L'experience de circulation de Paris - un survivant

J’ai arrivé à Paris hier après une longue promenade en voiture de Montauville vers Nancy et Auxerre.   La promenade en voiture dans Paris était très passionnant (je pense qu’il est le mot vrai) ; il y a les voitures partout, roulant très vite.  Je n’ai pas su  lorsque je suis allé.  Les chauffeurs étaient très impatients.  J’ai eu besoin de mettre du gazole dans la voiture mais je n’aurais pas pu trouver un service station proche au Gare de l’est.  Donc, je n’ai pas mis de gazole dans la voiture.  Il me coute beaucoup d’argent mais je n’ai pas essayé dans cette circulation. 

Aujourd’hui j’ai fait du shopping parce qu’il a plu, donc j’ai visité les grands magasins et aussi quelques moins grands magasins.  Aussi, je suis allé à SFR car je n’aurais pas pu faire mon 3G clé fonctionnaire. Le vendeur m’a aidé faire fonctionnaire afin que je puisse avec tout le monde encore.  

J’ai marche les rues de Paris qui avait une expérience diffèrent car je n’ai pas visite cet arrondissement avant.  A proximité il y a  le Moulin Rouge aussi les grands magasins font à pied, si  on  se n’a perdu !

Demain, je vais aller à Amsterdam. 

Yesterday morning over breakfast I talked  with an English couple who I suspect were in their mid-sixties who were doing a dash in eight days around France.  It was the first long conversation that I have had in English for just on two weeks.  They sounded like they were out of Eastenders, and they had born in London, one by Marble Arch and the other by the Oval Cricket ground.  They did not have one word of French and were surprised that when asking for directins that they got a blank look.  It was so funny.  They thought that Auxerre was dirty where it is in some ways but it is just very old.

I was heading for Paris and took  a detour through Troyes and a landscape that was undulating with a patchwork of various hues of green with the occasional patch of yellow from the canola flowering.  It had a nice clean new feeling about it and such a contrast to when we came through a similar area four years ago in autumn when it was browning and grey.

After lunch I headed at speed to Paris as I had to have the car back by 2pm.  It was not going to happen but I thought Europcar   might be nice to me.  Leaving Troyes the autoroute seemed abandoned, there was hardly a car on the road and made me think of that film The Quiet Earth.  However, once I got closer to Paris it got significantly busier and busier.  There were cars everywhere and I was concentrating like crazy as I did not have a clue as to where I was going.  The motorways were fine but once I got onto the perepherique and then into the heart of the city I had a few heart stopping moments like going around the Bastille and then down the main drag trying to get onto Avenue Sebastapol. I managed to get to Gare de l’Est in one piece and then took a while to find the parking area where I was to drop off the car.  It was then that I found that they did not operate the place until 6 pm. So I could have been a bit later and tried to find some fuel.

It was then lug my baggage to the hotel in Montmartre.  What a change from the other areas I have stayed when in Paris.  There are tourists everywhere.  It is very buzzy.  

My hotel room relatively small compared to what I have had and twice as dear for the space.  

Yesterday was May Day a holiday that does not move, similar to Anzac Day or Waitangi Day.  So there was a bit of party last night.  One of the interesting parts of my first night was seeing a group of mainly black young men who just hung around, talking on mobiles.  It looked like a scene out of "The Wire" for those who seen the TV programme. 

Today has been a bit wet so I went looking at shops and did some shopping.