Carol & David's Excellent Adventure's - Part VI
A Trip to Paris  - April 98
 David Braun
Copyright 1998

Traveling to Paris from Grenoble is about as painless as travel can be. 
You get on the TGV, a super-fast train, in Grenoble and you get off in 
Paris three hours later.  The TGV requires reservations and advanced ticket 
purchase.  Like airlines, the SNCF has all sorts of deals.  Being a 
couple traveling together, booking well in advance, spending a Saturday 
night gets you a good price, around $200 round trip.  

Unlike airlines, there is no advance time required to arrive at the station 
before the departure time.  Basically, you must get on the train before it 
leaves.  The TGV is very smooth.  If you are not looking out the 
window, you do not know when it starts to move.  The TGV is very fast.  
Paris is over 300 km from Grenoble and the trip takes three hours.  As 
the train is going very slowly some of that time, for part of that time 
it must be going very fast, as well.  Unlike the Shinkansen or the Concorde, 
there are no speedometers so that the passengers may enjoy knowing the 
velocity.

Travel Tip: Before you get on the train, stick your ticket in one of the 
meter-high orange pillars standing around various locations in the station 
to get it stamped and punched.  I'm not sure WHY you do this, because a 
conductor will come through and punch it some more.  But if you don't do 
this, he'll tell you that you should have.  ("Your tickets are not stamped, 
you must be English.")

Gare de Lyon is a fine old station.  On the advice of several folks, we 
had a coffee at the restaurant, "Le Train Bleu," upstairs at the end of 
the station.   The price for coffee and croissant won't make you baroque, 
but the decor certainly is, and worth the added expense.  This is one 
place that helps you to understand the real meaning of the word "excess."  
They don't build 'em like that anymore; no one can afford to.  (Despite 
a mild case of "sticker shock", it turns out that $3 is about average
for a cup of coffee these days in Paris, if you take it outside or anywhere 
else worth sitting to enjoy a pause.  Get used to it.)

On our way to the Metro, downstairs, we passed hundreds of baggage lockers.  
More on that later.  Having found the Metro, the machine offered way too 
many options of tickets from which we needed to select.  We opted to take 
a taxi to the hotel and figure out the metro without the luggage
sometime later.

I am embarrassed to be American.  Our one "great" export, graffiti, has 
coated the planet like some sort of venereal kudzu.  (Some miscreant even 
sprayed graffiti on the cheeks of Demi Moore's three-times-bigger-than
life-size butt on a cable teevee billboard advertising "Striptease" in 
the Metro.  Oh, the horror.)

The concierge at the hotel pointed us to the nearest Metro station, a scant 
hundred meters away.  The ticket machine there did not have nearly so many 
options since there was no RER at this stop.  (Neither of us can 
say "RER" correctly in French because it is pronounced "air-eh-air" but 
you have to gargle the "air's.")  The RER is the express train that goes
outside Paris as well as inside.  Metro tickets work on it, inside Paris, 
but not outside.  The RER has zones and classes and so forth, making 
a myriad of options.  The Metro simply requires a TICKET.  One Metro ticket 
is good from the time you enter the warren to the time you depart, wherever 
that might be in the city.  For the most part, the Metro is pretty clean 
and fairly easy to use.  But some stations are nicer than others.  Some 
lines are easier to get to in some stations that they are in other stations.  
But facility with that comes with experience, I guess.  The Metro in Paris 
is actually a half franc cheaper to ride than the TAG in Grenoble.

Because this was a sort of scouting mission, to check the place out to see 
where to bring the rest of the family for the next visit, we only scraped 
the surface of the major tourist attractions.  We walked under the Tour 
Eiffel without going up.  We walked near the Arc de Triomph without going 
either up or under it.  We walked by Notre Dame on Easter Sunday.  (France 
has a very high percentage Catholic population, so you might imagine the 
crowd.)  Besides, Our Lady is having a facelift and she is still wearing 
the bandages. (What I mean by that is that the facade is covered with 
scaffolding.) Without going in, there was not even any point in trying to 
get close.  We visited the outside of the Pompidou Centre, which is closed 
for renovation through the end of this year anyhow.

But the REAL purpose of this mission was to shop.  Carol's sport, favorite 
pastime, drug of choice, call it whatever you want, for many years has 
been shopping.  About the only thing Denver has going for it is the fact 
that there is a Neiman Marcus there.  While Grenoble LOOKS good for shopping, 
the real trophies are few and far between.  (Note: an example of 
a real shopping trophy is a $360 pair of designer shoes purchased for $60.)  

