Four Days in Paris - Day One

Subtitled:  A Canadian on a German Bus in France

I've been back for almost two weeks. Where does the time go? Actually, truth be told, I wrote a newspaper column and about seven or eight tripadvisor reviews while thoughts were still fresh in my head. Usually, my brain is like the produce on the metal supermarket rolling racks...somewhat mushy, spotted and marked down for quick sale. If that makes no sense whatsoever, I've just proven my point.

So, at the risk of making this sound like a boring travelog, here goes. Four of us, my cousin, his wife and her sister went on a wonderful trip to Paris. We left from a tour bus parking lot in Saarbrucken and while we waited for our bus, we were all pleased to locate one of those new fangled automated toilet facilities. I must confess that our novice efforts involved a lot of screaming, cursing, yelling, and wasted coin as we each took a turn. On the bright side, this now allows us to cross another item off our bucket list.















Our bus arrived...a double decker condo on wheels. We took our seats and after a short trip, arrived in Paris. I surmised that we were there because I recognized the language on the signage as similar to that on cans, cereal boxes and miscellaneous packaging back home.

The bus driver gave us a brief overview of the city as he drove. He spoke very quickly, in a German dialect which I found challenging. I understood about a third of what he said, which I expect was about one third more than the family from Kentucky managed to decipher. I did catch the all the important words like wasser, beer, and sekt, all of which were being offered on the bus for a very reasonable low cost. People appreciated this because to say that prices in France are high would be considered an understatement.

I was impressed with the fact that the driver could multitask by actually driving in Paris and talking at the same time. Traffic patterns were definitely unusual.  As much as it often looked like a giant parking lot, without traffic lights, painted lines, or apparent organization, the chaos moved with relative ease.

Before long, we arrived at the foot of the Eiffel tower....taaaadaaaaa! I made it! Then, a cruise tour down the Seine.

There were many school groups aboard who screamed every time we went under a bridge. It was impossible to hear the headset explanations of where we were so before long, I put my device aside and cheered along with the kids. This garnered me some strange looks. Must have been my accent.

Day one couldn't have ended more perfectly. We checked into Hotel Mercure (link to tripadvisor review below). Once we were cleaned up, we hopped back on the bus and were taken to dinner at a lovely typically French bistro. We were served a four course meal with unlimited wine, water or soft drinks and we enjoyed music, singalong and comedy from an accordianist and guitarist. There are photos and videos, but let's just say, what happens at the bistro, stays at the bistro!

***My review of Hotel Mercure with photos -

http://www.tripadvisor.ca/ShowUserReviews-g196563-d197378-r212702266-Mercure_Paris_La_Defense_5-Courbevoie_La_Defense_Hauts_de_Seine_Ile_de_France.html

In The Midst of Chaos...Beer!

The news from the "big city" lately has been nothing short of horrid and distressing. Besides the arrival of several long awaited snowstorms, there have been fires, bomb threats, police activity which included a need for the swat team, pedestrians run over by streetcars and the most recent and saddest, an officer down, killed by a suspect driving a stolen snowplow. How awful. My condolences to family, friends and fellow officers.

In the midst of all this chaos, I have been following a news story which has provided me with some amusement. For a number of days now, there has been a traffic issue west of the city. The reason? Six giant beer vats are being transported from Hamilton to the Molson Coors Brewery in Toronto. The vats are 45 metres long, 8 metres high and 7 metres wide and are said to be able to hold the equivalent of six million bottles of beer. That's a little more than I could drink in a lifetime and about a fifth of the amount consumed annually at Munich's Oktoberfest.

The route was carefully planned to avoid overpasses and cause minimal hydro, signal and cable outages. The vats left for their destination last Friday, January 7th, have been travelling during the night and parking alongside the road during the day. They are moving at a rate of 12 km per trip. A snail could slither faster. The vats were scheduled to arrive at their destination yesterday, Tuesday. They didn't. The reason for the slow rate is that hydro wires need to be raised out of the way as the vats progress. Sometimes, poles need to be removed and resoldered. Last night, the vats stood still in anticipation of the latest snowstorm.

Each morning, I tune in to Breakfast Television in anticipation of the latest movement report of the "Beer Vat Convoy" as it's been dubbed. I find it fascinating. It invokes all kinds of images in my imagination. In fact, it occurred to me that this would be a wonderful title for a new reality t.v. series, certainly as fascinating as "Village on a Diet" or "Stars in Rehab". The show could include the true confessions of the convoy drivers, the trials and tribulations of the hydro wire lifters, the innermost thoughts of the mechanics and pole welders and the frustrations of the rush hour commuters who have been narrowed to one lane of traffic. I think I'm on to something here.

One of the hosts of BT said that there have not been a lot of complaints about the beer convoy inconvenience. She went on to ask "would people be as tolerant if they were prune juice vats"? Funny.


It's all about the beer...Oktoberfest.



Today, I decided I'd like to see the vats. Is it something I need to add to my bucket list..."beer vat convoy viewing"? No. But nonetheless, it's a sight that is out of the ordinary, not something one would likely have the opportunity to view in a lifetime. I want to be one of the people who sees. Now I need to figure the logistics of how to make an unnecessary trip from east of the city to the west side in January.



There are those who would say, "beer vats, who cares?"         

To them I respond, "You just don't understand."