Travel Log

Trip to Paris and Reykjavik

November 13-21, 2005

Phil, Rooney, Mike and Nick w/ Dan in Reykjavik

 

Day 1: Sunday, November 13

And so it begins. As I write this, I'm sitting on a plane at Logan airport waiting to take off. Together with my friends Rooney, Mike and Nick, I'm headed to Paris for four days and Reykjavik (Iceland) where we will be joined by our friend Dan for three more days. None of us have ever been to either of these placed before so we're really looking forward to getting a taste of what these cities have to offer.

 

I particularly need to get away from my house. My kitchen renovations (actually, more like a total gutting of everything) started this week and the place has been a complete mess. When I get back, I'm hoping the demolition (i.e. the messiest part) will be done and it'll "just" be a matter of putting everything back together (in 6 or so more weeks). We'll see how that goes!

 

For now, I'm going to sit back and try to get some sleep on this overnight flight to Paris (with a stop in Iceland). I'm really looking forward to a fun vacation!

 

Day 2: Monday, November 14

 

Depending on your point of view, it's either really early or really late right now. Officially, it's 7am in Iceland as we sit in the terminal waiting for our Paris-bound flight to board. In reality, it's 2am where I came from (Boston) or 8am where I'm headed (Paris).

 

The flight to Reykjavik was uneventful. Some bad food that mixed with the Houlihan's burger I'd eaten before we left Boston. It was kind of odd being on a flight were all the announcements were made first in Icelandic and then in English. As we were told, since Icelandair's passengers speak many different languages, all of the in-flight entertainment was in English so more people would be able to understand. I'm not sure if that was a jab at Americans inability to speak any language but their own. If so, the insult was well-deserved. That's all for now.... the plane is about to board.

 

The flight to Paris was equally uneventful. I slept most of the way, waking up only to eat some more really bad food. After we landed, I found out a little oddity about French restrooms. It was an open room with sinks on either side (women on the left, men on the right). There was a urinal tucked around a slight corner on the "men's" side. This meant you could lean back and look right at the line of women waiting for the ladies room as you were standing at the urinal doing your business. On the back wall, there were doors labeled "WC" that had toilets in them. As I was finished washing my hands, a female flight attendant came out of the water closet on the men's side. Very strange.

 

Our next goal was to find the train that would take us to the hotel. In the process of doing this, Nick left quite an impression on a couple of very cute young French women. As he was getting onto an elevator with all of his bags (he packed *a lot*), the elevator door closed right on him making a really loud noise. The two women on the elevator were looking at him and snickering the entire way down to the lower level. Needless to say, we did not make plans to have them show us around Paris during our stay!

 

After about 10 minutes of walking around, we finally figured out that we first needed to get on a shuttle bus that would take us to the RER train station. We bought a round-trip ticket and boarded the train into the city. After a 40 minute ride, we were at the Port Roayale train station on the edge of the Latin Quarter in Paris. Rooney kept pinching herself and saying "we're in Paris!". She's quite pleased.

 

It was about a 15-minute walk to the hotel from the train station. We're at the Serotel Lutece in the Latin Quarter. Initially, I was a little disappointed to discover this was a Best Western, but that quickly changed once we got inside to see this was quite a charming little place and not a generic "American-style" Best Western. Our rooms have a nice view of the quiet little street (Rue Berthollet) the hotel is on.

 

One of the interesting things about a place like this is things don't always work quite the way you expect. Rooney found this out when she got in the shower and couldn't figure out how to make the water start coming out of the shower head above instead of the spigot below. Since she knew that I had (apparently) just successfully done this, she wrapped herself in a towel and asked for some help. Unfortunately, I couldn't quite remember what I had done and it took us both a few minutes to figure out you had to push the button down and then pull it up. Yay us! The final bit of humor from all this was Rooney hurried through her shower because the tub was filling with water since she had closed the drain and couldn't figure out how to re-open it. She didn't want to ask for my help again!

 

We decided to start our visit to Paris with a narrated boat trip down the Seine. We took the metro to Pont de l'Alma near the Eiffel Tower and found the Batteau Parisiens. For 9.50 euros, they have an hour long narrated tour (in 12 languages) that leaves every 30 minutes. It takes you up and down the Seine right through the heart of Paris. We saw all of the sites near the river and learned a little bit of the history along the way. For whatever reason (probably to take better pictures), we decided to sit outside in the cold (it's about 45 F).

 

Even though we were freezing, it didn't take us long to realize that Paris is an incredibly beautiful city. Lots of amazing buildings that have been there for hundreds (or thousands) of years and have an interesting history to go along with them. For me, the most striking of them was the Cathedral de Notre Dame. It's built on the edge of the river on an island (Ille de la Cite) right in the middle of the city. It's a gothic style cathedral and its flying buttresses are stunning when viewed from the water.

 

Another one of my favorites was a building built for a World Expo (or something like that) in 1900. It's a very unique looking structure and we were seeing all of this at the perfect time of day. The sun was setting and the lights of the city were coming on. It made for quite a nice ride, but we still went into the glassed-in cabin to warm up for the last 10 minutes of the trip.

 

The next order of business was to find a place for dinner. It was after six and the only thing we had eaten all day was the awful food on the plane this morning. Finding a restaurant in Paris seems simple enough, there must be thousands of them. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite so simple. We crossed the river near the Eiffel Tower and found ourselves in 8e (the 8th arrondissement). We meandered around for about 30 minutes and had only managed to find 2 or 3 places, none very appealing. We finally decided to give one a try, but Mike went in and thought it was more like a cigar bar than a restaurant.

 

We had finally decided to give up and head back to the area near the hotel when we stumbled upon La Mascotte, a little restaurant on Ave Marceau near the river. We gave it a try and the highlight of the meal was the cute, older French couple sitting behind us trying to let Rooney know she had plenty of room to move her chair further back. Rooney responded by pushing the table and chair further away. The older gentleman smiled at this but finally managed to get his point across and we all had a bit of a laugh at the language barrier. The meal itself was nothing special, but we were just glad to have some food in us after a long day.

 

One final note about our (near futile) search for food: one of the restaurant-free streets we walked down was Ave du President Wilson. I assume this was a reference to the former U.S. president and I found it odd the French would honor this particular president in that way.