<Aside> 
About twenty years ago I woke up in the middle of the night laughing.  In 
general, I don't remember my dreams. I don't recall any other incidence 
of my waking up laughing in the middle of the night.  At the time, I had 
the presence of mind to jot down a few words to remind me in the morning 
what was so damn funny that it woke me up.  The next day, at lunchtime, 
someone mentioned something about a dream and I remembered that I had had 
one, too; yet could not recall anything other than the fact that it was 
hilarious.  When I arrived home, I found the paper on my nightstand.  
On it, I had written, "elevator tennis shoes."  I recalled my dream 
of high-heeled tennis shoes.  It wasn't so funny in the glare of daylight.

Shortly after we had arrived in Grenoble, I was waiting for the tram on 
the platform at Grand Place, people watching.  A young woman was carefully 
picking her way down the steps, wearing what passes for the uniform of 
youth culture theses days, solid black.  She was a petite little thing, 
except for her feet.  The moment it registered, I started laughing, out 
loud.  I realized that she looked not unlike Minnie Mouse.  She was dressed 
almost completely in black, but on her feet were some of the largest 
white shoes I've ever seen.  They were a cross between "stacks" of the 
late (thank God) disco era, combat boots, and yes, white, high-top tennis 
shoes.  She was wearing exactly the same shoes I had found so uproariously 
funny in my dream long ago.  (It still cracks me up when I think about her 
in those shoes.)

At home, I related this event to Carol, who responded with her own tale 
of footwear.  She had seen someone wearing the exact same nurse's shoes 
her mother (a nurse) used to wear, except these particular shoes were on
four inch, sculpted, rubber platforms.  Carol was less than pleased with 
the ugly turn women's footwear had taken, apparently just in time for 
her arrival in France.  The stores are filled with ugly shoes, VERY ugly
shoes; shoes ugly enough to make a train take a dirt road.   But for us
there is still hope.  Italy is less than an hour away.
<End Aside>

There is a department store in Grenoble called Galleries Lafayette.  The
selection is as thin as the prices are high.  After a few trips, Carol 
never goes there anymore.  

Carol's French teacher, Ella, told Carol to go to the Galleries Lafayette 
in Paris.  We did.  There is a certain cachet to a department store whose 
name the city has seen fit to include in the name of the Metro stop.
It was big, BIG.  It was so big that there was a sports annex (to house 
the sporting goods and associated clothing).  The men's shop is in a building 
across the street from the main store.  But, you don't need to bother 
going outside because the two buildings are connected via a two story 
pedestrian bridge a few stories above the street.  All of that is only 
the preparation for the main event, entering the store.

We walked in.  Carol's eyes widened.  She looked around and said, "Way to 
go ELLA!"  After making our way past the designer jewelry sections, we
found ourselves on the main floor, occupied by kiosks of every make-up 
manufacturer on the planet.  I looked up, seven baroque-railed stories to 
the stained glass rotunda above and said, with a tone of proper reverence, 
"This place makes Neiman Marcus look like it's in Texas."  Carol nodded and 
said, "This makes every department store in Manhattan look like
it's in Texas."  Let the shopping begin!

Five hours later, we were tired.  We had visited the boutiques of all the 
major clothing designers.  And we had visited the departments of all the 
major shoe designers.  We had had coffee in the cafe, taken tea in the 
tea room and sandwiches in the sandwich shop.  We skipped the in-store 
McDonalds, saving it for when Sam comes with us.  We skipped the Sushi
Bar, because we were full.  We were admonished not to take pictures.  (Can 
you imagine the social censure in getting thrown out of a department
store for taking pictures?)  We had seen most of five of the seven floors 
of the main building.  It was time to buy something.  We noticed a sign, 
something about 10% off today's purchases if you get a Galleries Lafayette 
credit card.  COOL!  

Then things started going wrong.  We didn't qualify for a credit card be
cause our residency cards are temporary (only for one year, even though 
they're automatically renewed).  Come back with the permanent one.  (Nev
er mind that we have American Express, in French, and bank accounts in a
French banque, and a French employer.)  Okay, we'll use checks, or Carte 
Bleu.  (Note: Carte Bleu is a VISA card, but works as a debit card inside 
France.  The really attractive thing about it is that wherever it is
accepted, Carol's initials, CB, are featured in a decal on the door of 
the establishment.) 

But, then it got worse... they were out of the shoes in her size that Ca
rol wanted (three times).  Ditto the dress.  And in the final crushing b
low... the earrings she had pegged on the way in as a backup plan were g
one when she went to get them.  

One time-honored cure for such cruel twists of fate is liquor.  A bottle
of champagne and a bottle of orange juice later, having lifted some spirits, 
so were our spirits lifted.  Life was again Good in Paris.  Another 
cure for cruel twists of shopping fate is more shopping.  Virgin Records 
on the Champs Elysees is one of the best music stores anywhere.  They
even have a big section of imported NTSC VHS tapes.  We bought some Stuff.

