Day 9: Reminiscences of Paris and Jet to Poland

This morning we arose at 4:45am. Our airport shuttle was to pick us up at 5:15a to catch an early flight to Krakow. Lauren and I find staying up late more natural to us than getting up early. Our husbands generally serve as our backup alarm clocks at home. We were so worried that we would overslept that we set 2 alarms, had a wakeup call from the hotel and had ron skype us just in case the three previous methods failed. All four methods succeeded and we were out of the hotel and ready to go on time.

If I were publishing a magazine or newspaper - the next section would be called a sidebar.

Is Skype a verb?
"Skype" has become a verb in my vocabulary over the last month. To skype someone is to communicate via a web camera. You download the software found at skype.com on to a computer that is equipped with a webcamera/microphone. Once the software and hardware are installed - you can place calls all over the world via your internet connection. The great thing about this is 2 fold, 1- it's free and unlimited in the length of your call, 2 - you can not only hear the person you are talking to - but you can also see them and they can see you too. It has been wonderful to use on this trip. I have "skyped" Ron or he has "skyped" me almost every day. Last night I sat on the balcony of my room in Paris taking in the eiffel tower view and working on my laptop at the same time. Ron needed some help with an issue he was handling at the dental office and I remoted in to the server at the office - then hopped electronically to my computer at the office. Once I remotely controlled my computer, I loaded Quickbooks, and managed the accounting entries he was struggling with. So - I worked for about an hour last night on a balcony in Paris. All this technology is so cool. I recently purchased a little HP Mini 2140 10" laptop (actually I think they are more accurately referred to as netbooks when they are that small). It weighs about 2 pounds and we have brought it with us on this trip. All of the hotels we chose to stay in have an internet connection we can use. Most of them are wireless or wired in our room. I believe that one of them will require us to go into the lobby to use it. One can really see how the world is connected via the internet.

Now, back to the regular blog.

Last night about midnight, just as I was to place my head on the pillow (my fabulous travel size tempur-pedic pillow), I realized that I had not communicated at the desk regarding my check out. In a U.S. hotel, there would be no need to do this as the bill the bill would have magically appeared under my door during my slumber, my credit card having already been charged for the length of my stay. Most places call it express checkout and I no longer checkout any other way. I rightly concluded at the midnight hour that there probably was no "express checkout" at the unique small Paris hotel we had been staying. I added "manual checkout" to my morning (before 5:15am) task list. I was correct and glad that I had thought about it beforehand. When I arrived at the desk at 5:05am - they asked me my room number, how many nights I had stayed and how I wanted to pay the bill. At that point - they created the charges and processed my credit card. I was amazed that the accounting had not been done each day I was there and - that they would ask me how many nights I had stayed. I was glad I had allowed the extra time to do this and thankfully no one else was checking out at the same time competing for the desk clerks attention. We were seating in the lobby waiting for our shuttle three minutes before the required pickup time.

I wanted to record a couple of things that have been unique to our Paris experience before we moved on to blogging about Poland.

I observed that there were motorcycles and scooters all over the streets of Paris. They zipped in and out of the traffic, between the cars in the existing lane. Thus, whenever a motorcycle wished to overtake an automobile they would just slip in between the two lanes. This seemed to require even more awareness of those driving a car.

French cuisine was especially good. It was always well presented. I am always on a search for a balanced meal. Most of the time this means - eat a salad with every meal . . but I found it very easy to find fruits and vegetables. If we weren't able to get something at a restaurant (unusual) there was fresh produce in stands or supermarkets.





Fast food in London and Paris is readily available and greater in variety than we are used to. Yes, the American fast food chains such as McDonald's, KFC, and Subway are represented - but they have much more to choose from and much of it is quite healthy. They are named things like EAT and Pret A Manger etc. (Pret A Manger is also in NYC) They have fresh sandwiches,soups, vegetables, salads, fruit, yogurts, etc. everywhere. The fruits and vegetables are not saturated in salad dressings - they can be lightly dusted with a tasty vinaigrette. The sandwiches and salads are more exotic than you would get in the states . . . . with more exotic ingredients such as salmon, chicken pesto etc. common fare. The only complaint I had was the sandwiches were rarely served on whole grain bread - though I'm not complaining about the fabulous bread it was served on. The variety was such that we ate fast food once a day in London and Paris and never felt like we ate the same thing. London was especially good for getting well balanced fare. I wish we had the same kind of fast food in the U.S. I rarely ever eat fast food because it is so bad in the U.S. I think there is a huge market to be captured. I know New York and San Francisco provide more of these fast food options. . . but - Hey! we'd like fresh healthy fast food in Texas too. Is there anyone out there looking for a startup company - look over the business model of Pret A Manger or Eat. It's time we had some of that. Oh yes - and let's not forget the crepe stands. The original Parisian fast food.

