There is still time. We have until September 13th, 2006, to get tickets for what might be the concert of the new millenia — Steven Seagal and Thunderbox in a “Concert Exceptionnel” in Paris.
I want to be the first to call it:
What David Hasselhoff is to the Germans… Steven Seagal will be to the French.
Jerry Lewis, you’re so passé.
Got a weiner dog? Too bad you can’t go to this restaurant!
Pas de weiner dogs! Jamais!
I’m not sure if it’s because there were some steps inside they couldn’t get up … or whether the owners of this bistro just didn’t like the little guys.
Buying tickets at the Louvre, AKA, another great example of how such a great country can make you want to kill people.
Downstairs under the glass pyramids of the Louvre you buy tickets to get inside the museum proper. There are ticket windows with real people, or if you’re techno-savvy, you can use the automated ticket machines.
Or, if you’re a complete techno moron, you can ALSO use the automated ticket machines, because all the other techo morons certainly are.
Honestly, it took me about 15 seconds to buy our tickets once we got to the front. I admit, I’m probably fast when it comes to automated things like bank machines and ticket machines (I pride myself on effiiciency of accomplishing tasks without human involvement), so I’ll say that the average time it should take someone would be, oh, 30 seconds to a minute.
My estimate as to the amount of time it was taking people to buy their tickets was about 4 minutes each. I don’t even know how that was possible!
The interface was wonderfully designed, easily switching between about 8 different languages. The only thing you had to do was pick your language, say how many tickets you wanted, and insert your card or your cash. All with a simple touch screen with elegant affordance and large, easy to read fonts. These things made your standard bank machine seem like the ENIAC.
They even have a guy there whose sole purpose is to help people use the machines! Although it angers me that they have assistants there to help the techno morons, I admit, that if he wasn’t there, I would still be in line behind them, so I suppose it’s a good thing he’s there.
Just go to the lines where you can buy tickets from the ticket window, people! GAH! Even in France it can’t be slower than the automated ticket machine lines become because of people like you!!! GAAAAAH!!
Got a mini and a bit of an inferiority complex? No problem! Just cruise around until you find a car smaller than yours and park next to it.
In Toronto, you could be driving for a long time. In Paris — pas de problème!
For authenticity’s sake, I assure you, the back end of each of these cars line up.
Our hotel room, which was selected for location, comfort and price, was not selected for amenities, and it's fair to say that it delivered in every way both on the pro and the con.
When I say that the room was small, I cannot overstate it. Imagine the smallest possible room that could contain two “twin” beds (which were really more like children’s bunk beds side by side) a child sized desk and an armoir — then take 50% of that room away. Seriously, I’m not kidding. You couldn’t actually OPEN the armoir, or sit at the desk, or walk around the beds, because the beds took up the whole room. I’d show you a picture, but I couldn’t take a picture of something that small in any meaningful way without you thinking I’d either photoshopped, or just taken a picture of a closet instead.
The room had a TV (mounted on the ceiling because there was no room anywhere else) that had “satellite tv reception”. By that they meant 14 channels, 7 of which came in, 5 of which were French and 2 of which were German MTV 2. As much as I could have constructed that last line for comedic effect, it’s 100% true.
So we watched a lot of German MTV 2 at night before going to sleep, because there was nothing else. It was super educational, if nothing else. Some of the programming was in English, dubbed in German, so it was sort of like an AD/HD version of a really messed up Sesame Street. Other stuff was formerly English programming that had been dubbed (usually terribly) into German, so I could follow it that way. The German South Park fit into that category.
I loved German South Park. It was even funnier when the voices of the kids were being dubbed in by 40 year old German baritones who weren’t getting their voices sped up.
But the best stuff was the German content. You’ve never seen advertising (or “verbung” as they apparently need to announce and title it) until you’ve seen a 5 minute montage of German SMS ads. Apparently they love the cellphone in Germany.
Once in a while the German content would break into the predominantly English video rotation, and we’d get to see a German rapper or German country star — or if we were REALLY lucky, we would get to see one of the finalists from Eurovision, though at the time, I had no idea what Eurovision was. All we knew was one minute we would be seeing Shakira and Sean Paul singing / shimmying “Hips Don’t Lie”, and then suddenly, Lordi would be on. Believe me, if you’re going through the standard MTV uberpolished video rotation and suddenly you’re watching Lordi, you’re going to wake up and notice.
That previous link is great, because it has a link to a Lordi video, but this one is even better, because it focuses on the fashion side of things. That last picture is, as they say in the entertainment biz, worth the price of admission.