We found the Brentano's Bookstore between the Louvre and l'Opera.  Brentano's 
has LOTS of books, in English, and even a discount table.   They have a 
pretty fair selection of magazines, too.  Things were looking up.

We did a lot of walking around and gawking at stuff.  It was fun.  We drank 
expensive coffees and ate tasty croissants at sidewalk cafes.  All in all, 
it was a dandy little time.  Finally, the last day came.  Checkout time 
was noon and our train was not 'til five thirty or so.  After waking 
up at the crack of nine we were breakfasted and were ready to go by eleven.  

At Gare de Lyon ALL of the baggage lockers appeared full.  This did not 
seem right.  I went to the Information, asked where we could check our bags 
and was told, "You have no solution.  There is no baggage check due 
to the terrorism in France." 

Someone once showed me something, which helps to explain France...  Draw
a little rectangle at arm's length, at the level of your face.  "These 
are the Rules, in France."  Now, wiggle your fingers off to your side.  
"But, we live over here."  

"No solution."  My ass.

Across from the Gare de Lyon is a three-star Hotel Novotel.  We went there.  
I approached the desk and told the lady, in French, that I had a small 
problem.  She responded, in English, "You need to check your luggage?  But 
I am sorry; we can not do that except for guests of the hotel.  However, 
the Brasserie l'Europe just down the street, across from the Gare, will 
check your luggage for a few hours."

Down the street, the maitre de le brasserie informed us that it is impossible 
to check baggage there... except for PATRONS of the brasserie.  The place 
looked pretty nice.  It WAS lunch time.  What the heck.  We checked the 
bags and ordered drinks and lunch.  And what a lunch it was, a huge 
fresh shellfish platter.  Very tasty, fresh seafood.  A few more drinks and 
some coffee.  And a large, delicious, chocolate mousse.  In fact it 
was pretty reasonable, all considered, especially when we realized that we 
had just consumed our best meal in Paris.

After some more wandering, baggage-free, the time had arrived to board the 
TGV for home.  

Travel tip: Do NOT accept booking for seats 51-58 on the TGV unless you 
are with small children.  The seats on the thing are two-aisle-two.  Halfway 
up the car, they change direction and half the folks on the train face 
bassakwards.  Seats 51-58 require you to bump knees, or else play 
which-leg-goes-where with total strangers.  (We used to have a Nash 
Metropolitan, a tiny roller-skate of a car, whose back seat had more 
legroom than seats 51-58 on the TGV.)

After passing Lyon we saw snow.  There was snow on the ground by the tracks.  
Downtown Grenoble was fairly cold, but the streets were merely damp.  
Headlines read, "Hiver en Avril" (Winter in April).  Five minutes on
the tram, followed by a walk of about half that duration and we were home.

In retrospect, Carol's taste of the flavor of Paris is that it is a lot 
less foreboding than New York.  Perhaps because there are few guns in Paris, 
New York has not only has more death but more life as a consequence
All things being equal, she thinks New York would be the place she 
would prefer to visit.  But all things aren't equal.   We're living in France.
Paris is three car free, carefree hours away by train.  We'll go back; 
maybe even often.

Personally, I don't know if it was because this trip I had some French to 
speak, or if Paris has changed in the decade or two since I last visited.  
But many people spoke English to me without my even asking after I 
tried out my pidgin French on them. On the way home, I asked Carol if she 
thought Parisians were as rude as is popularly rumored.  Her response was, 
"HAH!  Anyone who thinks Parisians are rude has never been to New York."  
Paris is a VERY civilized place.

Last Thanksgiving, we celebrated at my sister's house in Rhode Island.  
At that time, our plans to move to France were gathering momentum.  My dad 
pulled out his wallet, opened it up, removed a five dollar bill and handed 
it to me.  

"What's this for?"

"It is said that God protects those on a mission of mercy.  I want you to 
carry this donation for me to some charity in France.  Then you'll be 
on a mission of mercy."

"Oh... OK.  Thank you.  I'll put it the box at Notre Dame."

"It doesn't have to be Notre Dame."

"That's o.k.  It'll be a while before we get there."  And I tucked Lincoln's 
image away in a side pocket of my wallet.

After we got home from Paris, I realized that I still had that five dollar 
bill.  Well... on Easter Sunday we didn't get anywhere near close enough 
to Notre Dame to even see a donation box, let alone drop in a donation.  
So... I guess we will just have to go back, and take Sam and Mary with us.

<end>