Juste le... le... how do you say bill in French?

If I have any regrets on this trip it will probably be not allocating enough time to Paris. After an afternoon arrival thanks to my absurdly fast Eurostar train -- seriously the outside world looked like it went by in fast forward -- I took in the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower, and then the Grand and Petit Palaces. Everywhere I turned there was something new and yet more attractions of history and art on my map pulled me just beyond where I was.

My big plan was to go to the Louvre tomorrow (my last day in Paris) but I just found it the Louvre is closed on Tuesdays. Only Tuesdays. Why? Ask the Louvre. Still I plan to be in the area anyway to take a good look at the Notre Dame Cathedral and a whole host of things I probably don't even know about yet.

I'm getting by okay on my crappy high school french, augmented with a little help from a translation app. I'm nowhere near conversational though. I do the verbal equivalent of pointing at the menu. Still when pushed some dark recesses of my memory conjures up the relevant word or phrase (or close enough to make things work). I am terrified of Italy though. My Italian is utterly non-existent. So that should be an adventure.

As for Paris itself. Well, beside all of its charms and beauties, it's basically dead quiet right now. I guess a large section of the french population takes August off. At least 1 in 5 restaurants I walked by today had signs in the windows saying they'd be back in September. A restaurant taking a month off--in Toronto that could never happen.

The tourist areas are still populated heavily of course, but just beyond them in the workaday (but still high end) neighbourhoods surrounding them it feels a little like a city only half-awake. I rather like it actually.

I just wish the Louvre was open on Tuesdays.

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Florida in the Key of West

Yesterday was not a pleasant day. 10 hours of driving only to end up at the Best Western in Jacksonville, just so I could stand around waiting for my laundry to finish because the hotel in Key West that I'm staying in for 4 nights had no laundry mentioned on their website. So it's 10:30 at night and I'm sweating on the second floor between the world's loudest dryer and the local ice machine for an hour. And that's following 30 minutes of washing. I even had to hang dry some stuff because even after an hour it still wasn't dry yet. It's times like that that make me question whether or not this trip was even a good idea. It usually happens in the waking moments before sleep when I'm lying in my rented bed in the middle of a town where I know no one. Why am I here? Am I learning anything? Is this just a giant waste of time and money? And then there's times like the Wendy's. I got in too late in Jacksonville and the hotel was far enough ...

A long time coming but I'm finally here

So I made it to New York. That's the long story made short. Here's the story at longer length: I got out of the house and on the road about an hour later than I expected to, but judging by all the maps I was looking at I would still be able to make it within a reasonable amount of time. The thing about trips though is you always forget something. I knew that once it was too late I would realize I forgot something that I absolutely needed. That's just the way it goes. I was dreading the border most of all, it would have really sucked to have to go through a hassle just cause some border guard is having a bad day. As I was approaching the Queenston/Lewiston crossing I picked a spot with two cars in front of me. The first car got the point. As in please park over there sir so we can ransack your car . The second car also got the point, and now I'm thinking is this the designated point guy for the day?! Am I gonna cavity-searched cause it was his turn to search everybody? ...

Walkin' in Memphis, and boy are my feet tired!

The trip through Tennessee, incidentally, was beautiful. Hilly, with roundabouts and full forests. Fun to drive. I tried to take some pictures with my phone, but they all came out pretty assy. I arrived at Memphis at around 4:20 which I later discovered was 3:20. Ah time zones. Looking for a place to eat I headed south down the road to what I hoped would be a nicer area since my hotel room gives me a beautiful view of the freeway. Walking through Memphis I got the impression that this is a city that's either on the verge of a fall or the verge of a comeback. At first I thought it was the former, though now I'm leaning towards the latter. There's a lot of nice things around, decent restaurants, nice views, ok shopping... but for every location with activity there seems at least one other that's boarded up with big For Lease notices stickered to the window. The other thing I noticed as I was walking was that nobody else was. Nobody. The city was dead to walking traffic. P...

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