Day[1] - Paris and CX

Hello and welcome to the first installment of my requested and promised travel blog!

When I first started writing this, it contained a small rant about the azerty keyboard. Rather than relearn azerty however, i've switched to qwerty. Once I realised I would have to relearn twice (once more upon returning to NZ), I thought i'd switch it over and touch type instead. Happy fun times!

As I've said before, I've been wanting to travel to Europe for as long as I can remember. I can't remember the last time I've felt this excited :D

I'm writing this from Brussels, which i'll have to leave for a later date.

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Auckland Airport Departure Gate

I left New Zealand on Jan 6th, around 3pm in the end. I flew on Cathay Pacific, and the flight to Hong Kong was fairly uneventful. Watched Inglorious Basterds on the plane. Fairly decent movie actually.

After about 10 hours of being cramped up against the window (why did I think that was a good idea?), we arrived in Hong Kong. Very interesting airport. The skybridge is split and you always walk downwards. Downwards coming off the plane into the arrivals hallway and downwards onto the plane from the departure gate. Arrivals all feed into a grand hallway, filled with travelators, customs at the end. Those in transit simply feed off onto the sides, passing through security on their way upstairs to the depature gates.

HK airport, having not slept, showered, eaten etc etc for a long while

My main impression was one of real efficiency. Everything seemed set up specifically to reduce waiting times and suchlike. Free wireless internet, lots of food, clean toilets. A tad soulless, but 4/5 stars for Hong Kong airport really :D

Cutting back to Auckland airport for a second. After I passed through customs, there was a security checkpoint. I went through fine, but for some reason they seemed to be taking a while on somebodies bag at the X Ray machine, so I had to wait. Turns out it was my bag they were checking over. It comes out, and the guards start rifling through my bag. I was a bit terrified at this point to be honest, I thought perhaps somebody had hidden something in my bag and that I might be about to be arrested. Turns out, it was a swiss army knife I packed away in my bag for a geology field trip earlier in the year, hidden away in a small compartment. DOH. The bloke was really nice about it, and said that I could carry it on the plane apparently because the blade was smaller than 6 inches. Seemed more than a tad strange to me, but whatever.

The attitude of the people in Hong Kong towards the knife though, was markedly different. I thought it best to take it out, and put it in plain view. It was immediately grabbed, and disposed off without a word. Pity really, It was a good knife.

One odd thing about Hong Kong airport though was the health precautions. Many people donned masks after exiting the airplane. Officials sat at desks throughout the airport scanning computer screens displaying live heat sensitive images of the arriving passengers. If elevated temperature was detected, other officials swooped imediately to usher aside the poor individual.

I would arrive in Paris around 6am, so my thinking was that in order not to miss a day in Paris due to jet lag, i'd have to get some sleep on the plane. Bad idea. I've never managed to get any sleep on aeroplanes before, but I finally managed to get to sleep a few hours into the flight. I woke up a few hours later feelings absolutely horrendous and with terrible pain in all my joints (which took the remainder of the flight to work out). Don't sleep on planes people.

Charles Du Gaulle airport is quite easily the worst airport i've ever been to. Others might have worse stories, but I can't imagine a place more of a polar opposite than Hong Kong. One exits the aeroplane, which leads directly into a queue. Queue is probably the wrong word for a corridor full of people. Thats what it was, several jumbo jets worth of people in one corridor, trying to funnel into a tiny area. It took 2 hours to pass through customs, by which time the friendly airport staff had decided to remove the flight from the baggage claim listings, so I had to ask around to find out which carousel my luggage was on. Grrrrrr. Stupid french. Add to that my later knowledge that everybody was being filtered through the 'All Passports' area, despite a perfectly functional 'EU Passports' area being entirely unused just around the corner by a bunch of soldiers with FAMAS assault rifles.

Assault rifles are scary. Seriously. When one of them is pointed in your general direction, you can't really think of much else I find. Watch out for them.

The airport to Paris was about 40min by train, which cost 8 euro. Train ride gave me a good chance to see first glimpses of the city which had up until the point, only been spoken of in legends for me.

