Paris isn’t the kind of place I normally visit. But that’s okay – the adventure was about accomplishing irregular things.
I had french food, I saw french people (and some american people) and I was one in a million. I had always wondered – “What is Paris like?” – and over the course of a few days I found out.
While the other places I visited were different, Paris was the city that felt the most different. It felt like I was in a place that made me realize I was in Europe – not some Disneyland fantasy themed city. That’s not to take away from the other places. It’s just that it was a completely different sensation.
I think it was the cafes. It was a cultural thing that doesn’t exist here. Sure it rains here, but it rains there. They have covered and heated patios. They deal with it. It seems like around here it wouldn’t fly.
It was a fun couple of days. The un-fun part was that I grew to despise my fellow hostel dwellers. The room was tiny, and they were a very outgoing retired couple from Florida. They felt the appropriate length of time before freely dropping pants in the presence of others was about 2 hours.
But who am I to judge?
From Paris I boarded the Eurostar to London. It was a surreal experience. The train here goes about as fast a car on the highway. Your brain can handle the scene out the window flying by at a semi-familiar speed. The Eurostar seemed to go twice as fast. It was difficult to focus on the foreground. It also just felt fast. I do think the Amtrak Cascades’ cars are probably a little bit nicer than the Eurostar’s, but the Amtrak Cascades doesn’t go to London or Paris so they lose.
I was in Iceland and briefly in England prior to departing for Munich. It was warm, probably the most spring/summer-like weather I’ve had all of 2010. It was a fairly nice few days. I got to experience what it’s like to sleep in a small room with 7 strangers. One night a guy stayed up …
I think for me, the trip started strangely. This was exemplified by the fact that instead of flying from Seattle to Iceland at 4:30 p.m., I flew at 7:00 a.m. to New York’s JFK Airport, then waited quite a long time (I think around 8 hours) before taking off and flying to Glasgow, Scotland, waiting …
As the author of the only blog, I felt it was time to go forth and bring this new form of reporting and journalism to the masses. This journey will be the only broad based attempt at marketing that this blog will employ. We intend to bring the knowledge and insight contained here on these …
I’ve heard about a number of other Internet publications, some of which do not update regularly. This is outrageous. All publications should update regularly to expound on their current distastes, esp. if one is trying to complain about cupcakes or cheap nail salons. As the only blog on the internet, we are happy to offer …
If I do some booking tomorrow, the earlier versions of Chase (ex: “1999″ and “2001″) might enjoy where I’ll be going later this month. Though we’ve learned recently that previous versions were lacking. We are moving forward and hopefully making up for past mistakes.
Essentially I think it’s pretty neat to be able to punch in a couple numbers in a box on a web page, then have the phone next to me start ringing, I answer it, then a phone in France starts ringing and I’m on the other line and I can talk for 10 minutes and …
But who am I to judge?
Known for his many skills, Chase Gallagher recently started the only blog on the Internet.