We’re back! And I’m starting to upload photos. Stay tuned.
I’ll start with the first photo we took in France. Me, on the train headed into Paris.
Okay, I know, I look tired.
The thing that you’re NOT seeing here is what made me look so tired. No, it wasn’t the flight.
No, it wasn’t that it was like 5 in the morning Toronto time and I got no sleep on the plane.
No it wasn’t customs in Paris, which I have to say was something of a breeze. We walked off the plane, walked up to a guy in a booth, he smiled and said “Have a nice vacation!” and we were in.
No, the thing that has me looking so stressed, tired and old (other than my age etc.) was the FRICKIN LINE TO BUY TICKETS FOR THE TRAIN INTO PARIS!
GAAAAAH.
Font does not go big enough to express my frustration.
Seriously, they have a rail connection from the airport into Paris via their equivalent of the Go Train, so you’d think that they would, you know, optimize for letting people get tickets for it.
Oh, they do, so long as you have a VISA card. From a French bank.
For anyone else, you have two options, either buy your 8 Euro ticket with CHANGE, or get in line. Now, I had Euros… but silly me, I didn’t get any damn COINS. So you’d think maybe, just maybe, they’d have a machine to give you change. No, they apparently haven’t invented those there yet. Oh, and no, they won’t give you change, anywhere. Timmi tried to BUY something to get change and they wouldn’t give her change. They wouldn’t sell to her because they sussed out that she just wanted change, the crafty minx.
So instead, we had to get in the line to buy tickets. The line that aged me by 50 years.
Seriously, there were like 20 people in front of me at the start. Then the butting in line started, and soon there were 60 people in front of me. At the time, Timmi was searching for change, and I didn’t want to end up in a French prison, so I didn’t open the can of whoopass like I wanted and tried to keep my place.
So you’d think, 60 people in line … all from basically one flight… hundreds of flights per day, they’d have this down to a science… they’d have lots of people efficiently serving up tickets, right? And you’d be wrong.
2 people. Selling tickets like the way you brush a fly off you when you’re sunbathing. THAT is why I look like I do. Fortunately, Paris had a way of healing me 
Paris is everything we had hoped it would be, but the keyboards are crazy and messed up… and the computers do not know what a Canon camera is, so no photos yet.
To give an idea of how the trip has gone… one of the first things we did was go to the arc de triumphe. We got there on the metro, came up the stairs, and the second we saw it, a huge military band broke out with the French National Anthem. I literally couldn’t speak for a while. It was like the moment was planned. Then to top it off, as soon as it was over, a police car went by with that French siren going. There was no doubt where we were.
So far I would say that the biggest adjustment is the way the French line up. It isn’t even that they do not line up… it’s that they seem to do it passive aggressively. They have them, but purely for chances to butt in I think.
Gah!!! Why is “!” a normal key but “.” needs a shift????
Oh and everthing anyone says about French food…. so true. My god I am going to be huge when I get home.
I had wine tonight that was €1.30 a bottle. And although not great, I have had far far worse at 20 times the price.
Talk to you soon, hopefully with photos.
Eric was coming over to help repair the barbecue, and I was at a bit of a loss to imagine what sort of tools REAL MEN need when it comes to repairing manly appliances. I got out some wrenches and screwdrivers and such, but then started wondering what to do if we needed something, you know, delicate.
So Timmi went to the store in search of pipe cleaners.
Little did I realize she would be coming back with this little gem, found in the, to use her words, “Section at the back, where they sold the little marijuana pipes”.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I give you Ream ‘N’ Klean.
So many jokes… so few of them having any class or taste… So I will simply close with the observation that for the best reaming, it’s best to be extra rigid.
Okay, you have to forgive the photo. The camera in my phone is not great to begin with, but when you consider that I have to take the picture like I’m some sort of stalker/ninja, it’s a wonder that any of the pictures turn out at all. The camera “shutter” sound that is so loud that it could shatter glass, causing all heads within about 200 feet to turn and wonder who just took a picture of what — and in this particular case, even though I took the picture to show the rest of you her outfit, anyone seeing me take the picture probably assumed I was taking the picture for Mobile Asses.
But I wasn’t. You’ll have to take my word for it when I tell you that this woman was wearing camouflage pants and red heels. Dear Lord.
Now, I’m certainly not the most fashionable guy in the world. And I’m certainly not in touch with the finest fashion today, and you know what? Maybe this whole thing was an ingenious ironic statement. Or maybe, just maybe, her outfit was really messed up.
And btw, if anyone knows how to turn off the camera sound on a Sony Ericsson z520, I’d love to hear it.