Water was easy to come by - as long as it didn't say "not potable" in Paris it was fine and tasted great .
At a restaurant you are not automatically served water with ice in a large glass, lemon upon request. You generally have to ask for water. They want to know if you want it still or sparkling and generally prefer to sell it to you out of the bottle rather than give it to you from the tap (who wouldn't). They serve tap water in the tiniest glasses and you won't get refills unless you can attract the attention of your wait person, and then they aren't exactly pleased to get it for you. After a couple days we learned to ask for a carafe. The carafes were big enough that two tiny (4-6 ounce) glasses of water could be refilled one time - so you still had to ask for me - or go without. You can just forget ice and lemon altogether. Milk - Lauren and haven't had any in days . . . at least a week. The dietitian on this grand tour is wondering if the people in Paris and London suffer from Osteoporosis. We should be exposed to some milk here in Poland and we understand they have "milk bars" leftover from communist rule. We are quite certain we will find milk here - the question is will it be skim?

Supermarkets in France are very small. They carry a wide variety of items. You don't have to go many blocks before you will find one. People shop every other day or so for their food as they do not have the room to keep them in their apartments.
Bakeries abound. Beautiful things in London, gorgeous things in France. A feast for the eyes -before things ever get to your mouth. The choice and selection is fabulous. Desserts in Paris especially were so light - when you thought they would be so rich. The pastries and creams - seems to accent the fruit,chocolate or nuts - rather than overpower them. I think I would weigh a lot more if these kinds of treats were available to me everyday . . . so I am not going to suggest a startup company for this. Could you say no to this?


Whilst sitting on my balcony several nights ago in Paris, I got about 4 bug bites. I had packed a first aid kit - but I guess somehow subliminally I decided that Europe was too civilized for ants or mosquitos. So . . .I did not pack my 1% hydrocortisone cream. I usually would include this in any first aid kit. I can itch bug bites like crazy if they are unattended . . . but if I get the 1% cream on quickly after the bite discovery - the bit becomes a non-event. We went to a local pharmacy to look for the cream . . but could not find anything. We observed that ibuprofen was behind the counter, but in plain view. We wondered if this was so for the cream. I used my French phrase book for insect bite and itch and inquired with the pharmacist. He gave me a product that was unfamiliar to me and I said "hydrocortisone". He then communicated that I needed a prescription to buy this in France. I purchased the ointment he provided and it did the trick - though not as quickly or effectively as I would have liked.

The tables in a Paris restaurant are put together so closely that they have to move the chair and table out of the way to seat someone on the other side of the table. There are very few aisles between tables. This is wasted space - and there isn't much space to waste here.

Parissian's love their dogs. There were dogs in restaurants, in bike baskets, under tables, on the streets, being walked by their owner on a leash - and in the hotels. The hotels was the most surprising to me.

Smoking is not a thing of the past here. Smokers are everywhere. They have been banished from indoor restaurants - but they abound in the out of doors.

Paris was a cleaner city than our initial impression led us to believe. We always felt safe and enjoyed very much our stay there. I would like to come back one day and explore it in greater depth than 4 1/2 days can afford. It was very beautiful, the architecture was so harmonious. I was amazed how each neighborhood flowed and how they all blended together. It was really delightful to the eye. It was also very easy to get around in as far as the transport systems and high marks for great walking.

I am writing away on this blog as Lauren sleeps. It is the late afternoon in Krakow and Lauren simply could not hold herself up anymore. She was exhausted so we came back to the room to get some sleep. I too am exhausted ...but I know if I sleep now I will not succeed in going to sleep when I should . . . so I am blogging away.

I had arranged via the internet for Bob the Taxi driver to meet us at the airport and take us to our hotel. Bob did not meet us - but Bob's cousin did. He drove a Ford minivan. He said it was a European version and had a very small engine. He was a young man very pleasant and understood us -but spoke very broken English. We speak no Polish. Still, we chatted as best we could. He would show us the sights as we drove in to town. Some of the things he told us include: Krakow is a university town. It has much history and a lot of character and charm. He said they are thriving since the fall of communism and he knows of no one who wishes it back. He wondered why we had come so far to see Poland . . . we told him of the National Geographic article describing it as a "polished gem" and of Rick Steve's guidebook -referring to it as the "next Prauge for real" not just a wannabe. He said these were all true of Prague and he was very proud of the place he had lived all his life.