 

It was still pretty early when we finished dinner (about 8:30) so we decided to keep ourselves awake by walking the nearly 4 miles back to the hotel. We walked along the right bank, including the path right next to the river for a good part of the way. This might not have been the best idea since there were some sketchy looking people hanging out in a couple of spots (especially near a few tents set up under a bridge). Fortunately, nothing happened.

 

It was actually kind of neat seeing the sites of the city on foot after having viewed them from the boat a few hours before. One site we hadn't seen from the boat was the Pantheon. This is a very Romanesque looking structure in the Latin Quarter that currently serves as a secular mausoleum for some of the most famous (former) residents of the city. You can see the Eiffel Tower from its front steps, but unfortunately the tower is not quite centered on the street you're looking down. I joked that it would be nice if they could just move the tower a little bit to the left!

 

We got back to the hotel around 11 and none of had any trouble falling asleep. All in all, this was a great way to start our vacation. We got a nice overview of the highlights of the city and now have a bit of a feel for what we want to do the next few days. Should be fun!

 

Day 3: Tuesday, November 15

 

Today, we walked. The day started off with a small breakfast at the hotel that was included with our Icelandair vacation package. Our original plan had been to go to the Louvre this morning, but it was a bright, sunny day when we woke up so we decided it would be best to go up the Eiffel Tower first. It was also a good day for walking so we walked the 2.5 miles over to the Eiffel Tower. Along the way, we went through Jardin du Luxemburg. Even though winter is nearly here and many of the flowers were no longer in bloom, the garden was still quite nice and well worth the visit.

 

From the garden, we meandered through the streets of the St. Germain neighborhood as we headed towards the Eiffel Tower. I love to walk the streets of a city to get a feel for what it would be like to live there. It didn't take long for me to decide that I really like Paris. Lots of nice neighborhoods with some interesting architectural details and contrasting styles. We found one particular place along the way kind of odd: one building had charming turn of the century rote-iron balconies. Right next door (seemingly connected) was this ugly 1970's monstrosity.

 

Another stop along the way was Bon Marche, a French department store. In many ways, this was similar to the big stores back home. A wide variety of stuff, including what appeared to be a supermarket. Mike noted one difference: walking through this store felt more like being in a museum than stores in the U.S. do. For some reason, this was especially noticeable in the women's clothing section. I'm not sure why this is so, but there you have it.

 

We finally arrived at the Eiffel Tower, bought our tickets (3.60 euros) and started our journey upwards. We felt we had not done enough walking :-) so we decided to climb the stairs as far as we could go. It was kind of neat climbing through the steel framework of the tower and they had placed little signs with stories about the history of the tower along the way. They made for a nice little diversion when stopped to catch your breath during the climb.

 

The first observation level of the tower is relatively large with a couple of restaurants and other shops ready to take you money. The next observation deck isn't quite as big but we realized two things from here. First, the only way to keep going up from here was to take an elevator. Second, there was an added 3.40 euro charge to do so! We didn't understand why they couldn't have just sold you one 7 euro ticket at the bottom.

 

The view from the top was worth it. It was nice to see how all of the places we had walked past in the previous 24 hours fit together in the city. I took lots of pictures and we also spent some time chatting with a couple from New York City.

 

Given that it was getting too late to visit the Louvre, we decided to head over to the Montmarie neighborhood near Basilique de Sacre Coeur. The easiest way to do this was to walk a little over a mile to the Assemblee Nationale metro stop. We figured we would stumble across a sandwich shop or something for lunch along the way. This (once again) wasn't as easy as it seemed it should have been. We did eventually find a little "Mom and Pop" type place on a side street, but finding this was more of a challenge than we thought it would be. Fortunately, the sandwiches were quite good.

 

Montmarie is a little hill a half mile or so from the Seine. It's a neat neighborhood to walk through since it is built into the hillside. At the top is a church with a square next to it where local artists were selling their work. I didn't like anything enough to spend the 70-80 euros they were charging. Instead, I spent 4 euros on a print with the Arc de Triumph and Eiffel Tower on it. I'm sure I'll probably spend well over $100 having it framed back home!

 

The Basilica itself looked really interesting from the outside. It's especially impressive since it stands out at the top of the hill. Unfortunately, I was not as impressed with the inside, at least relative to other churches I've seen

elsewhere in Europe.

 

It was raining pretty hard when we left the Basilica so we decided to walk down Montmarie in search of a place to stop for a drink. We ended up at a café on Rue des Abbesses near Rue Lepic. It was a nice little place and we had a good time chatting over a couple of bottles of wine. Nick decided to play a little joke on Rooney by pretending to use the highly visible urinal (similar to the restroom I had used at the airport) as Rooney was coming out of the unisex WC nearby. It was hard to tell if she was amused by Nick's little stunt.

 

We let Rooney use her credit card to buy the wine so we could give her some cash. Unlike the rest of us, she has been unable to get money from the ATM. Apparently, European ATMs expect at most 6 digits in your PIN. Rooney has 7. Oh well, after buying the wine, she felt some measure of independence to finally have a bit of cash in her pocket.

 

After the wine, we walked past Molin Rouge, the club a recent movie (and book/play?) was named after. I led us astray as we walked from there to the Metro. We took the wrong street out of the square (partially because we did not want to follow this woman who was apparently trying to sell us something). Oh well, we ended up walking an extra 10 minutes in the rain to the next Metro stop.

 

With the rain tonight, we did not want to walk around too long in search of a place to eat dinner, especially after our first two attempts to find a place to eat. Thus, we headed back to the hotel to ask the concierge for a recommendation. He pointed us to two places on Rue Mouffetard less than a five minute walk from the hotel. There were dozens of restaurants on this street and both of the recommended places looked good. We picked Jardin d'Ivry and sat down for an excellent "Menu du Jour". For 19 euros, you got a main course and either an appetizer or dessert. We shared the appetizers and desserts. Even though we were the only ones in the restaurant, all of the food was excellent and we agreed this was our first truly memorable (in a positive way!) dining experience of the trip.

