I was a little confused at our scheduled arrival time in Paris. We were leaving Bordeaux at about 7:30 in the morning and arriving shortly after ten. This is a distance of about 400 miles. In Africa this would have taken a week. The French rail system was claiming they could do it in a little over two hours.

I rechecked my ticket and saw that, even though I'd asked for the cheap slow train, I'd been booked onto the TGV... which I think stands for Train de Gran Velocitie. The high speed train. I had no idea how "high speed" it was going to be.

"I thought we must be going 90 or 100 miles per hour."
A half hour into our trip the sun started to come up and I could make out blurs of things out the window. A house would zip by, then an overpass. So fast that you'd see them, but your brain wouldn't translate what you've seen until it was gone. I was awed. I thought we must be going 90 or 100 miles per hour. To find out exactly I pulled out the GPS, which is notorious for giving absurd results when you first turn it on. This is what I thought was happening when it said we were going almost 200 miles per hour. I waited for it to find more satellites, get its bearings and correct this ridiculous mistake.

But it didn't. We really were going 190. And so smoothly that you only felt you were moving when we turned or braked. The maintenance that has to be done on these tracks must be astounding. I had no idea the French had these things. High speed trains were mainly in Japan, I thought. Getting off I noticed the electricity powered locomotive had been specially painted to commemorate the tenth anniversary of breaking the world speed record. I later found out they just set another record for the fastest crossing from Paris to London.

"clean sheets, bath towels, soap and shampoo."
It's funny comparing the guidebooks for Africa and Europe. Especially when it comes to describing hotels. In Africa, when Lonely Planet warned that a place was "basic," that often meant dirt floors, ratty beds and generally appalling conditions. We stayed in a few of those but generally tried to avoid them. The hotel I selected in Paris was described by Lonely Planet as "basic," but I wondered how bad a place could be in the world's most beautiful city. This "basic" hotel room offered clean sheets, bath towels, soap, shampoo, a sink, bidet and big windows facing the street. It's even in a popular neighborhood near Notre Dame. What a contrast.

I guess I don't have to say a lot about Paris. You've seen the photos and probably been here yourself. It's all they say it is. Everywhere you look is something worth taking a picture of. Today as I was getting on the train out of town I realized I'd completely forgotten to go to Versailles. I got in the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, Louvre, Place de la Concorde, Notre Dame and on and on... but forgot Versailles. There's so much to see you lose track. But no to worry. I'll be back in Paris in a few days on my way to Holland.

I'd been to Paris once before in high school, but we had so little time I remember skipping Notre Dame because we were so worn out from rushing all over Europe. It was a good introduction to the sights, but just too fast to really see anything. This time, though, I actually went inside Notre Dame.

Notre Dame and the Seine

"Could that be Notre Dame?"
I love it when you happen upon a world famous landmark before you realize you're anywhere near it. It was that way with the pyramids in Cairo and it happened again with both Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower. I was walking from my hotel and knew only that I was going in the general direction of the cathedral. All of a sudden I walked out onto a bridge over the Seine and saw a gigantic church that looked vaguely familiar. "Huh," I said to myself, "Could that be Notre Dame?" It was.

There was a funeral going on the first time I visited. You could go inside, but only down the sides and not behind the altar. You couldn't see as much, but it was very interesting to see the place being used as it was intended, rather than being full of tourists. The chairs (Notre Dame has no "pews") were all full and the sound of the choir reverberating through the cavernous church was haunting.

"They don't even try to be discrete about it."
I went back the next day and was able to see a lot more. I've seen a lot of churches this trip and Notre Dame's interior isn't all that different... except that it's Notre Dame. The big trademark round stained glass windows are quite impressive. You can go behind the altar where there are all kinds of cool things I'm sure I would have appreciated had I bothered to get a guide. But my favorite part is that behind the altar there's a little gift counter complete with cash register. They don't even try to be discrete about it. The green numbers on the till shine out like a beacon of capitalism in the dimness of the church. The guy running the stand was staring right at me when I realized what I was looking at. I'm pretty sure he saw my amazement and amusement as I half-tried to suppress a chuckle.

It's a long, long walk from Notre Dame to the Eiffel Tower. A beautiful one, but quite long if you're not prepared for it. At then end was a nice moment of rounding a corner not knowing how much farther I had to walk, only to be confronted with part of the massive base of the tower just two blocks away.

So many famous things turn out to be surprisingly small when seen in person. The Statue of Liberty, the Sphynx, Tom Cruise. The Eiffel Tower, though, is an exception; it is truly mammoth. You can't realize this till you're standing under it looking up. From pillar to pillar is about the length of a city block.

The Obelisk and Eiffel Tower

"I'm not gonna endure summer-like crowds."
It was a typical grey winter day with low clouds, so the top of the tower was intermittently obscured. This allowed for some cool photos, but I put off going up till a clear day. Good weather returned on a big festival day in Paris and brought long lines for the elevators. If I'm gonna endure a European winter I'm not gonna endure summer-like crowds too. I'll go up when I come back in a few days.

Remember Jennifer, the Scottish doctor who tended to Matt and me in Malawi when all three of us thought we had Malaria? She has a friend in Paris who she wanted me to meet up with when I got here. Turns out he was home in Scotland this weekend, but I wound up hanging out with some friends of his one night, which was quite nice. Your perception of a city changes so much when you're with someone who lives there and knows the place... and isn't a professional guide.

I was supposed to meet them at a metro station not far from my hotel. I checked the map and left with just enough time to get there and promptly got lost. I've learned on this trip that I simply can't read maps. After about ten minutes of wandering around I was already late. I gathered my resolve, picked an older lady waiting for a bus and in my head got the few French words I know into order.

"Pardon, Madame? Savez-vous ou est le Boulevard San Germain?"

If you're familiar with Dame Edna or the BBC show "Absolutely Fabulous" you'll know exactly how she said, without missing a beat,

"Oh Darling, it's right there. You can see it. Just run on along, sweetie."

I'm off to Bayeux, the closest town to the D-Day beaches and the first to be liberated during the invasion. I can't say I know much more about Operation Overlord and such than is in a high school history book and the script for "Saving Private Ryan," but I found myself really interested in seeing the place.