Our little place

When we first planned our trip out here we figured we'd first stay at a residence-hotel while we looked for a place to stay. However, it can be pretty tempting to just stay where you are when the place comes with maid-service, towels, internet, etc. While in San Jose I had asked about rents in Lyon and people said about $800 for a T1-T2. What's a T1? Nobody is sure, but it comes with 1 or 2 bedrooms. It took 2 months of living here to find someone who knew what the difference was between T1 and F1 - I just knew the F place was bigger. Turns out we were staying in a T1 - a one bedroom with attached kitchenette (as opposed to the F series with a separate kitchen - aha!). To this day nobody has explained what the T or F stands for. I figured out the T1bis is a studio - some are only 12 square meters. Well at $2000 a month we knew we could probably find someplace cheaper if we had the time to look. Plus, we also knew we wanted to be in the center of the old city and not on the edge.

Our initial poking around determined that we had, in fact, found the cheapest residence-hotel. In fact it cost triple to get one in the center or even off in the boondocks in an area called cité-international. This area we had visited when we went to an American club meeting. It's a whole bunch of shiny Hilton's and antiseptic shops I guess designed to look like anything BUT France. So, triple the price, far from everything, and not at all French... I think we'll pass! Our place is really cute. We might have ended up staying in our 35 m^2 place forever, but after the internet failed to work reliably for 3 months and then the elevator stopped working (we were on the 7'th floor) we got a little more motivated to look for someplace else.



Since I'm what my family calls "work impaired," meaning I have this pesky thing called a job that takes up my day, Monica had to do most of the work at first. She started with English sites and American owners. We found 2 places that were tantalizing - huge (3 bedrooms), located in fashionable neighborhoods, furnished, and cheaper than our current place. But things didn't work out with either one and we realized we were going to be forced to use French systems and make French phone calls.

Our first attempt was French websites. The ads were basically lifted from print including many mysterious abbreviations. I wrote a form letter email and we sent it out to tons of people. Monica called me at work the next day to see if our week was now filled with appointments to see apartments. "What do you mean?" I responded, "NOBODY has replied." We're not in Silicon Valley anymore it seems. Slowly we got responses from people with the weirdest requests like they wanted to rent their place for April, June-October, and December. Huh? We're supposed to move out in between? Soon I had notes on around 100 places which I would update as we got an occasional email or phone call or sometimes even a chance to visit. A lot of places listed a month's rent as "Hono." Eloïse at the office told me that is the agent fee, so we should avoid those. Well that was most of them! We called one woman who had several nice listings, 2 of which were definite possibilities and she had no Hono, just $200 FA (whatever that is).



We arrived at her office with our list and asked if we could see the 3 places we had circled. First, she had us fill out a form which was basically a paper version of our search criteria. We had listed 2 neighborhoods and a price range and sure enough after she had entered the data and printed the search results our places were there. So, can we go SEE one of them now? Nope, we have to pay the $200 fee before we can even look! What!? "Yes, all these other listings have the same thing, and my fee is the lowest." She was right, but we both get that "I am about to become a sucker" feeling. Well, we haven't had much luck on our own and if this works out we'll be happy and the other fees are indeed higher... So, although it's probably a mistake we pay. OK, she prints our list again - this time with names and phone numbers. She suggests we call our #3 choice first as he speaks some English (she does not). He's a nice old man and asks how long we are staying. He's fine with us leaving at year's end, in fact, he has another apartment we might like too. Hello? Why don't these people advertise? We're supposed to find these by word of mouth or something? Ok, we can come by tonight. After hanging up, our helpful agent crosses off our #1 and #2 choices - What?! Noooo! "Oh, this woman only wants tenants for longer than 1 year." Gee, I wish we'd known that before we paid our money! Her service now complete we are free to go and use our code on the website to access our list in the future. Just call the owners directly. Buh bye! Gee, what great service! Think it couldn't get worse? Later I went to the site to browse for more listings and to see what they have in the 6'th district. I click on search and there is the list we already have, but to change our search fields we have to "contact your local agent during business hours." That's ridiculous, but I call her the next day and ask if she can just add the 6'th and raise our top price a little. No, she can't do it on the phone. I have to fax her my request. Groan! "But be sure this is what you want because you can only change 3 times." Oh my god! I am going to be so glad to see these old fashioned companies put out of business by the web! When I told my dad and stepmom this story, they just smiled as sympathetic victims (they too lived in France for a while) "That is just so typically French!"

