Arriving in Paris

From door tot door from my house the small city of Rijen in the Netherlands to my Hotel (only for the first 2 days) in the big city of Paris took me appr. 5 hours, but only thanks to my wife Juliëtte who drove me from Rijen to Breda as i saw on internet that the train from Rijen had a 3 minutes delay, which would make my connection to my train in Breda very tight. Good she did this, as sitting in the train in Breda i saw all people from the train from Rijen, missing the train that i was on. In Rotterdam i took the Thalys at 14.00h and arrives at Gare du Nord 16.35h.

It took me one hour by taxi ( we were obviously not the only people driving that direction in Paris) to my Hotel http://www.alesia-paris-hotel.com/english/ a small, but nice 2 star Hotel in the south side of Paris, 10 minutes from School by Metro.

In the evening i went to the center, knowing the city, i decided to take the Metro, get off at Odeon and walk from Odeon to Place Saint Michel. Place Saint Michel would have been be the next stop on the same Metro, but from Odeon to St Michel is a nice walk as i remembered it.
Obviously i do not know the city as well as i thought. I walked around for 2 hours, passing the same "Cafe de Marche" 4 times and got completely lost. After 2 hours, i thought: lets ask someone, as i did not believe i was lost. I have a very good feeling of direction, and rarely get lost. When the man pointed out that Place Saint Michel was exactly the other direction than i thought it to be, i knew what went wrong.
Last year i always arrived at Odeon from the other side, so when i left the Metro i switched directions and mistaked South by North and East by West. So instead of leaving Odeon in North-East direction, i left South-West. As this also was a very nice neighbourhood, i did not even notice i was going the wrong direction in the beginning.
After finding place St Michel, i quickly found a pizzeria and as i had already walked enough, i did not care to find the best one. So Pizza was less than average.
When i left the pizzeria i wanted to go for a drink, but i felt that my feet had had enough and i have learned to listen to my feet, so i went back to my Hotel, arriving 23.30h, so quite early.

Life in Paris on Saturdaynight in November is uncomparable with Rijen. From empty streets at night in Rijen, here you have to mingle yourselves through the masses of people. Streetlife is like in Summer. On Every 5th corner a band or a lone musician is playing music. Artists make and sell paintings on the street and all shops are open. Thousands of people are on the street. The wheather was nice, what ofcourse also helped a lot to create a nice atmosphere in the streets of Paris.

So what have i found to have forgotten to take to Paris until now:
1. The cable to upload pictures from my camera to my computer (thats why there are no pictures with this blog)
2. My map of Paris i bought 2 years ago. I will ask Juliette to sent it by mail, as i obviously need it

Today i will meet my landlords, see the appartement, leave my luggage there and then go downtown.
I do not know where yet, but you will read this in my next blog.