Idiosyncrasies

We arrived in Paris on time and after a minor panic on the train when Brett’s luggage had disappeared (someone had moved it to an overhead rack and not told us) we headed off into the Metro. Here we came to the first of Paris’ idiosyncrasies. The ticket machines for the Metro claimed to take all major credit cards and displayed logos for MasterCard and Visa – and yet none of the machines would take any of the various credit cards the Chorus boys tried in them. They also didn’t take notes, so we had to resort to scraping up loose change for everyone’s tickets.

The second idiosyncrasy is in Paris’ maps. The location they display for Metro stations bears only an approximate resemblance to the actual location of the station itself. According to both of the maps we had available, our apartments were on the corner opposite the Bréguet-Sabin station. In fact they were a couple of blocks further north.

We got checked-in okay, after a long wait while the receptionist dealt with a group of loud Italians who seemed to have some problem with the locations of their apartments. When we finally made it to the room I was in a bit of a grump – which wasn’t helped by the expected Wi-Fi not being available and my phone having a dicky-fit and refusing to pick up any networks for a while. After unpacking though, I had calmed down somewhat and was ready to start the holiday again.

The apartment isn’t large – it’s probably not much bigger than a hotel room. The sofa folds out into a bed – which is fully made and fairly comfortable. There is a kitchenette and a good bathroom. The balcony does indeed have the advertised furniture on it – however if you unstack the chairs so that both of them are at the table, then you can’t actually get onto the balcony. Even with them stacked up, you have to squeeze past the table one at a time and get fairly cosy to get two people on it together. It isn’t really worth the effort anyway – we are in a largely flat residential area so there’s nothing much to see. There is a very small white tower in the distance which we think might be Saint Sulpice.

We are pretty philosophical about all this though: we didn’t come here to spend our time in the room; we came to explore and enjoy the city and that is what we then set off to do.

We called John W who had been on an earlier train and was out exploring with a group of the guys already. They were in the heart of the Marais, which is Paris’ gay district, so we headed in that direction too. We didn’t catch up with them though until dinner time. In the meantime we met another gang of LCMC boys in the Café Open on the Rue des Archives. We had a beer, took a few photographs of the gang and then wandered on, checking out the bookshops along the way.

At 8pm we met up with John W & Rich C, Jeremy, John G, Nick B & Ping for dinner at Bofingers, just off the Place de Bastille. (Photos here.) This is one of two restaurants we have had recommended to us and it turned out to be a good choice. Downstairs it is a bit grand, done in a freshened-up Art Nouveau style. Upstairs is a little more ‘olde worlde’ with dark wood panelling and muted stencils on dark wallpaper. The food was very good. The service was relaxed and friendly (although not always entirely accurate in recording our orders) and the whole meal was most enjoyable. Just a group of friends out for dinner with pretty much no Chorus talk at all.

The others were going on to a bar called the Bears’ Den, but it was in the wrong direction for our hotel and, while we would have enjoyed a drink, we decided to head home.

The weather here is apparently unseasonably hot – I certainly don’t think I’ve brought quite the right clothes. It was humid and warm today and tomorrow is forecast to be even hotter.

On the train we roughed-out a plan for the week. We are going to take in the Musée D’Orsay, The Louvre, Notre Dame, Versailles and the sights of central Paris, as well as going along to several concert blocks and doing our own performances. Brett has also asked me to blog for the SingOut site too. I think it’s going to be a busy week!

Incidentally we discovered that there is free WiFi in the apartments, you just have to be in the foyer to use it…