We are staying in the Jewish district called Kazimierz. I think that it spelled correctly - but I am not certain as I have just discovered that I have misplaced my guide book so I cannot look it up. I think I left it in the hotel lobby and have inquired about it. They think an employee picked it up - but they are looking for it now. I hope not to have lost it as it is our guide for not only Krakow, but also Prague and Vienna.

Back to the blog. We had four goals upon arrival: 1) Go to the hotel and hope for an early check-in (10am) but if not deliver our luggage for lockup at the hotel 2)eat lunch 3) buy a Polish phrase book (a need seemingly more urgent upon seeing the Polish signs and street signs - not only did we not know what they were - but we had no idea how to even try to pronounce them) 4)buy our train tickets to Prague. In doing the latter four things we would also accomplish getting a geographical layout of our home base for the next few days. The hotel was easy, our driver dropped us off at the doorstep. The bags went into lockup as our room would not be ready until 1pm. Lunch would have been easier if it was in third place instead of 2nd - but we managed our way through it. We found the train station before we found a bookstore -so we decided to wing it. After three counters we finally found an english speaking ticket saleswoman and got what we needed. This is another experience in humility as again - your inability to communicate makes you so dependent on the goodness of others. Many times we encounter people who are impatient with us if we do not understand instantly. It is difficult - even with a phrase book, because communication occurs so much faster than you can look it up in the book, and there are people in line behind us waiting to be served too. There was a Galeria outside of the train station. Neither Lauren nor I needed a phrase book to know what that meant . . . shopping! And any large shopping area should have a book store. We proceeded to the mall ... it was quite large and filled with 3 or 4 levels of shops and small department stores. Most of the names we saw were names we were familiar with. We walked around for a while until we found a mall map. The problem is .. if you don't know the Polish word for book - you don't know how to look it up in the mall index. You need a phrase book to know the word. It was a loop we were stuck in again. We found a bookstore - but no luck with phrase book - Lot's of polish to English . . . but none english to polish. Back inside the mall, we saw an advertising banner hanging from the middle of the ceiling that said "American Bookstore" and the level it was on. We had already circled this large mall a couple of times at other levels. Lauren found and electronic mall index and kept hitting categories until the American Bookstore name came up and voila we found the store, got our phrase book and were ready to pass out with exhaustion. We returned to our hotel, dragged our baggage up 3 flights of stairs and entered a very nice room -that was hot and stuffy with no air conditioning. (this is common for european hotels) We opened the windows -turned on the fan and settled in. It's very pleasant now as I blog this.

We have been to dinner at a mexican/latin restaurant this evening. It is not Tex Mex - but inspired by the cuisine of Mexican cities. The food was very good. We had a great spinach salad followed by enchiladas for me and quesadilla for Lauren. She has dubbed her quesadilla the best she has ever had. We used our polish dictionary to tell our waitress that. She spoke english, even telling us the specials for the evening in english, she was very welcoming to us. She apologized for her imperfect English and we assured her it was good english and contrasted it to the fact that we could not speak a word of Polish without our phrase book.

We officially have lost our Rick Steves guide book. Apparently someone has taken it from the lobby table I put it on. We spent time phone calling 2 bookstores in town today. One is the American Bookstore which we purchased our phrasebook from earlier today. The other is a used book store for english language books. We were able to obtain a lonely planet central european guidebook. We will miss our Rick Steve's book - it had so much history and information about each city and sight we went to. We walked throughout the city center again this evening on our way to and from the book store to obtain a new guidebook. The central square was all lit up. People were out everywhere, it's Friday night and a university town - so the bars and nightclubs were starting to wind up. The vodka was starting to flow. We ran across an anebriated woman and a young man who was urinating in the street - right in the path we were walking in. Despite this - I was in awe of the architecture as it was lit up in the early evening. Here is a preview of what we will see tomorrow when we explore the city center.






I have given Lauren the title of Pilot,Co-Pilot and Navigator. She is like a blood hound on the scent. She points me in a direction and I walk and look around at everything - then every once in a while she has to turn me in a new direction. She lands in the middle of Krakow . . . and our first venture out the door she takes us right where we need to go . . .every time. She is amazing. It is really a nice break of responsibility for me. Wow! She is fabulous.