 

After dinner, we walked down the street a few doors to a pub called the Roadhouse. They had several kinds of beer (3 or 4) I had never heard of so I made it my goal to try them all. I succeeded and, except for Nick who left around midnight, we all drank quite a bit (especially given the three bottles of wine we'd consumed before we got there). We actually found one beer (Almagen, I think) that Rooney and Mike really liked. They had one of their own near the end of the night.

 

My favorite quote of the day came from Mike. It was probably over dinner where we were talking about the wide variety of women he had seen today. His reply went something like "Women are like ice cream flavors. You just want to try them all". Good luck with that Mike!

 

It was nearly 2am when Rooney, Mike and I stumbled back to the hotel. This was definitely an entertaining day walking the streets of Paris!

 

Day 4: Wednesday, November 16

 

Somehow, Rooney managed to drag herself out of bed this morning in time to meet Nick for an 8am breakfast downstairs. The motivation for this: they attended the 9am mass at Notre Dame. I had no such luck and didn't finish breakfast and leave the hotel to meet them at Notre Dame until 9:50. Given that Notre Dame was a 25 minute walk, there was no way I was going to meet Nick at Rooney at 10am as planned. At least I was doing better than Mike who had apparently just gotten of bed when I knocked on his door as I left. We agreed I'd just catch up with him for the 12:00 guided tour at Notre Dame we had all planned to attend.

 

As expected, Nick and Rooney weren't around when I arrived at Notre Dame. I looked around for a bit but decided I'd do my own thing until the tour began. I first climbed the steps to the top of the cathedral (a 7 euro charge). I liked seeing the gargoyles and a huge bell up close. Unfortunately, the very top of the bell tower was closed so I didn't get to see the view from up there. No problem, the view of the Seine from the places I did go was still quite nice.

 

Back down on the plaza, the others were still nowhere to be found so I headed off to explore Ille de la Cite. I noticed a park at the point on the other end of the island during our boat ride on Monday so I walked down to check it out. It was a small little park with a gate I didn't think I could go through. Oh well, I was still able to walk out to the very tip of the island as I had wanted to do.

 

Right across the Pont Neuf bridge from there is Smartine, a department store Mike had read had a good (and free!) view of the city on the top floor. I walked over hoping to go up there, but the store was closed for renovations. Odd timing given the holidays are (almost) here, but perhaps I'll climb up there on my next trip to Paris....

 

The others were still nowhere to be found in front of the cathedral so I headed for the park around the side. There was once again a little gate the entryway, but this time I watched as someone just pushed it open and walked right through. Foolish me! I could have done exactly the same thing at the park on the other end of the island. I walked through the park all the way around the cathedral and once again really liked the view of the flying buttresses on the other side.

 

By now, it was almost noon and the other three were waiting for me at the entrance to the cathedral. We found an English speaking tour guide and were a little surprised to find out it was a 90-minute tour. Needless to say, there were a lot of details. The front of the cathedral has a lot of very intricate and beautiful stone work. Each little sculpture has a story and I enjoyed hearing the meaning behind many of these sculptures, stained glass windows and paintings. I am amazed at how many different ways they found to symbolize almost every aspect of the Catholic faith. There were even some non-Catholic symbols since the door on the left had the astrological signs carved in stone around it. Overall, Notre Dame is one of the most beautiful churches I have been to and I am glad I had the chance to visit.

 

It was now well past lunch time and we headed back to the Left Bank to find a place to eat. Mike had read about a restaurant called Salon del Formi Alie and we decided to give it a try. It was excellent. It had an outstanding Menu du Jour and our waiter was very friendly. He took a special liking to Rooney, even bringing her a small taste of red wine to "bring out the flavor" of the cheese dish he had talked her into ordering. We teased Rooney about the interest this waiter took in her, but she insisted that he had to be gay. We thought he was just very French and it brought up the question: French or gay? It's sometimes hard to tell! :-)

 

The only drawback to this place: it took a long time for us to eat and by the time we got out of there, it was almost 3:30. On the walk over to the Louvre, we stopped at Shakespeare and Company, the most famous English language bookstore in Paris. Interesting enough, but we can go to bookstores back home so we only

stayed a few minutes.

 

The Louvre is immense. The building itself surrounds two huge outdoor courtyards. We walked through both of them on the way to the main entrance under I.M. Pei's glass pyramids. Once we got our tickets, checked our bags and picked up our audio guide, we headed straight towards the Louvre's most famous resident: The Mona Lisa. It was nice to see the famous smile in person, but it was really crowded in that gallery so we all moved on.

 

It wasn't long before we split up and went our own way. I mostly concentrated on French paintings since there's way too much here to even attempt to see it all. Where it was available, the audio tour was pretty informative. Unfortunately, once you got away from the big galleries near the Mona Lisa, very few rooms had any paintings with a description available on the audio tour. Bummer.

 

We met back down in the main lobby around 6:30 to compare notes and decide what to do next. While having a drink of water, we once again ran into the couple from New York we had seen at the top of the Eiffel Tower. Small world.

 

None of us felt like we had yet seen everything we wanted to so we went as a group to check out some of the things we had missed. I in particular had not yet seen a couple of the important sculptures, including "Venus de Milo" and Michelangelo's "The Dying Slave". Unfortunately, we got a little lost (did I mention the Louvre is huge?) going between some of the galleries. By 8:00, we had had enough and decided to head out.

 

I'm glad I saw (parts of) the Louvre, but I must admit it's just a bit overwhelming. So much art that I'm sure I breezed past some really important (and beautiful) pieces without even realizing it. Oh well.

 

Our next goal was to find a place to eat dinner. We went back to Rue Moufetard and ended up at a little pizza place on a square called Place do la Contrescarpse. The pizza was quite odd. For example, Mike ordered a ham pizza and it came with whole pieces of ham that had not even been sliced up. The pizzas themselves weren't cut into pieces and I commented that I felt very French for eating the entire thing using a fork and knife instead of just my hands. The others were not amused.

 

The saving grace of this restaurant was the outstanding chocolate mouse Nick and I had for dessert. Kind of ironic getting good chocolate mouse at a pizza place in Paris, but who cares? It tasted good.

