Everyday Is A New Adventure...

...But some days are more adventurous than others.

Yesterday was one of those days. So just to explain this... Interlaken is known for its EXTREME outdoor sports. Paragliding. Skydiving. White Water Rafting. Zorbing (if you don't know what this is... its AWESOME... you roll down a mountain in a bubble!). I decided to go canyoning. I had heard about it through friends here, and they said it was awesome... so I just decided to go for it. Basically - you're jumping off waterfalls into rapids (that is me in the pic by the way).Pretty awesome right? But you know it wouldn't be a story about me unless I hurt myself somehow. So after all that extreme jumping off clifts and all that stuff you're probably wondering... so what did you do? Fall off a boulder into a pile of sharp rocks? Jump off the wrong waterfall into man eating sharks? Nope. I twisted my ankle tripping off a curb on my way back to the hostel. Very anti-climactic. (My story is that I sprained my ankle doing something extreme... like playing with bunnies. Renee has started calling me "The Walking Accident.")

So to continue with my crazy day, I made a new friend on the train the night before - Andrew the Aussie. We had agreed to meet to go biking or hiking or something like that, so I met up with him and (being the smart person that I am) decided hiking would be a GREAT idea! I mean... you can't go to Switzerland and not go hiking... hurt ankle or no hurt ankle. So there was some little town up in the mountains that he really wanted to go see - whatever, I'm game. So we walk about 20 minutes to the train station (get lost... the signs in Switzerland suck), catch the train to Lauterbrunnen, and then from there this girl in Interlaken had told us that we could either catch a bus or do like a 30 minute hike up to Murren. Sounds pretty easy so far. So being the cheap person that I am, we decide that we're going to do the 30 minute walk to Murren. There's a sign that says "Murren 30 mins/2 Std." Now I'm not really sure what "Std" means, but 30 mins is definately a lie. We were at 795 meters above sea level and trying to get to 1,634 meters above sea level, and my genius mind thinks that this is not very far. Again... WRONG!We start hiking... up the side of a mountain. I started out happy, but about an hour into it Andrew the Aussie just says, "I hate this mountain." Yup... I'm going to go ahead and blame him - it was his idea, I just went along with it. He's the one who wanted to go see the stupid town on the top of the mountain. In fact... we didn't even make it to the town he wanted to see. It took over 2 hours to make it to 1,400 meters and by that point in time I had tripped (naturally) and scraped up my knee, my legs burned, and we still weren't there. But we had some awesome views, drank REAL Swiss mountain water, and saw Swiss cows with little bells on the side of the mountain.You know how sometimes you can go to a place and still feel like you haven't really been there... I have DEFINATELY been to Switzerland.

After that... we ended up actually taking the train up to Murren (where we were trying to hike to). It was a pretty quaint little town and there was pretty much no one there. After that I crashed... unfortuantely, the people in my room didn't. Hostels are nuts. There may have only been 12 beds in the room - but there were at least 14 people in the room. I think the high point of the night was when this one guy gets up and starts doing jumping jacks to prove a point that everyone was being too loud. Out of control.The last thing I learned this weekend (besides dispelling all my stereotypes about Aussies and kangeroos) was that girls don't ever travel alone. I mean - we all know that girls have to go in packs even to the bathroom, but I thought maybe a few would be cool and travel by themselves in Europe. I think that's even more wrong - so the fact that I was in Interlaken by myself was kinda a novelty and makes me kinda hard core. And the fact that I can't help but hurt myself in some way makes me stupid.

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The Antithesis of Paris

So I am literally in a valley at the bottom of a mountain.

There are mountains and trees on every side of me. Not only that but there's not really any cars either. The buildings look like something out of the "German" portion of Disneyland (there's probably a connection there but the reasoning escapes me... and I'm sure the locals would love the fact that my familiarity with their culture and customs comes from Disney).

There is no road dust, no noise, no dirty people, no bums... just silence.

Occasionally you can hear the bells on the cows, or the crowing of a rooster. In fact, if you walk about 100 meters down the road you'll probably run into a farm of some sort in the middle of a fairly large community.

Everything is GREEN... and if its not green thats because there are flowers everywhere. So many houses have little flower and vegetable gardens in their back yards. No smog, no grey and black and tan clothes... just green.

