I swam in the ocean for the first time today. I took my shirt off, in public, for the first time time since a Clinton was in the White House. I met amazing people to share the experience with.
It is approximately 674 degrees in my room at the hostel. As I was walking home around Midnight, a restaurant full of people were singing. It is nearly 2am; I’m going to bed. Good night Portugal.
It is 8pm in Paris. I’m super exhausted. I think I’ve been awake about 36 hours now, but I’m too tired to actually try doing the math. I had a good day, it was sure full of challenges — mainly revolving around my lack of French language skills.
I met a new friend today, Farel. He showed me around the Eifel Tower (which I have mistakenly called the “Statue of Liberty” on more than one occasion), Champs Elysees, the Arc de Triumph and a shopping mall – 2 out of 3 ain’t bad.
I had some duck confit for lunch and a sandwich for dinner; my diet has gone to hell – I plan to just try to keep my face as clean as I can and be good (diet wise) to the extent possible.
A few photos and I’m going to brush my teeth and pass the hell out. Sleep well.
This is where I live:
Me at the Eiffel Tower, rocking Aqua Golf apparel for absolutely zero financial compensation. No, really! 😦 The tower is seriously huge and has a cute park underneath it.
I kkeep to add more but I’m seriously passing out. Nite all.
I just had beef carpaccio, wine and cheese in a park in Paris. Wine, cheese and 1/2 pound of raw beef was cheaper than an omelette, that they had to spend time cooking.
Well I made it to the train station this morning, via subway, with my new friend Farel. Farel helped me to navigate the subway system – which was fantastic and very expansive (not too expensive, about $2.10 each way). Last night we went to a restaurant in the heart of Paris – the food was okay, it was a lot of people and the best “value” for a restaurant meal thus far. I was given an interesting salad that was quite good, I had a “salade lardé” which was lettuce leaf with hot pork lard drizzled in vinegar – delicious! I will make a beef version when I get home.
Very quickly, yesterday, I went to this café that a guy from my flight recommended. Im not certain if it was a joke or not but I asked him to recommend a non-touristy locals place. I went where he suggested and it was crazy expensive for a café and left. Afterwards I had brunch and walked to the train station to make sure that I had everything I need (we will come back to the train situation in a moment) and proceeded to walk home. My battery was getting quite low, I couldn’t use GPS and I was having a very tough time navigating the streets. Paris is laid out in concentric circles, rather than a grid, so I’ve not yet figured out howto navigate it. I was very lost many times, I could have taken a taxi but that would have felt like cheating. I stumbled around for an hour, looking at maps on my phone when possible and eventually got there. I didn’t lose my shit, I just kept telling myself “if you can’t handle this then there is no way you are going to handle a real problem When it comes up”.
It is so easy and almost comforting to give in to the fear — it just doesn’t get you any where.
Also yesterday, we had some nice wine, carpaccio and cheese in a nice grassy shade spot.
So about my train tickets, rail in Europe seems a little crazy. To make it more complicated there are several rail ticket resellers (Rail Europe in this case) and I requested a ticket price from Paris to Lisbon, Portugal – it was 83€, which I happily paid. Well apparently it was too good to be true, or I misunderstood, or both. I had only been charged for the second leg of trip Irùn Spain to Lisbon Portugal. To get from Paris to Spain cost me another 112€, which was no longer a deal @ 200€ – flying would have cost less and would not have taken 19 hours (the train travel time) for me to get there. But it is a learning experience. You always know when you’ve had a learning experience because they cost, typically money and/or pride (hopefully not too much of either).
People that I do not know are starting to read this blog, which is kind of cool and strange.
My water intake has not been optimal, my dentist would be angry with me for not doing better with my oral care routines and my diet has been eating anything and everything. My foot hurts from walking nearly 15 miles yesterday and I hurt my shoulder trying to steal a free subway ride when the ticket reader wouldn’t work (my wallet demagnetised my ticket). Other than that, I’m fantastic. This train day is going to be what I was looking for. Planned downtime to decompress.
It is 9am and my body is feeling very sleepy. I’ve got to fight that urge to sleep, else I well never on a European sleep cycle. I’ll report back later.
No photos this post.
There is something wonderful about blending in to your surroundings, just sitting and observing…
…or so I’m told.
I keep trying to not be the American, but everything that I do betrays me. My polite nature of saying “pardon me” as I pass in front of someone followed immediately by (a silent) “shit” for realizing what I had just done. Walking on the right, versus the left. My obvious accent as I speak limited broken French; most often used French phrase: “Bonjour, Parle vous anglais?” (Which is usually followed by a chuckling “no”).
Sunglasses… The French don’t seem to wear them much, at least not while walking around. Want to be incognito? Don’t wear them.
My color blindness is not helping, either. The don’t walk signal looks red and the walk signal also looks red (to me).
Smoking: if you smoke, you are one of them. If you don’t, you are likely not French.
The French seem like a very proud people, we should understand that as we are Proud Americans. Most of all they seem proud of their language. I cannot recall the number of times that I, and others I know, have looked “down” upon people stumbling over spoken words of broken English. I will do my best to not let that happen again (on my part).
This blending in thing seems pretty cool, I might give it a try some day.
My people-watching-perch point-of-view during brunch.
My brunch – omelette and café Americano – $19.88 / 17,80€
I’m sitting on this plane, slightly needing to pee, and I’m thinking to myself:
“Holy shit, I’m going where I don’t speak the language, by myself.”
Packing was a breeze last night, getting up and going was simple. This (traveling) has been the easiest thing in the world to do! When I think about where I was, mentally and physically, just two years ago — this trip and the perceived stress would have made me puke, then quit.
Life is good. I have my health, a great attitude, an eagerness to live and a willingness to learn. This is going to be wonderful, life-changing.
I will be staying in Paris for two nights, before taking a 19 hour train ride, to Lisbon, Portugal via Irún, Spain.
Sooo….. The big day is here. I got up, finished packing (I hope) and had breakfast. Lloyd was kind enough to take me to the airport, where I arrived nice and early – thankfully. As I was going through security, I alerted on the body scanner, which prompted a more thorough search. Somehow I set off the really bad “e-word” detector.
The TSA employee was extremely polite and professional and seemed to take very little pleasure in rubbing my genitals. We both had a job to do, mine was to comply and his was to figure out if I was a threat. We did our jobs.
I’m about to board for NY JFK. Here are some photos of random morning things.
Come see my travel prep and travels
Good morning any and all!
I keep telling people that I cannot imagine living anywhere else in United States other than (Denver) Colorado. How do I know that the best place for me is the United States? So I’m going to explore this world and see if I’m living in the best possible situation for me. If not, I will move; if so I will stay in Denver feeling even more satisfied!
It is 5 days before I fly to New York and then Paris. I feel like I have 27,000 things that I should be doing — while simultaneously not knowing what any of those things are. I know that I have the essentials however…
The 3 Essential B’s of Travel:
First B – Travel Blog: You are already reading this…
Second B – Travel Backpack:
I bought the Osprey Farpoint 55 – which has some very cool features… More about that another time.
Third B – Travel Beard:
This beard kind of happened by accident.
I had two moles removed from my face, just for aesthetics, and they said to be careful to not shave my stitches off – so I didn’t shave anything for two weeks. I’m not a fan of facial hair (on myself nor anyone else) but I have been getting nothing but compliments; my mother doesn’t like it. It seems like a win-win.
I will try to keep updating this as things happen. Keep in touch and keep checking back!
Trever's European Gaycation... 