 

After buying some water at a Super March (for a fifth the cost I'd paid in the tourist areas earlier), we called it an early night and headed back to the hotel. We all logged onto the internet using the computer in the hotel lobby and each of us were annoyed by the strange French keyboard we had to use. For example, the Q and the A keys had been swapped. Not sure why, but it made me go back to "hunt and peck" typing I haven't used since before my high school typing class. Frustrating, but I somehow muddled through. The end of another enjoyable day in Paris!

 

Day 5: Thursday, November 17

 

Today was our last full day in Paris and it got off to kind of a slow start. We had planned to leave the hotel at 9:30, but Rooney and I were still asleep at 9:15 when Nick knocked on the door to check on us. Our first stop was running an errand with Rooney. Our friend Sandi had a temporary work assignment in Paris a few years ago and she had asked Rooney to pick up some facial cream for her at a place across the street from where she used to live. Her old home was on a charming little square on Rue Vavin and Run Brea about a 20-minute walk from the hotel.

 

Sandi had also told Rooney about some good creperies on Blvd Edgar Quinet nearby so we decided to give one a try. We figured crepes would be good for a late breakfast but were surprised to find out the creperies don't open until noon. After a brief debate, we had a cup of coffee (tea for me!) in a café while we waited for the creperie to open. The crepes were excellent and we were all glad we had waited around to try them.

 

Rooney is a huge fan of Impressionist painting and really wanted to see the Mussee de l'Orangerie today, but it has been closed for renovations for many years. While confirming this with the concierge before leaving the hotel this morning, the concierge recommended another museum (Musse Marmottan-Monet) that has over 100 of Monet's paintings in it. We decided to check it out.

 

The museum is in 16e on the edge of central Paris so it's a little further out than we had yet been. We took the number 6 metro train to get there and were treated to a nice view of the Eiffel Tower as the train went above ground over the Seine. We still had a bit of a walk to the museum and we recognized many (but not all) of the brand names as we walked past the stores on Rue de Passy towards the museum. It was kind of like a little shopping mall, but much more charming since we were outside on the streets of Paris.

 

The Monet's on display at the museum were *very* nice. Several versions of his recognizable paintings (Watter Lillies, Parliament, etc). My favorite was Soliel Levant, the painting that has been called the first true impressionist work of art. The one disappointment at the Mussee de Marmottan-Monet was the top floor of this converted mansion contained a collection of sculptures none of us were really interested in seeing. Normally, paintings by other impressionists (Pissaro, Renoir, Degat and Manet to name a few) are on display here. Too bad. I guess we have a reason to come back.

 

Next up was a walk through another shopping area on Ave Victor Hugo towards the Arc de Triumph. Rooney decided she'd rather spend some time shopping and then head over to our final stop of the day (Mussee d'Orsay) a little earlier. She's been looking forward to this museum all week and wanted to make sure she had plenty of time there. Unfortunately, we forgot to give her a few euros of spending money before she left since the money we gave her for paying for the wine on Tuesday was gone. Oh well, she had a credit card and plenty of Metro tickets so we figured she'd have no problem meeting us at the Mussee d'Orsay at 6:00 as planned.

 

We left Rooney at Place Victor Hugo and "the guys" walked another block up the street to Rue LeRoux. LeRoux is Mike's last name and he wanted to take a picture in front of this street to match the one his parents had taken when they were in Paris a few years ago. This picture went well with the one we made Nick pose for standing in front of the Nicolas wine store earlier today! After our brief detour, we got on the metro for one stop to the Arc de Triumph. With all the walking we've been doing, we still have tons of Metro tickets to use so we're going to use the subway a little more often.

 

Crossing the street to get to the Arc de Triumph is nearly impossible. Twelve of Paris' major avenues intersect at a huge rotary that circles the Arc and you'd be taking your life into your own hands trying to cross. Fortunately, there is a tunnel under the street that also serves as the place to buy your admission to the Arc.

 

The view from the top is spectacular. Perhaps my favorite view of the city. The Eiffel Tower is particularly stunning from here, but there are also good views of the Seine, Sacre Coeur and the rest of Paris. The sun was teasing us while we were up there. Much of the sky was cloud free, but one of the few bands of clouds happened to be directly between us and the sun. We tried to make the best of it by taking what we hope will be some interesting pictures with parts of Paris in bright sunlight and other parts in the shadows. We'll see how that turns out.

 

Next up was a brief walk down Ave des Champs Elysees. There are many more upscale shops here than on the streets we walked down earlier. We stopped into a car showroom hoping to see one the tiny little Smart Cars up close. Unfortunately, we weren't in the right place and decided to just catch the subway to Musee d'Orsay. After getting on the subway for one stop in the wrong direction, we got out near the Jardin des Tuileries in front of the Louvre. It's a very picturesque garden and it's only a short walk across the Seine to the Musee d'Orsay.

This museum specializes in art from the 1840's to 1914 and all four of us had been looking forward to visiting it. We left it until tonight because it's open late on Thursdays and we wanted to leave ourselves plenty of time. Nick, Mike and I arrived a little before five, picked up the audio tour and started off on the "recommended" path through the museum that takes you through the pieces in roughly chronological order.

 

The audio guide here was actually very good. It had lots of information on the story behind one or more pieces in almost every gallery. One of the interesting things I learned was about Manet's Olympia, a painting of a female nude figure that caused quite a stir at an 1863 exhibition. One of the reasons for this: the figure was looking directly at you instead of "into space" as was the custom up until then. I had just barely started looking through the Impressionist galleries on the third floor when 6:00 rolled around and it was time to go meet up

with the group out front.

 

Unfortunately, when I got to the designated meeting place (in front of the audio tour desk), Rooney was nowhere to be found. We were a little surprised at this since she had been looking forward to this museum all week. We figured she wasn't there yet and took turns waiting out front in case something had happened and she was unable to get in (she didn't have any money). By 7:30, we were starting to panic thinking something really bad must have happened. We called the hotel to see if she was there and started pondering what we should do in the "worst case" scenario if she was nowhere to be seen at bedtime. None of us were really enjoying the museum any longer so we decided to turn in our audio tour and figure out what to do.