And when you least expect it, you can round the corner and see a waterfall.

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Have Passport... Must Travel

So its almost humorous how little I know about where I am right now. I decided to go to Interlaken so fast that I really didn't think about it at all. My thought process went something like: Must travel. Cool place. GO!

So now I'm here in Switzerland realizing that I'm not really sure where that is. When I arrived in Bern, I suddenly had all these realizations like... they don't take the Euro here! They don't speak French! (So what kind of money do they use? What language do they speak?) For some reason, I had in my mind that Switzerland was a magical fairy land of banks, chocolate, knives, and swatches that was near France and very much like it in every respect except name.

WRONG!

So now I'm in Switzerland and laughing at my own stupidity and lack of preparation. I know 0 German? Dutch? Switzish? And I feel like this is the craziest thing I've ever done.

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Recap of the Last Week

So mostly, this is a blog to catch everyone up on the last week of my life.

1. I've started giving walking tours of Paris. One of the walking tour guides got an amazing job that she couldn't refuse, so my boss asked me to fill in for her for the rest of the summer. Its kinda cool that Mike asked me cuz he said that it was because that clientel for the walking tours is a little more intellectual and I "know my stuff." I'm honored, but at the same time - walking tours are 10 times more tiring than bike tours. We walk from our shop (near the Eiffel Tower) and end in front of Notre Dame - it ends up being about 4 hours and 4 miles. (VC - can you imagine doing that in Texas weather?)


2. Fete de la Musique was last week. Basically its this big music festival for the summer solstice (the longest day of the year). Local bands come out and play on all the street corners. No one had to give tours that night so Fat Tire had a "Moveable Feast" which was basically a progressive dinner through the city - so as we moved from apartment to apartment we got to see all these cool bands. It was pretty out of control... "Tour Guides Gone Wild" if you will. Everything we tell our tours not to do - we did! Cutting off cars, racing through the streets, yelling at taxis... Hilarious! We started with drinks at Julien's, then fruits and veggies at Dana's, bread and cheese at the "Penthouse", main course at the "Tension", and then ended with dessert at Mike's. This may be one of the most fun nights of my life... I love these kids!!! Here's a pick from early on in the night (Team Red at Julien's apartment... check out that view!)
3. I've had some BAD tours lately - some of my favorites:

• the 30 person Israelii segway tour. 8 segs is normal (but still a lot) - 4 groups of 7 segways each that keep meeting up at all the stops plus a camera crew that insists on them zooming around in circles in high traffic areas is anarchy!
• the Australian woman who fell off her bike
• the ass-man who lost his chain, didn't tell me, and got lost in the Champ de Mars during the first 5 minutes of the tour
• being attacked by millions of tiny gnats for 4 hours

4. My farmers tan has reached epic proportions. Its time to take action. Operation Even-Out has commenced. I'm brining my bikini to work everyday this week.

5. I've decided to become a flight attendant... no for real this time. Every night I have flight attendants and pilots on my tours and they are some of the coolest people ever. The other night I had 2 from Delta on my tour, and they basically convinced me that this should be my life path.

So after all that excitement - I need to get out of Paris; so I'm going to Interlaken, Switzerland for a few days. YAY!!!

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Place des Vosges & Carnavalet

So I haven’t written about this yet but I went and explored some of the Marais district last week. This is probably one of the only areas of Paris that still has some history from the Renaissance. The Carnavalet is the “History of Paris” museum, and the Place des Vosges was laid out by Henri IV (its also where Victor Hugo lived for part of his life).

So many of you know, I’m kinda obsessed with Catherine de Medici. (Its an odd obsession – I realize that - but its right up there with bread and nutella & banana crepes.) So the Place des Voges is where Henri II (the husband of Catherine) got killed in a freak jousting accident (a splinter went into his eye and into his brain). So Catherine had the lists torn down and Henri IV built these really ritzy apartments here.

I took a pic with the portrait of Catherine in the Carnavalet (this is for you Franz.)

And the gardens there were really beautiful as well. (I’m really into gardens these days.)

And then I went shopping. (It was my day off!... and although I've never thought of myself as a shop-a-holic, I may be turning into one... something about having cash in my pocket.)

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I want to ride my bicycle. I want to ride my bike...

