Street Walkers

The title of this post refers to the video...not the ladies of the night. And the video is crap. I know this. But I forgot the recharger for my camcorder, so I'm saving it for something worth recording with better definition. This was taken with my Elph.

This just gives you a quick look at Rue de L'Opera, Opera Street, at which one end is the Opera House (at the beginning of the vid) and the other is the outside of the Louvre. Our apartment is just behind the opera house about 3 blocks.

Since I've got the video, I might as well talk about walking around Paris.

The street lights, for the most part, are on the same side of the street as the cars (ours are on the opposite side). The advantage is that the cars can't go into the pedestrian area because then they can't see the stoplight. The problem is, the pedestrians can't see the light change from green to yellow.

This is a slight problem because there is only a green walk person and a red walk person; there is no blinking "get your slow butt moving" green person like there is in America. So you don't really know if the solid red person means you can get across if you hurry, or if it means if you step out now you're a pancake.

Speaking of breakfast, we went to a cafe for it this morning. We got the big brunch, 2 of em, for 15 euros a piece (about $18). Each came with 2 scrambled eggs, a hotdog shaped polish sausage, 2 strips of bacon -which I will expound upon in a moment- 2 pieces of toast (you could say French Toast...can I get a rimshot?), a pile of diced fried potatoes, an orange juice and either a hot chocolate or a coffee.

The hot chocolate was a pile of chocolate in a cup with hot milk on the side and 2 tubes of sugar you could add. It was awesome.

The bacon was a joke. It looked like bacon that was left in a puddle and expanded, and then one side of it was fried in a pan. Then it was tossed on your plate.

The eggs, and honestly, who can mess up eggs?, were not scrambled well. We go out to Hubbard in Middleton every Saturday when back home, so I know how restaurant eggs should be done...these eggs were done like I cook them.

The polish sausage was good. So were the potatoes. Did I mention how freakin' awesome the hot chocolate was? A pile of chocolate you add milk and sugar to. Awesome.

Anyway, back to the streets. They smell like cigarette smoke. And Opera Street smells like cigarette smoke and urine.

And there are no discernible lanes. People drive wherever they feel is space. And motorcycles and scooters unabashedly squeeze in between cars whenever there is room. It's crazy. There were 2 accidents within 2 days of us arriving, and like any big city, we hear sirens going by all the time. Stupid big cities.

That's a lot of writing...I gotta pace myself. G'night!