 

It was a good thing we did so since there was a note from Rooney attached to the driver's license I had used as "collateral" for the audio tour. It said she had gone to another exhibit and would meet us back here at 7:00 or at the hotel. While we were all relieved she was OK, we were a little miffed by the whole thing since the worrying we'd done had kind of diminished our experience at the museum. We no longer had our audio tour and we didn't understand what could have been important enough to make her do something so out of character.

 

We found out at dinner. After a brief stop at the hotel, we left her a note letting her know we'd gone to L'Huitre et Demie on Mouffetard across from the restaurant we were at Tuesday. We had just ordered our meal when Rooney came in. We let her know we were a little displeased and after a short but intense exchange, we learned it wasn't so much Musee d'Orsay Rooney wanted to see, but two particular Renoir's in there. She had loved these two pieces ever since she saw their companion piece at the MFA in Boston as a child.

 

While we were understandably annoyed that she had apparently "blown us off" at the museum, she was equally understandably annoyed at what we had done. We had left the big thing she wanted most to do until the last day and she almost missed it. She didn't find out until about 5:00 that "her paintings" were on loan to a gallery in a somewhat sketchy neighborhood across town. That gallery closed at 7:00 so there was no way she could have met us at 6:00 and still gotten to see the primary thing she came to Paris for. She had tried to get a message to

us through the clerks at the audio tour booth, but all they did is attach the note to my license where we didn't see it until we gave up waiting and decided to leave. All in all, the whole thing was a big misunderstanding. Everyone had done some things right... and some things wrong. After talking it over while enjoying another excellent meal, we all agreed this would have made an excellent plot for a sitcom like Friends!

 

All of us were in the mood to drink tonight and the two bottles of wine at dinner weren't enough. We made a return visit to the Roadhouse tavern to enjoy a few more beers. At one point in the evening, we heard a woman at the table next to us say "I never had sex in my parent's bed" and we realized they were playing "I Never". This was a game we had all played together back home many times. It was kind of a neat little coincidence that we happened to sit down next to a table of people playing the same game. We struck up a conversation and learned they were lawyers from London temporarily working in Paris. Strange how things work out sometimes. By 1am, we'd had enough beer and once again stumbled back to the hotel. I think all of us are a little sad this was our last night in Paris. There's so much more to see.

 

Day 6: Friday, November 18

 

Today was a travel day. We got a leisurely start and headed out around 10am. We walked back to the Port Royale station we'd been to on Monday. It all seemed so much more familiar now than it had just four days before, but we still have plenty to learn about living in Paris. There were two different RER lines that come into this station and we didn't realize the way you tell which line a given train is on was by looking at a sign above the platforms. The stops a given train will make are highlighted there. We just blindly got on a train and didn't know until someone helped us figure it out at the next station that we had "lucked out" and gotten on the right one. Another lesson learned.

 

One thing we noticed on the trip to the airport: there is a lot of poverty here once you get outside the center of Paris. The neighborhoods look a little scary (at least from the train). The people getting on at these stations are not nearly as well dressed. It just has a more depressing feel and it came as no surprise to us that these were the areas where the recent riots occurred. A few weeks ago, thousands of cars had been burned up every night in areas just like these. Many of our friends and family were concerned about us going to Paris, but it has turned out fine. In spite of my joking beforehand about how I wanted to incite a riot while here, I never felt like we were in a place where that could have happened even if someone had tried. While violence never seems like a good idea, judging by the look of the neighborhoods we saw from the train, I can see why the people here feel as if they are not welcome in French society.

 

We made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare and sat around in the relatively ugly terminal waiting for our flight to board. The flight to Reykjavik was once again uneventful with more bad food. Once we landed, Rooney was pleased that she was able to get some money from the bank at the airport. Until she thought about how easy it had been. The ATM still didn't accept her PIN, but a teller at the bank let her use her ATM card to withdraw some cash without using the PIN... or even asking Rooney for some ID. Kind of scary how easy it would have been for someone to steal (or even just "find") the card and withdraw cash.

 

Reykjavik is set up specifically for travelers like us (i.e. doing a "layover" on a trip between the U.S. and Europe). It is very easy (though somewhat expensive at ~ $50 roundtrip) to catch a bus from the airport into town. It's about a one hour ride and they dropped us off right at the Hotel Fron on the main street in town. Our new traveling companion (Dan) had arrived at 7am and the Hotel Fron had let him check into the room right away in spite of the early hour.

 

Our room is exceptionally nice. Five (single) beds, two bedrooms, a large kitchenette/dining room/living room area and another space where two of the beds were set up. There is even a room that we have affectionately nicknamed "Tanya's Room". It's a tiny little space (6x8 feet) that you have to step up to waist level to enter. At first, we thought it was a sauna or something, but there are no lights or anything else inside so that is not it. Apparently, its shape is due to how the building is constructed. We have called it Tanya's room because our friend Tanya had expressed an interest in coming on the trip and was willing to sleep on the floor of our room. She didn't join us, but it would have been funny to see her attempt to sleep on the floor in this odd little space.

 

By now, it was almost 7pm local time and all of us were starving. We walked down the main street in town for a while before settling on a place called Oliver's. Everything in Iceland is expensive and Oliver's was no exception. $30 entrees. $50 (minimum) bottles of wine. $12 desserts. You get the picture. Fortunately, all of it was excellent. We all loved our meals and Oliver's had an added bonus. Attractive women. Almost all of the waitresses and other female patrons were good looking blondes. It turned out this was a very common theme in Iceland.

 

After dinner, we decided to do as the Reykjavikians (?) do on Friday nights: pub crawl. Our first stop was a little place called 22 that Nick latter read was a popular "gay" hangout. We didn't notice that, but we were surprised to see that beers cost 600 Kronurs or about $9 each. Talk about sticker shock! For the next two nights, we decided we'd try to "prime the pump" by getting some beer and drinking in the hotel room before going out. After a stop at another little place, the group had dwindled to just Mike, Dan and I. We headed over to a place called Pravda that looked like it might be fun. It probably would have been.... if we were in our late teens! It was quite a young crowd and, to top it off, it wasn't all that crowded so the people watching wasn't too good. Oh well. We decided to call it a night and were pleased to see Reykjavik's "legendary" nightlife wasn't a complete myth since there were noticeably more people on the street at 2:30am than there had when we walked to dinner earlier. Reykjavik promises to be a fun town.

