Paris!

I've never been in Paris before! It's a cute little town with lots of cool things to see. 

I'd planned out a route to go catch the most interesting (to me) things to see to spend my day until my cousin came home after a day on a gravel-filled set.

Alas, I got up at 04:30 in Haltern am See, Germany and headed down to the train station. I had the tickets in hand so there was no need to purchase them - the ticket machines can be confusing at times - and off I went.
Just West of Essen, the train slows to a stop and the mumbling over the speakers mentions a 15 minute delay.
This is just enough to make me miss my connector in Mönchengladbach! I sit on the train and figure that they might make up some time, but that was not to be.
From Mönchengladbach, I caught the next train to Aachen, but it put me in Aachen 5 minutes late for the Thalys to Paris!
I ended up spending two hours in Aachen (which is a quaint little town with its own history too) before boarding the Thalys and off I went.

Arriving at gare du Nord, I promptly went the wrong way, but got on the right track, heading South on Rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis - a street littered with Indian immigrants and their stores.
The Indian immigrants only had three trades, Indian traditional garments (saris, kurtas and salwars etc), phone cards and foods. These stores were side-by-side along the street for 4-5 blocks and seemed a popular hang-out for Indians or those of that decent.

I soon righted myself when I got back on Bd. de Sebastopol and walked down towards Notre Dame.
Once there, I was a bit underwhelmed as I just saw it as a big church with price-gouging for those who opted to light a candle inside (5€ for a small one!) and too noisy.
As a historical building, it's certainly very cool to have seen and touched in person, but it reminded me of a larger version of Uppsala Cathedral in Sweden.

Leaving Notre Dame du Paris, I strolled across the river and took small streets through the 7th arrondissement and stopped in stores and looked at people and as I got closer the tower got larger and larger.
Another peculiar building, it was 13€ to get to the top, and it appears to be a fairly popular spot for kids and street hustlers too. Oddly enough they had guards with guns and to enter, you had to cross a metal detector.
The guards weren't that particular with checking so it was quick and up I went.
The elevetor took us up to the 2nd level, from which there was a good view of the city. Walking around the observation deck, there were signs with pictures of the view in front of you and they had markers for the noteworthy parts so you knew what you were looking at. Very neat.
I hopped in line to take the elevator to the top, and was saddled with two American girls spouting bullshit, tow Dutch girls cutting in line and the German couple behind me who insisted on bumping in to me instead of taking a step back.

Well up on top there was another observation deck with pictures and facts, and a nasty cold breeze. With the clear day, I could see six miles in each direction, and sent a quick SMS saying "guess where I am?".

I took the stairs down, and crossed the Seine and through Palais du Chaillot and up to Trocadero. From there I took Ave Kleber to Arc du Triomphe and beheld an amazing sight.
No, not the arch itself but rather the traffic around it! At first I figured that the French drivers are all suicidal, but then I realized that nobody got in accidents that I could see. There was a certain flow to it, which scared the sh*t out of me.

I had to stop and watch traffic for a while and saw several things that made me cringe and when I finally headed up Ave de Friendland towards the ninth arrondissement I realized that French drivers have far more balls than I ever will, particularly the motorcyclists.

Scooters and motorcycles abound. They are parked everywhere, buzzing around constantly, rules don't apply (even less than for cars) and lanes are a joke.
If there's room for a bike, one will buzz through.
One of the scary illustrations of this was when a light turned red and I hear the buzzing of a scooter at full speed. I expect him to at least slow down for the red light, but the engine wasn't letting up. I see this guy blowing through the red light at 40mph without stopping and almost had a heart attack.
I *hope* that he knew the intersection and light and knew that cross traffic didn't get a green for another few seconds.
But how would he know if another biker weren't blowing through the intersection the same way from another direction?

A couple of hours later, I was done and heading up my cousins hallway. I got the impression that this was a typical French quirk, but she's on the sixth floor and has a picture on her front door.

I enter the elevator, which is small enough to barely contain a small child (or me), and find that the top floor is labeled "five". I figure that maybe they start counting one floor off, so I press five and get out after a minute in the agonizingly slow contraption.

No picture on any door.

A few more rides up and down and I finally SMS my cousin, who says "yes, take the little stairwell up to the 6th" which I did. There's a door there with two door bells. One was hers, so I ring it.
It turns out that this door leads in to another hallway and her door is inside there.
I suspect that this was originally the attic with storage for the five floors of apartments below, which is why the elevator stops at five.

We end up catching up over a great dinner in a little fancy restaurant mere steps from her place, and then continue chatting for a while back at her place before I have to call it a day after nearly 24 hours of being awake.

[Pictures here]

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