... I want to ride my BICYCLE. I want to ride it where I like!" - Queen

So I bought a beach cruiser so that I won’t have to spend 11,40 Euros every 5 days going back and forth from work. That being said – we already are having problems.

The day after I bought it, as I was riding to the Musee D’Orsay, the chain slipped off twice. Now – most of you would say, “did you cry and get some nice French person to help you?” The answer is no… despite my repugnance towards dirt, I did get down on my hands and knees and fix the chain (thank you David Hall for showing me how to do that a few days ago… else tears would have been my only other option.) I did this twice within 2 blocks. So now that my hands were covered with dirt and grease (I looked like a well dressed mechanic), I went to the Musee D’Orsay. Thankfully the nice Italian woman in front of me looked at my hands and pulled out little wipes from her purse. When you least expect it, people can be so nice to you.

It ended up doing it again later on in the day – so I rode it back from the shop and Mike and David fixed me up with a tightened chain, and more air pressure in my tires (which may explain why it was so hard for me to ride… although it could be the fact that I had just climbed up the stairs of the Eiffel Tower.)

But this was just the beginning of my problems. A few days ago, I locked up my bike in front of the shop at 9am (well...not DIRECTLY in front of it... but near enough so that anyone who walked out the front door and looked left could see it), and when I went to go get it at 8pm - someone had SLASHED MY TIRES (now you know why I'm having anger issues).

Well... this may have been the best day to slash my tires, because I have been having nightmares about changing tires on a tour, and I had made a resolution to practice this particular skill. So the reason I was leaving the shop at 8pm was because I had just had another tire changing tutorial by Franz, and I was going to come in early the next day and practice more. So of all days... I was planning on changing tires anyway, so they might as well be my own.

(But that doesn't mean that if I catch those kids, I'm not going to hurt them.)

And the pic is just a random one of me on a bike... this is what I look like most days - and where I get to play...

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Exploring

So... I'm kinda proud of myself. I went exploring today, and I didn't get lost once!!! Just a few weeks ago, I got lost walking outside of my door - and now I can go just about anywhere in Paris and wander around, and even if I make a wrong turn, I can usually find a road I know in a few minutes and find my way back to someplace I know. YAY!!! (This is kind of a big accomplishment for me so I'm excited.)

If you're wondering where I went - I took Blvd St. Germain up to the Marais and the Place des Vosges (more on that in another blog), then down to the Hotel de Ville, then across the river to the Latin Quarter, through the Luxembourg Gardens, by St. Sulpice, and then finally by St. Germain-de-Pres and back to the river. YAY ME!!!

And tomorrow... I'm going to try to get me and my bike out to Fontainebleau. :-D

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Note on the last post

So just to clear something up... I know that Mom and Gran are concerned about my anger issues at the moment - but I was not shouting AT the guy at St. Chappelle. We were shouting for the attention of the group. I was trying to tell a story, and he was going on about... lets just say how amazing I am :-P

That is all. More posts later!

Oh... and I bought SHOES... I'm very excited about them at the moment because I found a cheap accessories store on Rue Cler. Very cool.

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"There's only 3 things I break...

...World Records. Hearts. AND BUS DRIVERS' FACES!!!" - John Phillips

So as most of you know (or have figured out), I have ONLY been doing Day Bike/Segway for a while now. But the time has come for me to tackle Night Bike. Lets list the differences:

Day: less people on the tour, more bike lanes, more information, 6.5 miles
Night: more people on the tour, BBTM lane, less information, 9.5 miles

So Night Bike is more logistically challenging, and Day Bike is more informationally challenging. Make sense so far?

So finally – I have to give a Night Bike. I can read every street light on Blvd St. Germain. I know the route (finally). I can ride my bike while looking backwards. Its going to be great.

The only things I’m scared about are a) opening wine bottles, and b) making the boat on time.
Oh well – here it goes. My first night bike goes... pretty great. I make the 10:00pm boat (pretty good for my first time). But... my Crazy French Person tally is up to 3. I had someone threaten to call the police on me for being on the sidewalk. And then we had some drunk guy come up and talk to us on the Pont St. Louis – I’ve decided that his mumbling was him telling me that I was doing a great job. Fat Tire’s #1.