I got off at Gare Du Nord (literally, North Station) into a seething mass of people. I have never before seen anything like it. I almost literally had to fight my way through the crowds. I found my way to an exit eventually, before realising that i'd forgotten the name of the hotel, and where it was. Those of you that know me will not be in the least suprised. I thought i'd go have a look around anyway, then it hit me.

For those of you that don't know, Europe seems to be ground zero for the next ice age. I was wearing mainly summer clothing, as you can see above, with a jacket and scarf. I was woefully under prepared. I doubt i've ever been that cold before in my life.

Skaldi with adrenaline glands

I located the nearest Bar and ran for dear life. Once inside, I fired off a few $1.50 texts to Kelly (who joined me the day after) regarding the hotel. While waiting for a reply, I thought i'd order myself some coffee and a sandwich. The coffee did a great job of warming me up. The sandwich was simply some cheese stuck inside a baguette, but was such amazing cheese that all my worries faded away. Soon after, my text came through: I was set on the right track and was able to find the hotel soon after. There I was able to drop my bags off and wrap up warmly before braving the outdoors once more.

The room wasn't to be ready until 2pm, so I decided to head to the basillica of Sacre-Coeur. I had no idea what it was, but it was closeby and seemed a good place to start my walk.

One of the many great streets in Paris

One notices many things walking the streets in Paris. The abundance of beggars, the amazing buildings, the traffic (or lack thereof). One thing that really struck me was the ubiquitousness of Drugs stores. It seems you can't go anywhere in Paris without being within 50 metres of drugs. I can't help but draw the conclusion that Parisians are a bunch of snivelling hypochondriacs!

I walked around in a daze really. The streets, the buildings, the people, the langauge all seemed so magical. At one point I went into a 7/11 style shop to find the most amazing selection of cheeses for about 2 euro per hundred grams and belgian beer for less than a euro a bottle. I could get used to this I thought.

All of a sudden, there shined a shiny cathedral in the middle of the road. I was not expecting anything half as magnificient. I was blown away, i'd never seen anything remotely like this on my travels before.

The Basilique du Sacre Coeur

Me and my al-cheapo camera don't approach doing this great structure justice. It truly has to be seen for one's self. I really liked the gaurdian gargoyes too!

A great many stairs had to be climbed before you reached it though and I was able to feel greatly superior to all the tourists who took the cable car contraption instead (with queues that made it faster to take the stairs anyway).

The view from the top

From the top, one could see Paris laid on below you. All the buildings were capped with snow and you could see for miles and miles. I spotted two friends who were taking turns with the camera and I offered to take a photo of them together in return for the shots you see above.

The inside of the cathedral was great too. Unfortunately photography was forbidden (so no photos) and i'm an atheist, so much of the imagery was lost on me. Regardless, it was very impressive and I would recommend it to anybody.

As I reached the bottom of the steps, a man came up to me and tied a cord around my wrist. He then claimed I had bought it, and asked for 50 euro. Dazed, I responded "what...?" to which he responded "I give change, I give change". Still in a daze, and feeling very threatened (as many of his friends had begun to crowd around), I handed over 10 euro. He told me he'd give the change to the church.

Understandably, this was somewhat of a buzz kill. Eventually I picked myself up by thinking of it as a Tourist Tax. Lesson learned, only 10 euro down. Oh well.

I spend much of the rest of the day wandering around the streets of Paris, enjoying the scenery and the bars (which are especially full around lunchtime, and are very lively places full of conversation and merriment). Eventually I staggered back to my hotel, having walked roughly 14km and not really slept in 2 days, feeling like a well earned rest was in order.

+ Show Spoiler [Other images from the day (many)] +

The streets of Paris

The dreaded steps

View towards park below Sacre-Coeur

Another great building right next door

More views

More great cathedrals and assorted buildings

The Ministry of Justice and La Colonne

View towards the louvre from the park, nice archway in front

This great statue wasn't even on the map

Another great archway in the center of Paris

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I've been getting to bed relatively early each night here, and getting up early in the morning. Seems the best way to see things for the most part. Consequently it's midnight here in Brussels and i'm feeling very tired. However, I'm told most of the things I want to see here are shut tomorrow, so I should be able to finish the rest of my parisian weekend tomorrow.

Until then, au revior!

Alethios

Day[1] - Paris and CX

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