How to zip through Versailles in 11 hours

Phew, what a day. This was to be one of the easier days because we were going to see only one thing. It was a day of learning and discovery. It was exhausting and totally delightful. The photos are on the big camera, so I will add some of my favorites later.

We decided to leave on the early train. Alarm clocks went off by 7AM, and we were out the door and on the way to the Les Halles Metro center. A quick stop at the little shop to purchase some chocolate breakfast treats, and then to the Metro. No espresso this morning.

The first order of business was to purchase a round trip ticket from here to Versailles. We had Museum Passes, so all that we needed was the transportation part. We walked up to the ticket window and in Frenglish (french and english) explained that we wanted roundtrip tickets. The clerk spoke rapidly in French only (she didn't appear to be as fluent in Frenglish as we were) and pointed at the two machines set off to the side. In English she said "just pick Versailles, round trip." That sure sounded easy enough.

We stood in line to use one of the machines. The screen gave three selections and we touched the screen several times, each time harder, to get our selection to register. Then we saw that there was a rolling pin thingy at the bottom. We rolled it and noticed that the selection changed. A click on the button to the right registered the selection. A long list of options appeared, all in French. At the bottom of the screen was a language selector, so we selected English and everything became a little easier to read. We selected "round trip outside of Paris" (we swear that we did!) and then the V to get the list of V places that you could select. Roll, roll, roll down to Versailles. Cool. Then the payment options came up: coins or card. Selected card, thinking that it was a credit card. Having learned at the train station that you had to leave the card in the reader, in it went and we waited. "Can't read". Pull the card out and put it in the other direction...and wait. "can't read". Hmmmm. Put it back in the first way and slid it out, slowly. "can't read". Well, d**n it, put in coins, then! So we pull out coins and as we are trying to determine if we have enough in 2e, 1e, .50, .20, .10, .02, and .01, the screen says "time has expired" and it quits. RATS!!! People behind us switch their wait from one leg to another, but no one says anything. We get out of line, smile, and open the machine up for those in line to use. After two people get their tickets, we have our coins pulled and ready to purchase the tickets. We stop midway through our purchase to help the young couple at the next machine, since they were rookies. I only got as far as showing them how to select "English", and then said "ok, you can take it from here." They looked grateful.

We boarded the Metro train first, and then did a quick change through the corridors and found our train, headed in the right direction. We were off and running on RER C line, headed for the Chateau.

Continued....

How to do laundry in Paris

I determined that my sore knees and calves needed a rest and declared today a stay-in day. Also, I've been on the road for about five days and it was time to do laundry. Meet my fancy apartment sized combo washer and dryer. It's a front loading model, with a gazillion buttons and settings on the front. It is in the bathroom between the sink/toilette area and a slatted wooden rack to hold your stuff. The apartment is randomly stocked with products, likely left over from prior tenants. You use what you need, buy some more things and leave it for the next person (which is why we had wine the first night!). I digress. THANK GOODNESS for graphic artists who draw pictures on boxes because all of the fancy words printed on the box would not get me past utter confusion on which of the products under the sink where for the clothes or the toilet.

After bypassing the containers that had toilets on them, I found a box that looked promising. It had a cloth and bubbles on the front, and the instructions on the back showed clothes swirling around in a machine similar to what was here. Since there was nothing else like this, I used these little towelettes for the soap and tossed one in with my dainties, slacks and a few tops. I glanced at the instructions and starting pushing buttons (techies don't like written instructions). I selected some settings in the middle for the material settings and temperature (all in Celcius. I figured top was high/hot and bottom was low/cold, so middle would work just fine.). One button flashed at me, and giving credit to the engineers who design these machines, I pressed it. It started beeping and another button was flashing so I pushed it. 1.30 showed on the little display, so I thought "Hmm. An hour and a half. That is not bad." The machines started a slow run of water and then would spin. I looked up at the instructions again to confirm that I had done it all correctly, and realized that I hadn't selected any dryer settings. I tried to stop the machine, but it was well on its way so I backed off. While I was looking at the instructions, I noticed that there was also information about how to turn on the radiators. Ohhhhh, now I get it. The thermometer is in there, but each radiator had its own on/off knob. I ran around the apartment turning on all of the heaters and could feel the warmth radiating off of them immediately. (Is that why they are called "radiators"?) I felt that I had evened the score: Machine 1 Human 1.

After 90 minutes of whirling and spinning, the thing beeped proudly to let me know that it was done. I took out the damp clothes and draped them around the room on the newly discovered radiators to dry. I also noticed that my pearly white dainties were a calming shade of cream. Nice touch.

Feeling very confident, I started load #2. I put in the clothes, the pseudo maybe laundry detergent, and pushed all of the buttons including the dryer one. 3.13 popped up on the window. 3 HOURS TO DO A LOAD OF LAUNDRY???!!!!! This is now all starting to fit together: tiny closets, tiny stores with tiny containers of laundry soap and tiny washer/dryers. You cannot have a lot of clothes and wear them all, with the intent to wash them all on Saturday. This won't fly here.

So, after five hours, the laundry had dried on the radiator and in the dryer. I gathered the clothes and organized it all. Everything was folded and hung in the closet, ready for more outside adventures (enough inside for one day).

I settled in to tackle more technology: the phone. I guess that all things considered, it should be used the same as a phone in the US. Except that I wanted to CALL the US. I had been able to connect to the Internet (another LONG story since I initially thought that it was wireless and after a few hours of trying to get it to work, discovered that it had a cable connection. Plugged it in to my little laptop and it worked right away. DUH.) I had to Google how to make a phone call from France to the US. Found complete instructions (00 1 area code then local number...how easy is that?) and dialed my Mom. She answered and we chatted. Pretty cool.

Looking back on the day, I realized that I hadn't showered yet, didn't make it to the market, and hadn't written catch up on the blogs. But it was a great day of adventure, all confined in 600 square feet. And all while looking out the window at a Paris street. This is just what I wanted to do! I'm very happy.