Our hotel in Paris

April 12, 2008
Here we go! I couldn’t believe it was actually happening. We were off for a year in Firenze, Italy. TUSCANY! Sun, rolling hills, vineyards, Chianti, olives, sun-dried tomatoes, and of course, Italian men in tight pants! It still didn’t seem real as we wouldn’t be there for another month or so but it was real-we were off!
I couldn’t believe we actually got packed and only had 44 lbs. a suitcase. 44 lbs. is all we are allowed flying to Europe. We get spoiled flying to the US where you get 50 lbs AND two suitcases! We had almost 44 lbs of books alone EACH so we came with very little to wear. (Little did we know we weren’t going to be able to afford to go shopping once we got there.)
We did a quick transfer in Korea and than got on our 12 hour flight to Paris. We got to Paris and quickly got in a taxi and was headed to our hotel in “Le Marais” neighborhood of “The City of Lights.” We had eight pieces of luggage including, camera and equipment, PC, carry-on, shoulder bag and the list goes on. We were constantly counting to see if we had eight pieces. We made it to our hotel with all eight, thankfully. We were on the third floor (which means the fourth floor to Americans.) which also means carrying our eight pieces of luggage up a very narrow winding staircase until my shoulders were ready to fall off. Oh, the drama.
It was cold and rainy in Paris. We spend four days seeing some sights, resting a lot. Jonathan, however, would never say we rested a lot but I felt we did. Poor Paris gets such a bad reputation for being such a rude city. Well, I beg to differ. I found the Parisians to be out of the way friendly and helpful and the majority of service people spoke English quite well. I’m embarrassed to admit that I minored in French and was so shy about using it. When we later went to Macon a city in Burgandy where no one spoke English I got to redeem myself a bit.
I enjoyed my mornings the most in Paris. Because of jetlag I was wide awake by 5 or 6 so I took wonderful walks around the city at this time. We didn’t bring coats as we thought Paris would be warm AND because we couldn’t have the weight on our flight so I basically froze on these walks. We did finally break down and get coats but not for several days. My favorite walk was around the Louvre museum. At 6 am there is not one other person around. I had that amazing museum all to myself. There is an inner courtyard you can walk into. It is huge. The mind can hardly grasp the scale of this building. I did a Julie Andrews spin and stared singing. It really was a glorious feeling. Then I walked toward the entrance where the controversial, glass pyramid was built. I I I I continued down to the gardens which stretch forever in front of the Louvre. Literally, not a soul to be seen. It’s a strange feeling to be at such a famous place all alone. But by this time I couldn’t wait for it to be 8 am so I could have breakfast and warm up. I finally did that right behind the museum in a little restaurant. I had the typical breakfast of a croissant, marmalade and café crème. Life was good. I then called my horse and buggy and I was taken back to my hotel…

How do Japanese bars and Italians bars differ?

I’m finally starting my blog after a month of traveling. I just didn’t take the time to figure out how I use this on WIFI. I’m so bad with all this technical stuff! I’m sitting in a café just down the block from where we live in Firenze. It’s called Moyo. We don’t have internet access in our apartment yet. Our real estate office said that we will soon but in Italian time that could mean six months. Where do I begin? We traveled for three weeks before we got here but I will get to that later. We are now in Florence which already sounds foreign to my ears as it is called Firenze in Italian.
It’s really a bad day to start this blog because we are having a really bad day. At this very moment on May 8th, 2008 Jonathan and I are in a state of “What have we done?” We both are taking Italian lessons at a school called "La Scuola Leonardo da Vinci” Jonathan is not thrilled to be in Italian class but he has agreed to take a month of lessons just so he can have survival Italian. He hates being put on the spot. Well, it happened to day. He was put on the spot for about an eternity!! In real life it was more like ten minutes but to him it seemed like an eternity. He is in the beginning class. So, you would assume that would mean starting from the beginning. Well, after four days of basically just conjugating verbs and not speaking at all, the teacher went on a huge tangent talking about pubs and bars and the difference between these. The teacher whose name I can’t remember but I know her because she interviewed me for my placement test which is still another story which I will get to later, then went up to Jonathan and asked him how Italian bars and Japanese bars differ. He first looked to students on either side of him and pleaded for help. Remember Jonathan has yet to say a full sentence in this language of love. The teacher kept going and going and even started speaking louder. Jonathan is now panicked! Then this bitch starts mocking him to the point that the sweet, older American woman sitting next to him starts rubbing his back. What does this professoressa expect? The only word Jonathan knows in Italian is “pasta”. She expects him to explain how bars in Japan and Italy differ? He couldn’t explain it in English. We haven’t even been to a bar in Italy! Anyway, he has two teachers. His first teacher is kind and actually teaches. He will continue taking her classes and then go home and skip the second class. Now, let me tell you my experience with this “bitch”. We don’t know her name so “bitch” is as good as any. The first day of school I took a placement test because I had studied Italian on my own in Tokyo. I wasn’t worried at all about it as I didn’t care if I was placed in the lowest class. I’ve basically studied most of the grammar but have such little speaking practice that I really didn’t mind having lots of review. Well, I’m afraid I did really well on the written test. It wasn’t that hard. Then I was quickly moved to another room where I met the “bitch”, a rather pretty woman of about 50. Looked right at me and said “Buon Giorno!” Before I could say the same she was looking across the room talking in a very loud voice to one of her colleagues. She totally ignored me for at least a minute. I was a little nervous now as I was speaking Italian for the first time in my life. She had a stack of the placement tests next to her. Well, she was looking at one of the tests while she was interviewing me or "ignoring" me is a better word. I thought it was strange that it wasn't my test but I didn't question. She asked me another question and continued to ignore my answer. Finally, I got frustrated and told her it was not my test. "Questo non e il mio esame." She finally starts correcting my test. I panic because I notice that I got almost everything correct. We did eventually have somewhat of an interview but then practically in the middle of a sentence I was whisked off to my elementary level FOUR class. EEK! I walked into the class which had already started and the teacher started firing questions at me. I literally screamed and thank goodness the class laughed! I'll get to my class later.
So Jonathan's day starts really badly. Here is what else we are going through. (I'm going to sound really negative but I think we are just going through some culture shock. ):
Claustrophobia -the streets are narrow! the sidewalks VERY narrow. We have to walk in a line. Cars and vespas go 1000 kilometers an hour.
We must be spoiled with the wonderful food in Tokyo. We don't find the food that great here. (I think we just haven't found the good places yet.)
Service in restaurants seems to us rude. (Again a cultural thing.) There is no such thing as "The customer is always right." When you walk into a restaurant you are ignored forever. At first we thought we were doing something wrong. They do inventually get to your table. Once they get there they are basically nice but no extra effort is made to make us happy.
There have been a million tourists a day. We live right next to the one of the main attractions so there are hoards groups of tourists. I tend to hit these big groups head on on one of these VERY narrow sidewalks and they are just mindlessly following their guide not paying any attention to anything or anyone.
Don't you all just feel so sorry for us? I'm sure there are tears welling up in your eyes.
You know, the waiter at this restaurant is the sweetest person I've met so far. Maybe there is hope. I'm going to end for now. We have had so many wonderful experiences this trip and I'm going to share these with you. See you. All for now!