Paree

Well kids, I made it to Paris.

What would most people do on their first night in Paris – city of legend, City of Eternal Light, city of romance?

Hell, I don’t know. I did the laundry, then took a pizza back to my room and went to bed. That’s what I do on my first night in Paris.

Paris seems to me a little like New York with tonier architecture and a street plan bizarre enough to rival Washington D.C.’s.

But what do I know? I’ve only just got here. Just in getting to my hotel from St. Lazare station I passed the Grand Opera House. Across from my door is a monument to Moliere behind the Commedie and the Louvre is at the end of the street. Interesting town.

Anyway, I haven’t even been gone one week and already I’ve tramped all over London. I went through Hyde Park to Knightsbridge, wandered around Harrrod’s and Harvey Nick’s and finally ended up in Covent Garden looking for a pair of Dr Martens. Then I got lost in Notting Hill trying to get back to the hotel.

I took a train down to Portsmouth where I walked around the port and through town finally managing to find the ferry terminal.

I took a ferry to Ouistreham which is a good bit further from Caen than you might expect when booking a ferry from Portsmouth to Caen. Took a taxi to Caen, got locked out of my reserved hotel, God found me another, took a tram to the bus station to get a car. Whew. Then spent three and a half days tear-assing around Normandy putting 500 miles of beach under my belt while hunting for sand, monuments and “rusty bits of metal.” I tell you, you’ve seen one German bunker, you’ve seen ’em all.

Saw the Bayeux tapestry this morning, stood on a packed train all the way to Paris (bad luck to the City of Caen. Rotten place!) and tramped down from St Lazare to my hotel on the Rue de Richlieu.

And now you’re all caught up.

So I can go to bed.