Venice and onto Paris

Entry 10:

Part 1

So today (friday) began as all others, with the alarm ringing before i was ready to get out of bed. After breakfast Maud, Greg, Chony and I headed for Rialto to catch the waterbus. Chony was headed for the train station while the other three of us were going to Piazza San Marcoulo to catch the tour through Cannaregio and the Jewish Ghetto at 10 am. For reasons I still can not understand, the bus we got on did not stop at the stop we needed so as we rode past the meeting point for our tour with only 10 minutes to spare we devised a plan to try and walk back from the next stop to the meeting point. As we half ran and half walked our way back to the square, miraculously not getting lost, we made it there at 2 minutes past 10... and there was no one in sight. If the tour had in fact gone from there,I am surprised that in a city known for getting tourists lost, that it had left already. So we sat for about 5 or 10 minutes waiting to see if anyone would show up (thankfully in our reservation we had not had to pay). So we pulled out a tour book and as we had seen a directional sign for a synagoge earlier on our hustle to the meeting point, we backtracked and followed it to the jewish ghetto for a self tour. Very quickly we encountered the kosher restaurant and a kosher cafe called gam gam goodies. I was understandably excited about seeing hebrew here in Venice and as I went into the store, which had hamataschen for sale, the woman, cleary an orthodox woman wearing a skirt and wig, said to me, bruchim habayim. We spoke to her for several minutes and told her we were planning on heading to the museum to catch the 10:30 tour, to which she informed us that we'd better hurry because they leave on time and we'd have to wait till 11:30 for the next one. She was very very sweet. So on we hurried.

We took the tour from the museum which included going into 3 synagogues and entrance to the museum itself. This tiny community had 5 synagogues, 2 for Ashkenazi, 2 for Sephardic, and 1 for Italian. The 2 Sephardic are still in use, 1 in the winter and the otehr in the summer (size and the ability to heat are the reasons behind the transfer). It was all very interesting and I was a mini guide for Maud and Greg along the way. After a little bit of shopping we returned to gam gam goodies to try her hamataschen. She had poppyseed and date as well as chocolate dough with halva filling. She had also had chocolate filling but it was sold out when we got back. I spoke to her for a while as her cook prepared our pizza. She and her husband (the local chabbad rabbi) have been in Venice for 10 years but she is American. At the end of our conversation she asked me when I was leaving and upon learning I was leaving today she said that was a shame because she was going to invite me for shabbas dinner. So sweet! What can you do? My scheduling has been guided by flight costs for the most part. So we all had pizza lunch and hamataschen dessert followed by fresh fruit from the market and off we went. That's the way to do it in Italy! I must say, I've had pizza a couple times here and it is outstanding!!

So after a goodbye to Maud and Greg who are off to explore Murano and Burano, I am back at the hostel doing a double check that my flight is still scheduled to leave and then I am off to the airport enroute to Paris.



Part 2

So now I am in Paris and have just finished my first very very full day. But let me back track a moment. So my flight was uneventful and since I left myself a lot of extra time to get to the airport, I was unfrazzeled by the multiple stops, delay from phone calls, coffee/cigarette breaks and traffic congestion. I arrived in Beauvais and got my ticket for the shuttle into Paris, an hour later the Eiffel Tower appeared out of the darkness. Wow I am in Paris! I figured I would splurge on a cab since it was 1:30 in the morning in a foreign city where I do not speak the language (yes, despite being Canadian I am not a french language speaker). So i got my cab and the driver had no idea where this place was so he had me look it up in his map (while he had already started the meter!). I found it and off we went, me relieved and exhausted that I will just pay this man to drop me at the door. So, he pulls up to this dark street and points to a dark building saying number 2, here, number 2. He pulls my bag out of the car and won't listen to me saying it is not right and then after me giving him some money, he drives off leaving me alone on a dark street, in the middle of Paris, in the middle of the night, exhausted. Oh dear... So I pull out my cell phone and with roaming charges and all, I call the hostel (thank god I had written down the number) and when the guy answers it is clear we are having trouble communicating but I am not at all in the right spot and further he seems to have no idea where I am or how far away I am. I flag down a cab and hand him my cell phone as I crawl into the back seat, hiking pack and all, giving him very little choice in the matter. He took me to the right spot and I was thoroughly relieved.