 

Day 7: Saturday, November 19

 

Today was a day to explore Reykjavik. We got a relatively late start (10:30 or so) and basically spent the rest of the morning and much of the afternoon walking around town. We started with a walk down to the water and a beautiful view of the mountains across the bay. Next up was a small breakfast at a coffee shop down the street from the hotel. After breakfast and a brief stop at a local book store, we decided to roughly follow the Lonely Planets "architectural tour" of Reykjavik. It was mostly just a way to meander around town. The streets of Reykjavik are perhaps just as charming as the streets of Paris, but in a different way. It's a much smaller town (~200,000 people) and almost has a large fishing village or ski town kind of feel to it. Though it's tough to find a fishing village where so many bars stay open until 6am!

 

After wandering up and down the hill near the Canadian and French embassies, we found ourselves near a very scenic lake in the middle of town. City Hall is on one side of this lake and we went inside to check out the 3D map of Iceland we had read about in Lonely Planet. Unfortunately, there was a conference about to begin and the map had been put away for the day. Bummer. The building itself was still nice to see and the reflections in the semi-frozen lake made for some excellent pictures (I hope).

 

We next walked up another hill to Hallgrimskirka, the largest church in Iceland. For 300 Kronurs ($5), you can take an elevator to the top of the bell tower and a great view of the city. The multi-colored rooftops and varied architecture are (obviously) quite visible from here. Well worth the trip.

 

By now, we were getting hungry and Dan had a taste for pizza so we headed off to find some. We ended up at a place down the street from the hotel called Rossopomodoro. It was really good and actually somewhat reasonably priced (by Icelandic standards, at least). $20 pizzas. $10 appetizers. After 3 pizzas and an order of brushetta, we were all full and had spent less than $100. Funny how our standards of "cheap" had changed in just 24 hours!

 

Nick spent most of lunch trying to figure out where the church with the English language mass was located. He and Rooney wanted to go there at 6pm. Mike, Dan and I opted for another option: a dip in the geo-thermal pool at Arbaejarlaug. This place was a little outside the center of town so we had to take a bus to get there. Apparently, they recently re-did the bus system so very few people knew what bus we needed to take. We figured it out (the number 5 bus), but probably still would not have gotten to the pool if the bus driver had not taken a slight detour to drop us off just up the street from the pool.

 

The geo-thermal pool was a really interesting experience. Iceland has made excellent use of its geo-thermal resources to do everything from generate power to supply hot water directly to everyone's home (i.e. no need for hot water heaters) to building outdoor public pools all over the country that are in use year round in spite of the cold climate. This place had a large wading pool, a separate lap pool, "hot pots" of varying temperatures (up to 110 degrees F), a steam room and even a water slide. All outdoors. The clientele was mostly families with young children who must have lived in the suburban looking developments nearby. I thought it was great to see so many people swimming in what we would consider weather much too miserable (40 degrees F and occasional rain) to be outside in a swim suit.

 

Speaking of swim suits, there's an interesting little ritual you have to follow at pools in Iceland. After paying the entrance fee (220 Kronur or about $3), you go into the locker room, take your clothes off and carry your swim suit down to the shower. There's an amusing little sign in there with a diagram of the body where the areas you are supposed to wash with particular care covered in red. They even provide soap in the shower to make sure this is done. Once finished, you put your suit on and head out to the pool.

 

The pool itself was a lot of fun. We took advantage of all the facilities it had to offer, including several trips down the water slide. I even did a few laps and we struck up a brief conversation with some locals in one of the "hot pots". We had the distinct feeling that we were perhaps the only "tourists" who had made the trip out here tonight. One of the odd things about this: we could not understand any of the conversations happening around us since everyone was (understandably) speaking Icelandic. On the flip side, all of them probably understood what we were saying since they speak decent English. I think it's kind of amazing that such a small country (<300,000 people) has such a rich culture. Their own language, music, literature, etc. Being on an island definitely helps this, but it's admirable nonetheless and I really enjoy experiencing a little bit of the "local" culture when I'm traveling in a foreign country.

 

After our swim, we got dressed and tried to find the bus back into the center of town. We were unable to find the correct stop and went into a grocery store to ask for help. The first guy we asked kind of laughed at us saying that "no one" in Iceland takes the bus. Fortunately, he also asked us where we were going and volunteered to give us a ride back into town.

 

This guy's name was "Anarg" or something like that and he worked as a cameraman for Icelandic TV. He told us stories all the way back into town. One of the interesting ones was about how he was attempting to film a spot featuring the director of the public bus company driving a bus and interacting with the passengers as they got on and off the bus. Unfortunately, no one got on the bus in 30 minutes of filming. I guess he has a good reason for saying that Icelanders do not use public transportation (everyone owns a car).

 

Anarg also provided us with some information on a debate we've been having since arriving in Reykjavik: what keeps the Icelandic economy alive? Lonely Plant talks about cod fishing generating more revenue per Icelandic resident than oil generates for each person in Saudi Arabia. There is also a strong tourist industry here and the geo-thermal power can greatly diminish the country's reliance on imported oil. Anarg added another piece: Iceland's banks were de-regulated a few years ago and have been doing extremely well. Couple all of that with a young population that works even harder than it parties (60-80 hour work weeks) and I guess it explains what makes the economy go. I'd still like to learn more.

 

After dropping us off near the hotel, we thanked Anarg and gave him our e-mail addresses so we could return the favor if he is ever in Boston. Who knows if that will happen, but it was really neat to encounter the kindness of a stranger in a foreign country.

 

One final thing Anarg told us about: liquor stores close at 6 so our plan of getting some beer and "priming the pumps" at the hotel before going out was in jeopardy since it was almost 8:00 by now. Fortunately, the mini-bar in the hotel room came to the rescue. While getting ready to go out, we sat around the living room and polished off *every* ounce of alcohol they had stocked the mini-bar with. Drinking this was actually cheaper than paying for drinks at the bars. The beers were "only" 400 Kronur ($6) instead of the 600 that seemed to be the going rate at bars. Did I mention Iceland was expensive?

