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The trip to Paris was unplanned. Les and I were working at Sequent at the time and had been sent to London for field sales training. I didn’t know Les very well yet. I hadn’t been at Sequent all that long and he had started after I did.
The training was going fine. We were scheduled to fly back on a Friday. At some point during the training, Les told me that he had checked, and it was actually cheaper to fly back to Portland from Paris on Monday than from London on Friday, and he figured, with the money we saved, we could take the train/ferry to Paris, stay for a couple of nights and still break even. Did I want to go?
What you have to understand up front is that this was my second trip out of the country. The first, also to London, had been about 3 months earlier for similar training, but I had come by myself. And I had practically starved to death because I had been afraid to go into restaurants by myself and deal with the English money, etc. Seems trivial now but I was young and inexperienced in foreign travel. So this was a pretty big leap. But I’ve had the travel bug from early on and I don’t think it actually took much effort for Les to talk me into it. Although as 20 years of experience will attest, he’s pretty good at talking me into things.
At this point in history, Marion’s mother and step-father were living in London. I had dutifully stopped in to see them and we had had lunch or something. It was pleasant enough, but there was a problem. They asked me to bring a suitcase full of letters and documents back to the states for them. Marion’s step-father did not like to pay the postal costs which he considered exorbitant. I didn’t really want to, especially since I was going to Paris, but didn’t feel like I could say no. I was especially displeased to discover that the suitcase weighed a ton! Thanks a lot.
Anyway, we got to, I think, Waterloo Station and boarded a train headed south to Folkestone. It was my first experience in Waterloo station and I loved it. It had such a 1940’s WWII spy movie feel to it, with people going everywhere, the schedule board ticking over new destinations, etc.. Les taught me one of many travel lessons to come which is when boarding a train, get in the car closest to the front (farthest down the track) Just in case all the cars aren’t connected. Turned out he was right since some were left behind.
The train was kind of old and creaky and made a lot of squealing noises. But travel by train is always fun and it was interesting to see the countryside. We arrived in Folkestone where we then transferred to the ferry for the 90 minute ride across the channel. On the way out, we saw the white cliffs of Dover.
We landed someplace in France, probably Calais, and boarded the train to Paris. The French train was very fast and very smooth. No squeaking or squealing. Unfortunately, by this time it had gotten dark so there wasn’t much to see. Les spent the time trying to learn conversational French from a tape he had. We arrived in Paris where I quickly discovered it was going to be a *major* pain carrying the suitcase of letters. Especially since we didn’t have a hotel and the plan now was to wander around and find one which we proceeded to do. Les, to his credit, took the suitcase lead weight for awhile to give me a break.
We didn’t have much luck. And since neither one of us spoke French, it was proving to be a bit difficult to get any help. My arm, and especially my hand, was killing me carrying around the dreaded suitcase.
But Les is an intrepid traveler and, I was to come to understand, had lots of experience running around Europe. He had spent a year abroad in Italy in college and was very at home with showing up in European capitals with no place to stay and working something out. In fact, over the years I’ve come to understand that he leads something of a charmed life in this regard. And this was no different.
We stopped in a hotel where we were again told there were no rooms. We plopped down in the lobby and started trying to call places. I don’t remember the exact details, but Les found a way to make it clear to them in his recently learned French that we were going to sit there until either we found a place, or morning came. And lo and behold, about 10 minutes later, good news! The hotel guy’s brother (or something like that) had a room we could have at another hotel. He gave us directions and off we went.
Well, the room was interesting. First off, only one bed. Secondly, I don’t think it typically was booked for the whole night at once, if you get my drift. It had red velvet drapes and red raised velvet wallpaper and its own bathroom, which was pretty unheard of at the time except in really upscale places. These accoutrements led us to believe it wasn’t so much a tourist hotel and had probably only recently become available. But it was clean and indoors and allowed me to stop carrying the damn suitcase so it was perfect.
And if it wasn’t weird enough to head off to Paris with a guy I didn’t know very well, it was especially weird to share a bed with him. But, luckily it was a good sized bed and he kept his hands to himself. As it turns out, it was not the last time we would sleep together. We now like to tell people about how we slept together in Paris. It causes some interesting looks.
First order of business the next day was to find another place to stay. Which we did fairly quickly. We had found a place the night before that didn’t have rooms that night but did the next. And they spoke English so we figured it was the place for us. The rooms were nothing great. Very dorm-room like. But two beds, which was nice. The bathrooms were down the hall, which was a new experience for me (but certainly not the last time). Also my first experience with a bidet.
Anyway, we dropped the suitcase from hell and our other stuff off and headed out for the whirlwind tour of Paris. The hotel was on the left bank, fairly near the river and close to Notre Dame so we headed there first. This was my first experience with a major European cathedral and I was quite impressed. It’s quite amazing to think people were capable of building such a structure in 1100 AD or whenever it was.
We took a fairly quick look then headed along the river passing a variety of street artists, many of whom were quite good. We were headed to the Museum D’Orsay, home of the Impressionists Museum, which we went in to see. It’s in an old train station. Cool architecture and not a bad display of impressionist art either, which I like very much. We spent a fair amount of time there.