Then 2nd Night Bike – first of all, I had some friends there. VC goes global!!! But the best part of the night was the 15 minutes I spent in at shouting match with the crazy man at St. Chappelle. When we get to this stop, this guy comes up to us and starts reenacting “King Kong” – whatever, most of the time, if you give these characters about 30 seconds of attention, they’ll go away. So we listen to him for a minute, and then I say “au revoir.” He leaves... and then comes back and asks if I’m American. I say no... this seems to be a good answer most of the time if you’re dealing with gypsies and crazies. So he leaves... and comes back and starts yelling something about terrorists. So in the span of about 15 minutes, he would leave and then come back and start shouting behind me, and then walk around to the other side of the group and stand with his arms crossed, and then walk around behind me and start shouting again, and then walk down the street a little ways and then come back etc. And the whole time we were RIGHT NEXT TO THE PREFECTURE OF POLICE!!! WHERE THE HELL WERE THEY?! Ugh... stupid French policemen. They yell at you one minute for biking on a pedestrian walkway, but they’re not there to arrest the crazies. (But I think I gained some sympathy points from the local cafe.)

So that was my first couple of night bikes... good times. Crazy French People Tally = 4. I’m ready to fight some crazies/cabbies. Whichever comes first.

Oh... and I slapped one of the guys who sells key chains at the Eiffel Tower on the back the other day... he got in my way, and I ran over his foot with the Segway and then turned around and slapped his back. If one of them does it again... its on! Good thing the guys on my tour were from New York and totally approved.

On the downside – I’m sick. Megan is sick therefore I am sick. I’m eating oranges, sleeping, and taking airborne. Yay for days off soon :-D

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John's Last Tour

JohnnyPogo aka Johnny Rocket aka John is going home. Its a sad day for Fat Tire. This is the kid who on his first day of work (as the story goes) brought out this crazy pogo stick that would make you jump like 10 feet in the air - thus earning him the name "Pogo." A true Fat Tire hero.

So to celebrate, pretty much EVERYONE working for Fat Tire went on his last tour ever. This is the stuff that legends are made of.

We show, and John is wearing this blue highwater jump suit and has a Styrofoam sword in his hand. Nothing but the best. Already the majority of the guides are getting ready for the ride of their lives - they have all stocked up on Heineys and Eliza has some "special orange juice." I'm just there to document history in the making.

For the most part, the tour starts as usual (with the exceptions that this is the biggest tour ever...like 35 people.) We are soon on our way towards the BBTM lane. Franz has the video camera ready (and looks like Maverick out of Top Gun). No holds barred. Pulling out all the stops.

Now, if you've read my post about the BBTM lane - you know that this thing is ridiculous. But tonight... it was exceptional. At one point in time, our group got separated by a bus - so Mike (being the stellar ass-man that he is) pulled up his bike in front of the bus to allow everyone to go around it. The bus (on the other hand) did not appreciate this and started inching toward Mike... eventually ending in the bus bumping Mike's back tire. BAD NEWS BEARS! I have never seen Franz this angry. He threw his bike down, started yelling at the bus driver in French, and pounding on the bus door demanding to be let in. We were inches from seeing a real live throw down on the BBTM. I think the bus guy was pretty shocked by this, and he backed off pretty easily... kinda anti-climactic back out of control all the same.

We finally make it to Notre Dame. No one's roughed up. Awesome. So John lauches into his Notre Dame schpeil.

Now... there is another Fat Tire legend about a tour guide named Jason on the bridge at Notre Dame that many tour guides (including John) like to tell to their groups. On Jason's last night, he gets one of his friends to go on his tour incognito. Just an average backpacker. He gets another one of his friends to dress up in the full Superman regalia - tights, cape, everything. While riding down the Blvd St. Germain, Superman kept weaving in and out of the group and cussing at them in French. Jason just tells everyone to play it cool, and they'll lose the crazy Superman guy. So eventually, Superman goes away, and Jason continues on his ride. Now, at the Notre Dame stop, Jason also goes into his schpiel - he cracks some corny joke about the hunchback of Notre Dame being really disfigured ; and his friend kinda starts sniffling and says, "Jason, the hunchback is my favorite Disney character of all time. You have really offended me." Jason just replies, "Oh, I'm so sorry sir. I promise I won't make anymore lame jokes about the hunchback." But his friend won't have it - "No. You have really offended me. I'm leaving" and starts to walk over to his bike. Jason stops him - "Sir. I can't let you take a bike. You're going to have to take the metro." At this point in time, his friend (the backpacker) is angry - "I don't want to ride my bike. I don't want to take the metro. I'm going to swim!", he yells and runs and jumps off the bridge into the Seine!! Jason looks over the edge and sees the guy struggling and calls out, "Sir! Are you ok?!" "No!" he replies, "I can't swim!" Jason (seeing the guy flailing) is like, "I'm a tour guide! I must save him!" takes a running start and swan dives into the water.

