Saturday 4:04 pm

I am writing on board of a train waiting to go to Strasbourg. We’re still in the station, so I thought that I would get a few thoughts down.

Not much has happened since I last wrote. Hit a few more touristy spots, and wandered the area around my hotel quite a bit. Then I slept, and slept, and slept. It was the worst hotel that you can imagine. Thus, I loved it. I was on the sixth floor, with no stairs. The nearest toilet was a floor down. I don’t even know where the shower was. I somehow found electricity and bought a DVD at a little record store so I was able to watch a movie as I fell asleep.

Woke up to snow. Took the subway to the Eiffel Tower. Sidebar about the Paris subways. They are great. You can literally get anywhere from anywhere in no time at all. The walk that took me three hours from Arc de Triumph down Champs de Elysses was covered in 10 minutes from hotel to Arc by the subway. When I got the Eiffel Tower there were no tours going up. I suppose it was because of the snow. My in my brilliance, knew of a skyscraper a few miles away that also had viewdeck. I thought that would be a good way to full the day. Problem is that by the time I get there, the snow had stopped and Paris just looked like a wet, damp, mess; not the beautiful snow-covered place it was just a few hours before. And I am sure that the Eiffel Tower was open again by then. I was running short on time, so I took the subway to the train station and now I am pulling out of the station on my way to Strasbourg.

A few more thoughts on Parisians: First, as with everywhere in Paris, no fat people. That makes it very hard for me to figure out who to look down on. That also makes it difficult to figure out who the poor people are. Second: Everyone is darker here than I pictured. There is a large Middle-Eastern population here which explains quite a bit of that. It’s not the Paris I pictured though when I eat dinner at a place run by two people from Turkey.

Point at which I knew I was going to get no work done while here: When it was 6 a.m. and I chose to watch Far and Away for a second time rather than break out the work I brought with me.