A friend in Monica's French class paid over $800 to an agency to find an apartment and they haven't had any luck (or maybe they haven't tried very hard?). Maybe we were lucky to escape with only $200 lost.



We had just about given up hope of finding a good place - we had lots of OK places - when our luck had a sudden reversal... I'll cover that next time. Included in this blog are pictures of our first place. It has a kitchen/living area and bathroom downstairs with a sofabed and upstairs is our bedroom and office area with a little balcony outside. Monica was so proud that we managed to fit our entire lives into this little place.

In the meantime, here's a picture of an outdoor cafe by us

Disney part 2

After lunch Monica was pleased and surprised to find that we were "done" - we had knocked off the biggest rides and now we had pretty much just sightseeing to do. Before going to Sleeping Beauty's castle, I went and got show tickets to Lion King while Monica shopped Main Street. The ticket line wasn't open yet, so I explored around and found a deserted wooded back road that connected Tomorrowland with Fantasyland. I also couldn't resist taking pictures of a charming Italian "villa" area. It seemed funny considering the real thing is so close. You know, with actual wood, stone, and Italian people.



I returned to get Monica and found I had been unintentionally clever - I had all the money so she had been unable to buy anything. I was glad to see she was still wearing the hat she bought earlier too. Before going to Big Thunder Mountain, she realized that her head was still too cold even with a cap on. Then she found a furry children's baseball cap with ear flaps. There was no mirror, so she put it on and asked me how she looked... Well, um, with a fuzzy head with ear flaps I thought she looked like a puppy, but I told her "Oh, that looks great!" She looked at me suspiciously - "Are you sure?" "Oh yeah, it really looks good," I assured her. "Come on, let's go to Big Thunder Mountain." Maybe she forgot to check a mirror now, but bounding along happily, we now went to the center of the park to check out Sleeping Beauty's castle.

I never realized the different parks have different princesses for their castles. Sleeping Beauty's castle is unique in that it has a dark cave underneath with a really cool audio-animatronic dragon. The entrance is around the side outside the castle. Smoke comes from its nostrils and little details like the claws moving or the sides expanding when it breathes were not forgotten. Inside the castle it feels a little empty - maybe because there are no rooms or furniture?? Did she sleep in the gift shop?

In AdventureLand we tried the Indiana Jones roller coaster. Again, I felt lucky but a little disappointed as we zipped past lots of interesting Jonesque scenes. However, as the line was only 5 minutes we weren't going to spend an hour admiring the archaeological dig or the ziggurats. The ride itself was fun, but it boxed your ears like crazy. Remember when all you had was a lap belt on roller coasters?

Pirates of the Caribbean also had a short line, although the park had become noticeably more crowded. It was a wonderful, charming ride as we rode through scenes of pirates drinking, fighting, pillaging, burning, and raping. The burning building lighting looked really realistic and I couldn't help wondering how I could get that look for my Halloween decorations. As we left the ride Monica exclaimed "Pirates are awful, horrible people! Why do people romanticize them? Who would want to be a pirate?" Um, well maybe people like to think about getting lots of treasure - gold and jewels and stuff. That just doesn't happen in the ride with the law-abiding barrista.

We just had time for one ride before the princess parade so we went on Small World. Contrary to my previous SM experiences, this one packed all the countries in a *short* ride. The result was we were going "Look Egypt! Canada! England! What's that? I don't know!" the whole time. We got off beaming, surprised that we liked it. Rather than an endless zombifying song, it was a whirlwind world tour. In fact, this was the only ride we took twice. A quick romp through Alice's labyrinth afterwards and the trauma of Pirates was gone and we were ready for princesses.