Now - the plan was, that Jason would haul his friend over to the steps where Superman would rush in and save the day. But when they finally get to the steps, its not Superman waiting, but 3 gendarmes. Apparently, you're not allowed to swim in the Seine (something about it being a high traffic river). But Jason tells them the whole story in broken French about it being his last tour and how his entire group was on the bridge watching them, and how he had to finish it. The gendarms bust out laughing, escort Jason back to his group, and he does the rest of his tour soaking wet.

Good story, huh? So John tells this story, everyone laughs, and we go onto the next stop. But we know that something big is going to happen tonight... its just a matter of what... and when.

So, Berthillon's Ice Cream. Yummy... by this point in time, MORE tour guides have caught up with us (Graham, Kyle, me, Dmitry, Chris, Murray, Franz, Eliza, John P., Renee, Heather, Threkeld). We get ice cream, hang out, and John starts his next speech. Like usual, he's gesturing wildly with his Styrofoam sword. Suddenly - it flys out of his hand and into the river! Oh no! John must save it! He jumps over the railing and into the river! Ah!!! Kyle must save his roommate! Off he goes into the river!!! (I was laughing too hard to get a picture... but Franz has video... priceless.)

They climb back out, no gendarms, no problems. They may be covered in green slime, and parts of their bodies might rot off in the next week but that's ok. Hopefully they won't die from all the dirt/urine/pollution/worms/bacteria they swallowed. The Seine is not a pretty place to swim in.

But we continue on with the tour. After that, I think the temperature drops like 10 degrees - John is shivering... but I think everyone was laughing way too hard to think about how cold it was. The crowning moment of the night was our amazing pyramid in front of the Louvre.

All in all, between the dip in the Seine, the amazing pyramid, the champagne on the boat, I would have to say that this has all the makings of another Fat Tire legend. Man, I love my job.

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BBTM vs. ATM

Night Bike... Paris by night. Boat Cruise down the Seine. Lots of wine. Berthillon’s Ice Cream. It doesn’t get better than that. But wait... I forgot the most exciting part. Going 10 blocks down the most crazy idea in urban planning EVER – the Bike/Bus/Taxi/Motorcycle lane.... no really. You can’t make up something this bizarre. They have paired the most defenseless mode of transportation with three of the scariest vehicles ever!

I’ve started to compare everything to the animal kingdom (because that’s the analogy I use on my tours)... so if bikes are like gazelles – then buses are elephants, taxis are tigers, and motorcycles are velociraptors (ignore the obvious discrepancy of time periods). Other bikes are like... mongooses. Fierce. Alone. Fighting for survival. But cute and cuddly all the same. (Ok... so my analogy breaks down there... just go with it.)

Boulevard St. Germain – the BBTM (Bike/Bus/Taxi/Motorcycle) lane. Nerve wracking. Scary. Logistical nightmare. But for some reason... so much fun. And although, I don’t think anything will ever top the ATM (Advanced Traffic Maneuver) of Day Bike... this is definitely crazier.

But the ATM is probably my favorite part of Day Bike. This is how I explain the ATM at the Pont Alexandre III, “So we are about to hit the Class 5 Rapids of the bike tour. The ATM. Get ready. So we are going to go down this bike path all the way down the river. We will come to a red light. We will wait for a “fresh” red light. At that time, we will swarm the crosswalk. Pack everyone in there. Now... when the light turns green, we will storm the intersection. You will see a red light... ignore it! We will run the red light and flow into the Place de la Concorde. Now... being from Texas, we will be shouting “Yeeeehawwww,” as we ride into the Place de la Concorde. Ready?”... Basically, this is the most fun anyone has on the bike tour... its awesome. Its a rush... you literally FLY into the Place de la Concorde in front of all this traffic... its great.

