy street that gouges you for a lousy cup of coffee or a beer. We stopped at one place and it was $7 for a freaking beer. That’s fine if you’re in a museum or overlooking something beautiful, but not if you’re next to a nudie-magazine store overlooking the equivalent of Wabash and Jackson.

And don’t believe what you hear about the people in France turning over a new leaf and being nice. That’s a load of crap probably promulgated by Frenchies. They’re still as mean as ever and rude. I’m sorry, but I’ve almost kicked about four Frenchies’ asses here already including one “café” owner who couldn’t believe Haywood and I ordered separately. I hadn’t had my coffee yet so I was just one more French muttering away from pulling him over the counter and beating his beret wearing, cheap cigarette smoking, smelly little ass. But that’s enough about fun in Paris.

I wanted to thank Tom and Sue again for letting me stay with them in Peckleton over the weekend. It was a relaxing time for me, though probably not so much for Sue, who had to put up with me all day Monday without Tom as a buffer—he had to go to work and yell as some Belgiums or something. I was going to go golfing on Monday, but Tom’s shoes were a half-size too small and I didn’t want to risk getting a blister with all the walking still to do on my trip. I’ll make it back there again and golf a few times I’m sure. (Author's Note: I haven't made it back!! Damnit.)

For a country where you can still watch Battlestar Gallactica at almost any hour of the day or night, the UK is pretty cool. Granted, they have the garbage can issue (let me tell you how happy I am about that here in France by the way, cans are everywhere), but they aren’t as uptight as Americans at least in advertising and such. There was one internet service ad that simply said “Click Ass”. I thought it was hysterical. Another one for some kind of internet gift site said, “Surprise your girlfriend, take her sister to Paris." That’s probably funnier when you’re at a smelly tube stop than at your desk reading this message. By the way, if you’re wondering whatever happened to Patrick Duffy and Richard Thomas (John-Boy from the Waltons), they’re over here doing theater. I hear they’re starring on a new, lost episode of Battlestar Gallactica. It’s a shame I left the country.

Tube musings fin
“Mind the Gap”, you hear it everywhere and can even get it on t-shirts. It means don’t fall into the six inch space between the train and the platform. Here’s a thought, instead of saying this 10 million times a day over a loud speaker in the tube, why don’t you build the freaking train platforms so there isn’t a gap to mind? Is that so hard? They're made of wood for God's sake. Just add some lumber!! Everyone else does it. Jeesh.

The last train I took from Kings Crossing to Piccadily for changing to the Waterloo station had, as hand supports, springs with knobs on them dangling from the ceiling. I don’t think I have to tell you how stupid this looked, you can probably visualize it for yourself. Worst of all, they didn’t offer any resistance at all. They must have been in place for forty years and the people who used them might as well have been using linguine noodles for support. The part that really ticked me off was a little old lady standing up directly in front of some 12 year-old kid with his parents and was trying to hang on to this springy knob thing. Not only did the bastard kid not get up and giver here his seat, but his parents didn’t make him. I wanted to go over and yell at all three of them, but my stop came up and I had to get off. One hundred more steps and two big bags of luggage. Come on guys, let’s try to understand the concept of escalators.

The Chunnel
Not as exciting as I would have hoped. If you haven’t taken a high-speed train before, you need to make reservations like an airplane and you wait in a special airport-like terminal. It’s nice and the train really zips along once you get to the Chunnel and into France. In England, it’s just like every other train. There isn’t much to say about the Chunnel really. It’s dark for a half hour and then you’re in France. No biggee. Once in France, the train cranks it up a notch and you’re really moving. Seems like the same speed as a plane before it takes off as it shoots down the runway. Unfortunately there’s not much to say about the landscape in France on the way to Paris either. Looks a lot like England, without the sheep. Thankfully. Some of those sheep in Scalf’s backyard were getting pretty brave, openly mocking me while I chipped around their backyard with some golf balls. They didn’t like it so much when I pulled out Tom’s 3-wood though. Never seen sheep run like that.

On the train to Paris, I had my first encounter with a real live Frenchie. She sat right next to me, so of course I tried to strike up a conversation. She didn’t speak English though (she was Venezuelan living in Paris) so for three hours she sat there without saying a word or even trying to communicate. Welcome to France!