From there we crossed the river to the Tuileries Gardens and a view of the Louvre pyramid off in the distance. It was fall and the trees were turning. It was quite pretty. We headed down to the Place de la Concorde at one end of the Champs-Elysees. There is a famous Egyptian obelisk there which we duly noted, then headed down the ol’ Champs to the other end. Not as impressive as when the Germans did it (and I think in the opposite direction) but we tried to march in as grand a style as possible.
It was starting to get dark and we were hoping to get to the Arc d’ Triomphe before it was too dark to photograph. But at this point we were really hungry. And although it felt really wrong to do it, we ended up grabbing burgers at the Champs-Elysees Burger King (where, as John Travolta noted in Pulp Fiction, they don’t call it a Whopper with cheese, they call it a Royale with cheese). We did make it to the Arc just in time though. Les was disappointed that they had added a pedestrian underpass to get there since he’d last been to Paris. He was looking forward to the traditional 6 lane traffic-circle pedestrian death crossing. But no such luck.
It was now dark but still fairly early, this being October. So we headed off to the Eiffel Tower, which was lit up quite dramatically for its 100 year anniversary. And of course, despite the fact it was $15 or something, we had to go to the top. Getting to the top is quite interesting though. The elevators go up the legs, which means they have to go up at an angle to reach the first landing. The view from the top was pretty impressive. You could see the city all lit up. Some day I’d like to see it in the daylight. Although given the smog level we saw from the top of Notre Dame the next day, the view may never be all that good.
After we came down we wandered around the nearby Palace du something or other for awhile. A huge place. Lots of fountains lit up with the Eiffel Tower in the background. Very pretty. Then back to the hotel. We covered a *lot* of ground on foot and we were pretty tired.
But the next day we headed out to do it all over again. First stop, back to Notre Dame and a longer look around. I learned another important fact about traveling with Les. If there is a path to the top of the building/tower/mountain, it must be taken. You can climb to the top of Notre Dame and he convinced me we should. Climb being the operative word. No elevators in 1100 AD. But the top is where all the gargoyles are and they are very cool.
From there we went up to Montmartre and the Sacre Couer, a really beautiful church. Pretty sure we took the Metro for that one. Les, of course, climbed to the top of the church, but I skipped it and investigated the street artists. I distinctly remember having lunch there. A sandwich from a Turkish street vendor. Some kind of beef and various other things that was quite tasty.
From Montmartre we headed towards the Pigalle, I think just because the name sounded interesting, although Les may have known more than he let on. This turned out to be Paris’ red light district and home of the famous Moulin Rouge. Which if you know any French you wouldn’t be surprised to find there’s a big red windmill outside but it had never really struck me before we got there. The Moulin Rouge sounds so much more romantic than The Red Windmill.
We didn’t go in but we did get a photo. And we perused the other offerings and very interesting pedestrians as we walked down the street. We almost inadvertently went in another place when the guy whose job it is to get patrons grabbed me by the arm and was hauling me against my will in the door when Les somehow got me extracted from him.
It was now getting pretty late but we figured we could get to the Louvre for a quick run through. At least the few really major pieces. We got there with about an hour to spare and spent that hour running around to see the “big 3” – the Mona Lisa, Winged Victory and the Venus de Milo, which are conveniently placed no where near each other. In between we saw lots of great artwork, very briefly. We got a good look at the Mona Lisa (which surprised me how small it was), a decent look at Winged Victory, which is placed in a great spot on a big stairway landing, and a very brief, somewhat distant look at Venus, looking very dramatic spot lit from the top at the end of a long hallway, before they kicked us out. But by then my back was killing me and I was looking forward to lying down.
Next day we took the Metro out to the airport and headed out of town. Strangely enough, via London. Yes, somehow, flying from Paris to London to Portland was somehow cheaper than London to Portland directly.
Of course, we didn’t quite get to Portland directly. The airport was fogged in. It was so foggy that no flights were taking off. But apparently not so foggy we couldn’t land. This was a little puzzling until as we came in for a landing, the captain came on the intercom to reassure us that they had all recently received training in the “hands off” landing procedure — which meant — as we understood it — that the Airbus would land itself.
As Les said, “All I know is — that as I looked out my window while we were landing — I never actually saw the ground — even after we had landed! I wondered if the Airbus also knew how to taxi itself.”
We managed not to hit anything but when we got into the terminal we discovered they had indeed canceled the flight out to the US. (Having flights home from London canceled became a disturbing trend there for awhile. So far I was 2 for 2 and ended up, I believe something like 6 for 8.) So we spent the night in Heathrow at the fabulous You’re Stuck With Us Hotel, Coffee Shop and airport glide path. But Les, in another move that convinced me I had found a great travel partner, suggested we take the train into town and try to see a show. What a great idea.
We arrived in London with only a few hours to spare before the shows started, and of course with no tickets. We waited in the Returns line for, I think, Phantom of the Opera. But as show time approached it became pretty clear we weren’t going to get in. So while I held the place in line, Les worked out the UK phone system and started calling around. He found us seats for Cats about 5 rows back in the part of the stage that spins around at the beginning. How great is that?
After the show it was back to Heathrow and the long flight home. All in all, an excellent start to a long and glorious travel career together.
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