So although the BBTM lane is a ridiculous idea... you never get to fly.

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Museums: Day 2

Sorry this is a little late in coming - but this is the 2nd half of my museum trip (from my first week here in Paris). The 3 for the day are the Musee d'Orsay, Louvre, and Musee l'Orangerie. Now... if you look at that list, you may see something kinda strange... the fact that I'm trying to do the two biggest museums in Paris in 1 day. So what ended up happening was that I spent the majority of the day in the Musee d'Orsay looking at the Impressionists and Realists, and about an hour in the Louvre looking at everything else. I mean... after a little while you stop feeling bad for walking quickly past the Da Vincis, Raphaels, and Titians.

But I did love Michaelangelo's "Slaves" and the apartments of Napoleon III (I've decided I'm going to have chandeliers like that in my house whenever I grow up).

The apartments were a welcome break from the miles of galleries and fantastic art. Basically, Napoleon III decided that he wanted to live in the Louvre after he declares himself emperor in 1852. So he created this mini-Versailles in the Louvre, and its really incredible (it's in the Richelieu wing in case you wanted to visit.)

So after my d'Orsay and Louvre whirlwind tour, I spent another hour in a lesser known Paris museum, but I think maybe one of my new favorites - the Musee l'Orangerie. This museum is in the Tuileries and its where Monet's water lilly series is located. And sure - that's great, but what I really loved was the more Post-Impressionism stuff downstairs. This one guy (Walter-Guillaume) donated his personal collection to the Orangerie, and its pretty incredible. I'm hoping to go back and spend some more time there. Its one of those... manageable museums. Not as overwhelming as the Louvre, but still with a lot of masterpieces (Picasso, Rousseau, Matisse, Soutine)... very cool stuff.

But here's a pic of the water lilys who stopped reading a while ago (each painting actually covers an entire wall... this is just one tiny section of it.)

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The Triple Crown

Today was my first official Triple Crown! (meaning 3 tours in one day). My last couple of days have been... interesting, and my last few tours have been... less than stellar. I don't know if it was me or the groups, but I knew that it was game time... Go big or go home.

So... Tour #1:
A few days ago I had a Seg die on me... it wasn't pretty but it was ok - Murray saved my life by waiting with the dead Seg while I went on with the rest of the group. Stupid Robocop (each of the Segs have names) has been acting up quite a bit lately. So... I started my 9:30am Seg with Robocop and 3 Polish people who barely spoke English. Halfway through the tour -things were still going good, but when I go to turn off Robocop for lunch - there was 0 battery left. It was only a matter of time. We ate lunch, pushed the Segs through the rest of the Tuileries... and Robocop refused to return to life. Oh well. That means I'm jogging and pushing a dead Seg for the rest of the tour. Thank goodness for caffeine and Dmitry (another guide) who agrees to drag my Seg so I can just run. So I run from the Louve to halfway down the Esplanade - I was pretty impressed with myself... I thought I was way more out of shape than I guess I actually was. Whoop! 1 tour down.

Tour #2:
So tour #2 automatically started out a little chaotic. First, Mike is trying to diassemble all the Segs and fill the tires up, Dmitry is stripping the parts off of one Segway to use on another, and I’m frantically trying to run out the door to pick people up at the tower. Crazy. So I get to the tower, pick up the groups, come back to the shop, and start training. Its then that I realize that the 2 families I was with had booked the Segway tour because they had family members who had a hard time walking. Now... this isn’t necessarily a bad thing – but having a hard time walking also means having a hard time balancing and having a hard time staying on your feet for long periods of time – both of which you need to do in order to ride the Segway. So I was a little worried to say the least. Thankfully – it all turned out for the best, even though that was the slowest tour I’ve ever given (I don’t know if we ever got about 5 miles an hour). I never even had to give my, “So this is what the speed limiter feels like” speech. 2 tours down.

Tour #3:
Well... I start out by falling off my Segway in the middle of MY tour AND night bike #1 AND Kregg’s Segway tour. I was rushing around trying to get a Seg for people to train on, and I backed one up really fast and ended up running into the broken bike pile. It didn’t even have time to spaz out – it literally just went down and took me with it. Those things are HEAVY too! But we recovered and went on (by “we” I mean me). This was by far the best tour of the day – even when the crazy French lady yelled at us for being on the sidewalk (I was ready to throw down with her), it was still pretty great.