As we took up position for the princess parade, the sky began to darken. Soon the parade began and soon after the rain came. The rain didn't change a thing! The dancers and marchers just kept going like there was no rain at all. Then suddenly the parade halted. The dancers continued to dance in place and the princesses continued to wave, but the floats didn't move. Hmmm. This is a bit of a mystery. Then, the Disneyland tow truck drove up the side of the parade! It passed us and kept going while the music and dancers continued performing in place in the rain. Soon the parade continued and the last of the floats and dancers passed us as the rain came to an end. Great timing Mother Nature.

The other dancing we saw was in the Lion King show. As a park show it was very good (thank you Internet). But at one hour in length it really could be called Lion King Cliff Notes. When we came out we noticed the lights in the park had started to come up and the crowds had started to disappear. I always like the look of amusement parks at night, but I guess the kiddies need to go to bed. Well, this gave us a chance to get on a few more rides than we might have expected.
Buzz Lightyear was a surprisingly fun ride combining a ride with a shooting gallery. At the end you got your score as well as the chance to buy your picture. Here I was looking forward to being able to email the picture home free, like at the other parks, but no! That wasn't an option here. The picture was really cute with us squinting down our gunsights, but at 15 Euro? The other cute surprise was the Peter Pan ride. This was just a "Why not?" ride at the end of the night and I think Monica summed it up with the comment "That was just darling!" Did she remember the family's last name was Darling? A really cute ride where all the action happens below you as you fly over it (the cars hang from a cable).

We finished the night eating french fries and having hot chocolate (with a ton of whipped cream) in an American pub decorated with baseball memorabilia. The wholesome old-time image of America evoked there doesn't really match up with the actual old America, but then again the castle doesn't really match up with real old castles, or the pirate ship with real old pirate ships. But, we wished they did.

Disneyland Paris

Phil Ydens at Adobe gave all of us Acrobat engineers a trip to Disneyland as a reward for shipping Acrobat 8. Well, we're not in California, but he agreed to let us go to Disneyland Paris instead. Unlike my comrades we planned to take the train which goes directly to the front gate of the Disney Parks. After reading about the disaster that is Walt Disney Studio Park and considering our capacity for the forced march of amusement park fun, we also decided we'll just go to Disneyland for the day. We booked the dirt-cheap but courageously named "hotel premiere 1'st class" in Georges St. Bussy which is just outside the price gouging sphere of Disneyland. Our plan is to stay overnight and do the popular rides in the morning. Fortunately, the weather has been great recently, but just in case we toss in our scarves, gloves, and umbrella at the last minute. On the train there we met a nice guy named Jeremy who lives south of Lyon and is studying for his English exam (written and oral) in the military. By coincidence, Monica was studying for her exam at Lyon Bleue. So, we spent the ride speaking French to him and he spoke English to us. Monica noticed that everyone in the train car was leaning towards us and mouthing the words silently and sometimes nodding as they practiced too. After we left, I realized I had left my cap on the train. Oh well. But we got an email later from Jeremy saying he had the cap and now we have an excuse to visit him and his wife and continue our practice.

We leave our luxurious TGV train and step outside the station in Georges St. Bussy. Wham! Now we know why people complain about Paris in winter. It's bone-chillingly cold, rainy, and the wind is howling. Our hotel is "within walking distance" so we suit up and head out. Hmm, no sidewalk either. I hope our "premiere 1'st class" hotel doesn't mind our muddy shoes. The wind is so strong I have the umbrella turned totally sideways. After checking in, I head back into town for supplies and to surf the internet for routes for Disney while Monica gathers intelligence at the hotel. At a mall a short distance away by RER train I found some hats that are European in style, but not too European. By European style I mean something nobody in America would ever wear. Here I see green or orange shoes, bizarre fur creations, etc. I've seen really stupid looking silver shoes with a Ferrari logo - Oh, I suppose those came with the car, right? I'm sure I can find an example for you... Let's just zoom in on the crowd scene of the Disney parade. Ah ha - when was the last time in America you saw a woman wearing purple striped pants?



Turns out our hotel is filled with Dutch who are also keen on saving every last centime - especially at the $5 all you can eat breakfast. Once you're in the park, you won't need any of those small bills.

