Europe Trip: Day 2, May 22nd

I slept 8 hours and woke with the rising sun, or at least not long after sunrise at about 6am. I tried to go back to sleep for about half an hour, but no luck. So I got up and checked my e-mail. Mom responded to my response within 10 minutes, so I gave her a call and talked to Dad and Emily as well. Jeff didn't pick up, so I'll have to try again in a bit.

Then I went back to searching for more couches while I wait for Igor to get up. I thought it best to wait until after he took a shower and got ready, especially since his room is right across from the bathroom.

The plan for today is to go back to some of the sightseeing places, this time with a camera. I want to walk to the Eiffel Tower and check out the areas around there. Then I will head over to either the Notre Dame area, or Champs Elysees and the Arc de Triumph. I also want to check out a bakery that isn't far from Igor's place -- between here and the Eiffel Tower -- and see how the bread is and how much it costs.

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Well, not long after I typed what is above my internet stopped working and my stomach dropped like a stone. The success of my trip relies heavily on my being able to plan a bit ahead and get a CouchSurfing host. After my unsuccessful attempts to fix it, I decided to just head out and get out of Igor's hair for a bit.

So I walked to the nearby metro station and got a map with all the metro lines. Then I retraced much of the route that Igor had taken me on the day before. I walked to the Eiffel Tower, underneath it, and past it, this time getting some pictures. Thinking I could wing it, I tried to continue walking around on the other side of the river, but ran into some really confusing streets with 4 or 5 of them meeting at the same intersection and me not knowing which direction to go. So I back tracked a bit.

My next goal was to reach Invalides, which is where they have a military museum and where Napoleon's tomb is. I could see the gold dome from my vantage point, and I could tell on my map kind of where I needed to be. So I just started walking along the river in that direction. I got a little lost, but eventually saw some signs pointing towards 'Invalides' or 'Hotel de Invalides' which are the same thing. I followed them as best I could and soon found the place. I went and got a ticket for it and went through the entire military museum which covered everything from fairly early Greco-Roman stuff to modern WWII stuff, plus a couple of rooms that showed Japanese and Oriental armor and weapons during various time periods.

Napoleon's tomb was fairly interesting as well, and I sort of browsed around the area. When I got bored and realized that I hadn't put on any sunscreen on a really nice, sunny, warm day I got a little worried. So I started walking in a direction I thought the metro might be and I asked a couple of cops that were guarding some back entrance to Invalides. They pointed me in the right direction, but after a couple streets and a turn or two I felt like I might have gone the wrong way, but then I saw a sign pointing towards a metro station and I walked that direction. My confidence began to wan when there were no more signs, but I persisted and soon I saw it on the left. Right across from the metro there was a demonstration going on against Sri Lanka for the recent war against Tamil rebels.

Anyway, I went down into the metro and conveniently it was on the right line to take me back to Igor's, and I made it a little bit before he finishes his work. That gave me some more time to mess around with my laptop and try to fix it. First I installed updated drivers, and then I started looking for some possible things I could check. One of the first things I came upon was turning your wireless card off and on, which I had thought I had already checked. But they said something on the website about a switch that is commonly found on the front of laptops, while I had been looking on the keyboard and in settings. It turns out that that was it, so after I turned that again it fixed the problem.

I was quite happy, and went and took Igor out to get a drink, although he only had tea (still was about the same as a beer at 3 Euros). We wandered around the place for a bit longer before finally heading back to his place, stopping at the grocery store. Igor then cooked a big meal with cous cous, mashed potatoes, a salad, and something fancy that I can't remember what it was called (but had a lot of protein, he said). It was quite good, and afterward he had the TV on a channel with the X Files (in French) which was rather amusing. I didn't get to bed that night until around 2am (this was Friday, so he didn't have to work the next morning).