 

For dinner tonight, we headed off to a place called Tapas. As you can probably guess, they serve Spanish-style Tapas (i.e. smaller portions so each person needs 3-5 servings to fill up). This was an ideal meal because none of us were very hungry so we could order only as many of the small portions as we needed to fill up. All of the dishes were really good, including the Puffin. A Puffin is a cute little bird found in Iceland (and elsewhere, I'm sure). The rest of the group was somewhat hesitant to order something that looked so cute in pictures, but I managed to convince them to give it a try. This turned out to be one of our favorite dishes (of the 10-12 we ordered). The meat had a smoky flavor to it and they served it in an interesting blueberry (I think) sauce. Well worth the experience, though Dan complained there hadn't been enough alcohol in the three carafes of sangria we had polished off and he was "losing his mini-bar buzz".

 

We attempted to solve this problem by drinking a few pints of Guiness at the Dublinor nearby. We've tried the Icelandic beers and the only one we kind of like is Viking. Even that is not very good so some pints of Guiness at an Irish pub seemed like a good idea. The atmosphere in there was kind of nice. A cover band playing softly enough we could still talk. This was a good thing because somewhere in the course of this evening a nickname was born. Nick is the youngest member of our group by a couple of years so we've started calling him "Junior". Dan and I have gone one step further and taken to making comments to him about things like "what a good boy he is" or "asking if he's finished his homework". It's kind of fun.

 

Our next stop was a place called Vegemot. There was a line to get in, but this ended up working out OK. A cute blonde (did I mention Iceland has lots of these?) in line behind us struck up a conversation with Mike and Dan. When she found out we were from Boston, she perked up because she had spent the previous summer in New England and loved Mike's Pastries in Boston's North End. Dan tried to convince her that Mike owned this shop. She was skeptical and replied by telling us she was the president of Iceland. Just to be safe, she still posed for a picture with Mike and the look on his face in this picture is hilarious. A big shit-eating grin that screams something like this is the best thing that has ever happened to me! Priceless.

 

Unfortunately, the line was moving really slowly, so she left before going inside. Shortly after that, Mike and Nick called it a night and went back to the hotel. It turns out they should have stuck around because Rooney, Dan and I were inside less than 10 minutes after they left. It was wall to wall people. We ordered a few beers and found a place to stand. Amazingly enough, we looked up and you'll never guess who we saw.... the "president" of Iceland. Apparently, she hadn't left the line to go elsewhere. Instead, she just went to the secret back entrance reserved for good-looking women!

 

Before the beer was gone, Rooney went back to the hotel. Dan and I stuck around until after 4 soaking up the atmosphere and enjoying the scenery. This is what we imagined Reykjavik nightlife was supposed to be like!

 

Day 8: Sunday, November 20

 

Our plan today is to rent a car and explore the country outside of Reykjavik. After being up until 4:30 last night, I managed to drag myself out of bed (with some prompting from Junior) at 8:30 to go down to the front desk and make arrangements for the car. Someone from the Berg rental car company picked all of us up at 10 and took us to the rental car agency which happened to be near the pool we had visited last night (side note on that: Rooney and Nick also tried to go to a geo-thermal pool before church last night. Unfortunately, they ended up at what Rooney described as a YMCA! Indoors. No hot water. Very funny.).

 

For about $120, we rented a large, diesel-powered SUV big enough for all of us. Our plan for the day is to visit the "Golden Circle": Pingvellir National Park, the waterfall at Gullfoss and the world's original geyser at (appropriately enough) Geysir. After that, we plan to head down to the Blue Lagoon for a night-time swim in geo-thermally heated mineral water. Should be a full day.

 

We didn't have to get very far out of Reykjavik to realize what a beautiful country Iceland is. Snow-covered peaks. Vast planes. Emptiness. Every few minutes, we were tempted to get out of the car and soak it all in. Or at least take a few pictures. Dan commented how he often felt like he sees his entire vacation squinting through the lens of a camera.

 

Anyway, we did indeed make several roadside stops along the 40km ride to Pingvellir. This area of the country is steeped in history. Apparently, the first Icelandic parliament met here in 930AD. It continued to serve a role in Icelandic government until the 1700's when all of its remaining powers were moved to Reykjavik. The only reason I know all of this is the write-up in the Lonely Planet since we skipped the historic sites and concentrated on the picturesque lake nearby instead. We drove down a road near the lake, stopping frequently for pictures.

 

Once back on the main road, we made a brief wrong turn and then were surprised to discover a sign in front of our intended route (Highway 365, I believe) saying the road was "Impassable". We stopped at the visitor's center nearby where someone told us they had just come down that way and we should be fine in our SUV. We were. This road went up over a little mountain range. Though it did have many large pot holes and a few small wash outs, Mike had no difficulty getting us through. I'm sure it will come as no surprise to hear we stopped frequently for pictures.

 

On the other side of the mountain, we got back on the main highway tour buses must use to get people to the other two sites in the Golden Circle. Our first major stop of the day was the Gullfoss waterfall. As we were driving up to it, I was surprised we were so close since we were in the middle of a large open plane. Even once we got out of the car, you still could not hear any signs of a major waterfall.

 

No worries, the falls were in sight after a five minute walk. A stairwell led you down to an overlook just above the lower half of the falls and a further trail took you down to the water right at the level between the upper and lower halves of the falls. We've had a bit of snow at times today so this trail was incredibly slippery. We were all pleased just to make it down there without any major falls. The waterfall itself was really nice. I especially liked being right down at water level as the current rushed by. We were kind of curious how cold the water was, but we didn't let Rooney go test it out as she wanted. We latter found out this river is glacier fed so the water is bitterly cold.

 

After seeing the falls up close, we walked back up to the café near where we parked the car. Each of us had a bowl of Icelandic lamb soup. We all agreed it was really good, though Dan wondered if they had just put lamb into some Campbell's soup (which he loves).

 

Next up, we drove 6km back down the road to what the guidebooks say is the world's first geyser. I assume this just means the first geyser Europeans discovered, but who knows. The biggest geyser at this site started spouting in the 1300's, but stopped in the 1960's apparently due to tourists attempting to get it to go off by throwing things in it. Yet another sad example of the foolish things we do to our environment.