From there I checked in to the hostel and trecked up 4 flights of stairs to my room. I always seem to be put on the top floor of the hostel trekking up many flights of stairs and I tell you, its not the constant cigarette smoking its the MILLION STAIRS everywhere! So I already felt bad that I might be waking up 5 sleeping girls in my room and I come in to find no blanket on my bed. I negotiate my stuff to be able to change into my pjs in the bathroom down the hall and I make the trek back downstairs to ask for a blanket. He says there should be one on the bed and I explain that there isn't one and that probably one of the girls had assumed no one was in my bed and was using it and i didn't want to wake them. After some negotiating I convinced the guy to give me another blanket for the night promising i would return it in the morning when it was sorted out. On the way back up the stairs he stops and turn to me and hugs me. Clearly the stress of the night was reading on my body. He hugged me several times and gave me kisses on the cheek to the point that it made me a little uncomfortable and then I dragged myself up the stairs and climbed into bed finally. A long day come to an end.

Paris Day 1

So this morning I met the other girls in my room as each if them rose. An American girl named Jessica, a spanish girl, 2 dutch girls, and a girl from Russia(?). I ran downstairs with Jessica to catch the end of breakfast before heading back upstairs and forgoing my shower (for another day) so that I could head out to Metro stop Place Sant-Michele where a free 3.5 hour walking tour leaves at 11 am. The tour was lead by an American guy named Tyler from Philly. He was actually really great and it was a perfect introduction to Paris and its main landmarks. We walked by Notre Dame de Paris literally translating to "Our Lady", the Eiffel Tower from a distance, the Latin Quarter, Tuileries Gardens, ile de la Cite, Les Invalides, Academie Francaise, Champs Elysees the high end shopping area with Yves Saint Laurent (with a line up into their store) and other such stores, Grand & Petit Palais, Musee d'Orsay, The Louvre, and Pont Neuf. It was a really great tour!

After the tour ended I headed for a closer look at Arc de Triomphe which has no less than 12 streets feeding into one round about that has no lanes painted on it. They say there is an accident there every half an hour and some insurances exempt this area of the city from being insured against accidents. This monument is a tribute to Napolean's soldiers and has an uknown soldier buried under the arch representing all the fallen soldiers. I climbed up to get an amazing view of the city.

After that I headed for a closer look at Notre Dame in which admission is free. So far my experience has been that Paris has lines that are miles and miles long but move along at a very good pace. On the advice of a fellow travller I paid for the audio tour and that I found very very interesting. In the interest of time I will save description for when I have photos and tell stories in person.

Unbeknownst to me tonight was free museum night which is great! With ambitious plans of hitting Musee d'Orsay and the Louvre in one night I went to Orsay first and was greeted by a long long long line again. I pulled out my book and read as the line moved at a steady pace. The museumwas increadible! Seeing Van Gogh and Monet and Degas Ballerinas in person really had more of an effect on me than I expected. and there was a whole section on Art Nouveau furniture which took my breath away! Clearly over ambitious trying to fit the Louvre in as well and to be honest I might leave the visit inside for my next trip to Paris. They say its is so big that it would take you 9 months to see evrything and I really don't want to run through it on a hunt for the Mona Lisa- that would be an insult to the museum as a whole I feel right now.

So with a little dinner in my belly and an easy Metro ride back to the hostel accompanied by an accordian player on the train, my first day in Paris has ended (with a few new friends too!)

Tomorrow, a tour to Versailles is in the plan and the Eiffel tower up close as the sun sets and the city of lights shows its sparkle.

Enjoy the sunshine