One of them tells Monica you can easily smuggle your own food and drinks into the park. Over dinner we complete our battle plan for the next day. Like any battle, the opening moments are critical - timing our breakfast, checkout, luggage storage at the hotel, train in to Disney, buy sandwiches at the station, to arrive as the golden gates open and we stride directly on to Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain, etc. before the crowds arrive.

Next morning arrives and the sun is shining as the alarm goes off at 7:15am. Ah, forget it, we're going back to sleep. Later, we join the Dutch at the breakfast gorge-fest and then take the train in to Disney. The hotel guy said we could probably store our bags behind their counter, but we decided we'll just check them at Disney's storage counter. Here we encounter the first long line of the day. Monica heads in to Main Street while I stand in line. For 40 minutes the line just moves at a crawl. What's the big deal? Just hand them your luggage, take your tag, and go! Come on people - get with the program! Don't you see all those other people entering the park? Time's a-wasting! Then suddenly, the line starts moving fast and in a few minutes I'm done. All right, it's Saturday and the park has been open around 90 minutes... but maybe the typically rotten Paris weather will keep the crowds down. The weather is mostly cloudy and those clouds are pretty dark, but the wind and rain haven't returned from yesterday. We go over to Space Mountain and the line wait time is (drum roll here) 10 minutes. Hooray! Star Tours has a wait of 5 minutes. Whoo Hoo! It is great bypassing the giant zigzags and fancy audio-visual entertainment for the summer crowds. In Star Tours there is absolutely nobody around C-3PO, R2D2, and the mock X-wing fighter. By the time we finished some requisite shopping and crossed the park get to Big Thunder Mountain the wait time there has climbed to 40 minutes, but it still seems easier to wait than to get a fast pass and try to return on time. I guess the threatening weather has kept some people away.



Reports on the web said Disney Paris was the best Disney for Sleeping Beauty's castle, Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean, Adventure island, and for overall beauty. In fact, many people said it is the best of the Disney parks. The park was smaller, but it did look like a lot of money and care was put into getting just the right look. Other rides I suppose weren't as good - for example people either loved or hated the Paris haunted mansion. It's definitely more creepy/scary, but we thought it was great. The theme of a lovely-creepy ghostly wedding played out during the ride. We thought the huge ball scene with the dancers fading and solidifying was magnificent. A lot of the park was in French (spoken) or alternating French/English (recordings). The Disneyland employees were typical Disney-friendly and spoke excellent English too. Even if you couldn't speak French, you would find it amusing to hear Buzz lightyear's French voice or a tiny robot on Star Tours saying "Excusez-moi! Excusez-moi!" Monica fell in love with that little guy and wanted to take him home.

We really enjoyed Space Mountain (mission II) - it had great effects and was a great ride. I didn't expect there to be 2 lifts in the ride - the initial blast from the canon and later on another lift to prolong the ride. It even had cool sound effects. Monica and I came off it and looked at each other - "That was a good ride." Big Thunder Mountain had THREE lifts during the ride and great views from the island of Frontierland. It lasted a long time and we felt we really got our wait's worth.



Having completed Space Mountain, Star Tours, Big Thunder Mtn, and the Haunted Mansion we took a break for lunch at Main Street. We went to Walt's - one of a short list of recommended places to eat ("Beware the pizza!") it was expensive, but we did get a nice three course meal and a Bordeaux wine. Yes, in case you did not know, alcohol is available at Disney Paris. There were beers and wine from California, France, and Australia on the menu at Walt's. The California wine was Beringer Stone Cellars and cost more than the Bordeaux so I went with the Bordeaux. I think there was even a little liquor in my dessert - a white chocolate slipper filled with dark chocolate mousse surrounded with rum cherries and strawberry drizzles. Our lunch cost 60 Euro ($80) - ouch! But, it was better than paying 10 Euro for a chili dog.

In the next post, I'll get to Sleeping Beauty's castle, Pirates, the parade (and how they handled the rain which started at the same time), and the unexpected things we found at Disneyland. In the meantime, you can see our photos at

http://tinyurl.com/2onhrb