Mini Eurotrip

Damn the weather.
So to be honest, I haven’t really started backpacking yet. Which makes me feel bad because 1) backpacking is cool and 2) blogabond is for backpackers. Well the site also says for independent travelers, which is what I am.
Woke up late this morning, 10:30-ish, but my hosts woke up even later (with evidence of heavy snoring). I got up, washed up, got dressed and headed out. You do remember today’s goals, right? So first stop, the SNCF store down the block, which is for domestic train travel only (I think – there was a long line so I used the automated machine, and only domestic trips were available. I searched for Nice to Paris, which is the only domestic trip that I’ll need. 90E, maybe I should look into getting that rail ticket.
The southern part of the 13th arrondissement is known as Chinatown, and so as I mentioned earlier, it’s like I never left Shanghai. Kinda… it just feels like all my friends left, and all the teachers left, and all the prices jumped up exponentially.
As I was exploring, a woman called out to me across the street, asking me if I spoke French. This is not your normal occurrence, so I crossed the street and we had a chat. Turns out she’s a reporter (for what I’ll never know; when I realized I had no idea, I turned around and she had already made great progress down the street.) She wanted to interview me about the Olympic Games (hence her presence in Chinatown). She asked me my opinion of them and what I thought about them, and I told her that I really support the Olympics and that everyone should as an entire world and not mix in politics. She must have been a newspaper reporter because she recorded my voice on a little magnetophone. (What a random word to remember… that and brancher).
Went to a bunch of grocery stores, looking around. First stop was an Asian grocery, so that I could compare the Asian grocery stores in America with the ones in China. I bought some water and some PEACH DRANK. Drinks are always more expensive if you want to buy them cold. Example: can sitting on shelf .50Euros, can sitting in refrigerated shelf .80Euros, can of soda bought on the street 2Euros. Crazy, n’est-ce pas?
Went on to an Ed (French chain of grocery stores) to buy some cheese for my picnic lunch. After looking around for a while, I went with some fromage du chêvre, 1.85 Euros for 200g. Compared to the States, a lot cheaper, and I do love me some goat cheese. I bought a baguette and headed over to a park. ( I stopped by an internet café to find some more locations that have the Paris Weefee.)
I had lunch in the Parc de Choisy, which is really close to the area that I am. My lunchtime entertainment? A xiao pangzi seeing how many times he could bounce his pingpong ball on his pingpong paddle, because he had no one to play with at the pingpong tables. I ended my meal and got online, chatted for a while before trying to figure out what to do next, when it started to rain! I closed up shop and looked for the bibliothèque, so that I could continue my conversations/ stay dry in doing so.
Explored Chinatown for a bit en cherchant la bibliothèque (et aussi dans le matin). It’s funny because the more things seem to change, the more they stay the same (don’t you hesitate…Girl put your records on…). No I mean, the more different things are, the more the similarities stand out. Outside Les Frères Tang (the largest Asian grocery store in Paris) were two sketchy looking Chinese guys, who at first glance seemed to be guarding a door. The place behind them looked closed down, so I thought it was a shady place, but upon closer inspection, they had Styrofoam boxes standing in front of them on their small side, serving as a table for little zip-up-able discreet bags, filled with – you guessed it, fake DVDs. As I looked around them, there were lots of people standing there selling DVDs, five to be exact, in a trapezoidal pattern. Next to them were those people that write your name in funny little animals and things. Further down the street, fruits and prepared foods, all which were hidden until you got up real close. Shanghai much? Or even Chinatown in New York. I wonder what the Chinatown in Shanghai is like, I don’t think we ever went, although you should feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.
The library also had this feel of consistency to it. The quietness, but more importantly, the over-proportional number of Asians. I don’t know whether this can be attributed to the fact that it’s a library or the fact that it was right by Chinatown, but I’m going to use it as a support, and thus I choose the former proposal. It was also a fight to get plugs, as everyone comes there to use the Weefee and stay dry. Luckily I had one most of the time, but selfish me shared with everyone around me, resulting in my laptop dying and so I went home to 1) recharge my battery, and 2) refrigerate the rest of the goat cheese.
The rain killed my plans to go to Paris Plage, to go bike riding around the city (on free bikes! Apparently these are common throughout Europe, in an effort to get people to go green, also while losing weight.
DIGRESSION.
Paris has gotten a lot fatter since I was here last. I thought I was going to make this a full digression, but I will have a whole section on since I was last here later.)
The rain was the kind that is like a flood, and then stops and clears up, and then God decides to rain on you very heavily some more. I generally like those kinds of rains because they’re cooling, and because the sun is out while it rains, it dries up right quick (and so you don’t have that lingering wetness feel), but this time, it kept going and going and going and it was not as fun as you think. And cold is cold, but sometimes it can get too cold.
I’m going to pretend this is where I stop, because this post is getting long. Here’s where I left my computer charging in my room and went to go explore without my laptop (gasp!).
I’m going out. Until I get back from my explorations.
James

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