 

The geyser that is still active here (Strokkur) spouts about 35m high once every ten minutes. This makes it the most reliable geyser in the world and all of us really enjoyed watching it erupt several times as we walked around the brightly colored thermal pools nearby. Iceland is the most geo-thermally active area in the world. Apparently, more than a third of all the lava that has come to the Earth's surface in past few hundred years has come up in Iceland and it made for a really nice visit to Geysir. We probably could have stayed even longer, but it was after 4 and we wanted to try to make it to the Blue Lagoon in time for us to spend a couple of hours swimming before it closed at 8.

 

Unfortunately, this was easier said than done. It was easy enough to take highway 35 to Selfoss, but we weren't quite sure where to go from there. The map we were using seemed geared more towards advertising the location of all the "Esso" gas stations in Iceland than it did at accurately representing the roads of the country. Oh well, I guess the lesson learned is to buy a good map if you're going to be driving anywhere.

 

Around 5:30, we decided we were not going to be able to make it to the Blue Lagoon in time to not feel rushed so we headed back towards Reykjavik. The Blue Lagoon will have to wait until tomorrow and we decided to see if we would be able to extend the rental car by a half day and return it to the airport on the way out of the country.

 

For tonight, we were still in the mood for a swim so we drove to another of Reykjavik's public pools (Laugadalur). Dan had already visited this place on Friday afternoon before we arrived. It was a little older than the pool we went to last night but just as nice with a water slide that was even more fun. The other noticeable change: a different kind of crowd. Fewer families with young children. A couple of tourists. More teenagers. All in all, I think I liked this place a little bit better.

 

Back at the hotel, Dan, Mike and I went down to the hotel bar for a drink while Rooney and Nick got ready. We would have preferred to once again "prime the pumps" with alcohol from the mini-bar, but my only complaint about the Hotel Fron is that they have not done a good job cleaning the room. The first day, they didn't come at all and we had to go down to the front desk just to get some dry towels. Today, they did a "cursory" cleaning and failed to do one important thing: re-stock the mini-bar. Thus, it was the bar downstairs for us.

 

We had a nice chat with the bartender and found out the big event today is a White Stripes concert at the local arena. Normally, there's not much night life after 11 on Sundays (or any day but Friday and Saturday), but she expected people to be out partying tonight. The other notable thing about the Hotel Fron bar was a woman who approached us and asked us to buy her a shot. She had come over to do a shot and chat earlier and felt we would just be dying to buy her next shot. Somehow, she did end up doing a shot that we thought we were paying for. After downing her Bailey's, she didn't even stick around to chat or say thanks. Kind of rude and I think the bartender picked up on our annoyance because she did not charge us for the shot.

 

In honor of his birthday tomorrow, we let Mike pick the restaurant for dinner tonight. We ended up at a Lonely Planet recommended place called Ristorante Italia on the main street near the hotel. Based on the waitress's recommendation, three of us ordered the lasagna and kind of regretted it. It tasted like Chef-Boy-Ar-Dee! I can't imagine that's very authentic, and it certainly was not very good. Oh well, this was our first disappointing meal in Iceland so I guess we can't complain.

 

After dinner, we stopped into a bar called Olstofa for our last few Icelandic beers. Actually, we drank Kilkenny because of the previously mentioned underwhelming taste of the Icelandic beers. Oh well, the bar was pretty empty and we had had a long day so we decided to call it a night relatively early (before midnight). Hard to believe this trip is just about over!

 

Day 9: Monday, November 21

 

Today, we go home, but not before seeing one last Icelandic site. Rooney was the one to get out of bed early this morning to check into extending the rental car and returning it to the airport. For an extra half day charge, she was able to do both. This really made our lives easier today since we could do things on our own schedule instead of when the bus company wanted us to do them. We all agreed renting a car had worked out really well.

 

We checked out of the hotel around 10 and after maneuvering the SUV through a tight squeeze to leave the parking lot, we headed off on the one hour ride to the Blue Lagoon. The Blue Lagoon is another geo-thermal pool, but this one has a slight twist. Unlike the chlorinated pools we've been to so far, this place is filled with bright blue mineral water. It's actually sea water that the nearby geo-thermal power plant re-condensed (from steam) after generating electricity. They decided to create a tourist attraction by pumping this water into an artificial lagoon and charging almost $20 to get in.

 

It was worth the visit. The lagoon is kind of like a spa. You could coat your face in an ex-foliating mud or give yourself a hydraulic massage underneath large, hot waterfall. The temperature of the lagoon itself was kind of weird. There were hot and cold(er) zones that seemed to move around. In some places, it was only a matter of a few steps to go from water almost too hot to stand in to something warm and comfortable. Odd.

 

Perhaps the most striking part of the Blue Lagoon is the setting it's in. The area nearby is a volcanic landscape with large black boulders. The bright blue waters of the lagoon and the industrial feel of the nearby power plant provide quite the contrast to this almost surreal landscape. At one point, freezing rain started falling. I can honestly say that I may never again be outside swimming in the middle of a sleet storm!

 

After about an hour and a half in the water, we'd had enough. We got dressed and sat around the lobby of the lagoon chatting and having a bite to eat from the snack bar. The rest of the group decided to try the hot dogs we'd heard about from our friend Nicole. Mike liked them, but everyone else was not impressed. The look on Rooney's face as she bit into hers was priceless and I'm pretty sure "junior" regretted having two of them. Oh well, live and learn.

 

Our flight is at five so we left the Blue Lagoon a little before 3:00. After a bit of an adventure getting gas (they required a PIN even for a credit card), we got to the airport with plenty of time to spare. The rental car company told us to park the long term lot, put the keys in the glove box and leave the car unlocked. Apparently, they only have one set of keys for this car! This made us a little uncomfortable, especially since the long term lot was a little larger than we expected, but it must have worked out OK.

 

After we checked in, we were waiting in line to have our passports stamped. Mike noticed someone standing in line behind us he thought was the lead singer from White Stripes. We didn't stop to chat, but who knows.

 

The flight back to Boston was once again uneventful, though we did have some decent food this time. I really enjoyed myself on this vacation and can honestly say that both Paris and Iceland are places I'd like to visit again someday!