So a little tally for the day... Today was my first:
- Triple Crown
- Jogging on a tour
- Falling off a Segway
- Crazy French Person

Top that off with a HORRIBLE farmer’s tan... and you have a wonderful day of tours in Paris.

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Voice, Bruises, Bagettes

Some random topics for the day:

1. I'm losing my voice... between the road dust, lack of humidty (its sad that I'm actually missing it), and talking about 10 hours a day, its going fast. I feel like its the 2nd day of Fish Camp, and its only a matter of time before it totally goes. 15 tours in 9 days will do that to you.

2. Bruises. I have more random bruises that I have ever had in my entire life (and I'm a really kluzy person who is always bruised in weird places). I'm starting to think that maybe I should start a bruise diary because there are some really big purple ones all over my legs from running into bikes and poles and sometimes just falling off. (Long story involving holding stuff in my right hand and pressing my front brakes with my left which ended in me flying off the front of my bike.) The bruise from Murray and the scavenger hunt is still kinda there, and I think I get a new one everyday. Plus... I cut myself shaving (after 10 years of shaving you'd think I'd be able to do it right).... sad stories.

3. Megan and I have decided that a single bagette can be made into a 3 course meal. You eat 1/3 while you're walking back from the boulangerie as an appetizer. You use the next 1/3 as a massive sandwhich with (my personal favorite) gouda cheese and turkey meat. And then you use the last 1/3 to spread nutella all over.... a meal fit for a king.

So... that's my life right now. Sometimes I have great tours, sometimes they're not so great... but I've met a lot of really awesome people - some new friends from Canada and Australia... the Kiwis on my tour last week gave me some tips on my Europe Cup bracket. I'm stoked. Oh... and I'm loving all the emails from everyone!!!! Thank ya'll!!!

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Montmartre & Pompidou

Yesterday and today have been my “days off” (even though I gave a tour last night). So Megan and I decided that we were going to sleep in and go exploring (in that order).

First on the list: Montmartre and Sacre-Coeur. A little history for you: Montmartre (Mount of the Martyr) is where St. Denis (the patron saint of France) was decapitated by the Romans. Legend has it that after they chopped off his head, he picked it up, washed the dirt off, and then walked 7 miles to his final resting place (and where the Church of St. Denis is now located).

Montmartre has always been the “artist” district of Paris. Picasso, Van Gogh, Renior, Toulouse-Lautrec have all lived here at some point in time. In 1871, the Paris Commune started in this area.

Now, Paris isn’t really known for its hills, but Montmartre is the highest place in town. Megan and I took the metro to “Abbesses” which is supposedly the deepest metro station in Paris. We saw this little jewel of information in the guide book and just kinda laughed... until we started climbing the stairs. “Abbesses” is now known at the “Abyss” – we just kept climbing and climbing... I began to think of Franz’s advice for life, “When possible, take the stairs.” Thank you for that nugget of wisdom... but that didn’t keep my legs from burning.

We reached the top... and had more hills to climb. But the when we finally got to Sacre-Coeur, the view was spectacular. You can see the entire city laid out before you. And the church itself (built in the late 1800’s) is incredible.

I’m upset that we couldn’t take pictures inside the church itself, because it was spectacular. I’m really glad that the architects didn’t try to make it look old or Gothic because, in my opinion, it just makes the church seem fake – like its trying to be something that its not. Sacre-Coeur is very original and unique which is why its so wonderful.

Unfortunately, both Megan and I had to be back at the shop, so we couldn’t spend as much time there as we wanted, but I really want to go back and explore the area a little bit more. We didn’t see the Moulin Rouge or anything (the red-light district is in that area as well), so we might come back at sunset sometime.

So today, Megan, her friend Laura, and I went to the Pompidou Center – Paris’s modern art museum. Now... modern art – everyone knows its strange, but I think we were still a little bit shocked at just how weird it actually was (but I’ll get to that in a minute).

The building itself is really cool – its built so that all its functional parts are on the outside of the building... meaning that the stairs, escalator, structural supports, heating ducks etc. are all on the outside.

So... we finally get to the exhibit and its called “Traces du Sacre.” Ok... interesting. Could be cool. We walk in and the first thing we hear is a hysterical “Joker-esque” (from Batman) type laugh. You look around and there painting by Goya and Munch with captions about how their art was influenced by Nietzsche who wrote “God is dead.” The basic purpose of the entire exhibit was how art has been affected by the disappearance of religion in the world, and how artists seek to fill that void. At this point in time, I felt like all the joy had been sucked out of me. The rest of the exhibit (and it was like a maze... you couldn’t get out without going forward so we literally had to walk through the entire thing) went through the history of this theme from romanticism to replacing God with science and drugs. Lets discuss the highlights:

• There was a series of 3 canvases that (unlike most of the paintings) were in bright purples, blues, yellows, and pinks. When you first look at it, you might think its just some cute little abstract art. But no – some “supreme being” came to this artist in a dream and told her to paint these. She needs to reconcile the masculine (yellow) and the feminine (blue) in both the physical (the letter “w”) and spiritual (the letter “u”) realm. Crazy.
• And my personal favorite: a little bit of performance art. (Warning: this part is explicit and GROSS.) So this woman stood naked in the middle of an art gallery and took off all her clothes. First, she ate a spoonful of honey and drank a bottle of wine. Then, she took a razor blade a cut a 5 pointed star into her stomach. Next, she beat herself until she couldn’t feel anything. After that, she lay down on a block of ice for 30 minutes. A heater was pointed at her stomach to make the cuts bleed more. Finally, the audience got up and stopped her from doing anything else crazy. (I did not watch the video... I read the caption on the side which was just as creepy.)

All in all, I did not like this exhibit. It creeped me out and made me want to cry.

The rest of the museum was not as scary though. We took pictures of all the works of art that involved bicycles (naturally). Although in the modern art museum, the laws of gravity do not apply to bikes.This airplane was made out of scissors that had been confiscated from an airport in Australia. This is a painting about a murder... the mirror is there to make you contemplate whether you would rather be the murdered person or the murderer. I don’t really get the reason behind the big red rhino, but whatever.Minimalism is for the stupid and lazy. This is not art. And then they had more “conventional” modern artists... Jackson Pollock, Matisse, and my favorite – Kandinsky. And finally, my closing thoughts as we were leaving were, “What was up with all the furniture?” Is this where IKEA comes to get ideas, or is this where old models of IKEA furniture come to die?” So there you go.

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My First Tour

Finally the day came for my first tour... I woke up early that morning (mostly because I kept dreaming about French history), so I just decided it was best just to get up and go. Rode my bike into work (its only about 15 minutes if I don't get lost... not too bad). Finally got there and started getting ready... now my #1 fear at the moment is that I'm going to get a flat tire and not know how to change it and I'll have to run the bike 6 miles. I may have been able to do that last semester, but those days are long gone.

So then it was time to head out to the tower to pick up my group. Thankfully it was only 10 people... to make a long story short, it went amazing!! I could not have asked for a better first tour. They were nice and fun and loved me :-D In fact, about half of them came back and did another tour because they had so much fun!

Now, tour #2 was that same day - the night segway.

A word about Segways: they are awesome - but they are extremely nerve wracking on the tour guide. We have a profile of those who are good and bad on Segways.

• Good: under 30, active, skiers
• Bad: over 50, overweight, mothers

My first segway tour was 7 over-50 men and women. So automatically, I'm freaking out. Then we started about 30 minutes late because some of the group hadn't shown up yet. THEN as I'm training them, I think about 5 of them almost fall. It was terrrible... I think my hair is going grey. So finally, we start off - and its awesome. By the end of it, they were talking about how they were all going to lock me in the bathroom and steal the segways. Hilarious.

Oh... and we got to see the Eiffel Tower sparkle twice. :-D

So all in all, my first day of tours went fabulously despite the small mishaps at the beginning with the Segways. At the moment, I've done 5 (in 3 days), and I have 2 more tomorrow. I already feel so much more comfortable with the info and more importantly getting around Paris (although I still get lost going home).

A little note to the VC: As I got done with my first tour, I started thinking about my first tour at TAMU. My favorite comment I got the first week was from that little short overenthusiastic guy from Financial Aid who asked, "Are you new?" Thankfully - no one's called me out yet, and I am sticking to my story that I've been doing this for a few summers now.

PS: Rick Steves went on one of our tours yesterday. He is my hero.

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