OK you freaks…I see you reading this now (I have my ways…oh yes I do).

But for those of you that either didn’t get my first couple mass emails or just haven’t gotten around to doing it yet…I need your info!

-Name (duh)
-Address
-Phone number
-email addy

I’m trying to put together a giant database of all my friends and families info…that means all you Crawfords out there too…dorks!

My email (if you don’t find it on the thingie on the left…or right..or up, whatever) is as follows
mgracer @ yahoo . com

Yes I realize I put spaces in there…but that is to keep those pesky little spam robots away from nabbing my email address and sending me annoying things.

Hasta la vista!

There have been some requests for pictures of me recently. Well, I can oblige. I thought about going out and having ones taken of me doing wacky and wild things in the city and sights…but today was recover day and laundry day…so I figured why not show you folks the day to day operations of Neil Crawford, World Traveler?

Here I am in my usual hotel hang out position. Quietly contemplating my place in the world…

Here I am doing the same thing in another place.

While I was in there, I may as well show you my face. This took lots of tries. Note I am not wearing glasses. I did that for a reason.

This is how I shower…but usually with less clothes on. Yes, it is that small and there is no door.

Here I am rocking out to some tunes. Note the air-guitar. It was thankfully small enough to fit in my bags.

The drinking age in France is roughly 15 years old. Well, it’s like having your permit at 15…you can drink with an 18+ year old person there. But once you hit 16…free for all.

There was seriously 6-8 weddings today. As I was waking up this morning I kept hearing honking horns. I looked out and saw wedding parties driving by. As I sat outside and had lunch several more drove by. Although I suppose it could have been just one HUGE wedding. I am not sure who I could ask about that, or even how to ask…so I’ll let it slide.

Today’s lunch was half a baguette with a channel cut into it, stuffed with salad (French-English for lettuce…even the menus that repeat the items again in English call lettuce “salad). Anyway…salad, cold chicken, 2 hard boiled eggs and a mustard/mayo/pepper spread. Again…quite good. The bread had a much softer crust than what our American baguettes get, and the spread was delicious. There were literally 2 eggs on it…they halved ‘em and slapped ‘em right on top. How do these people stay thin?

The bartender last night, the guy, was a surfer from France. He’s worked in Spain, London and the Czech Republic as a bartender…and really wants to go to South America and work…and surf. Bars are the same world round it seems.

Mojitos are VERY popular at bars. Popular enough to have a giant bowl (at least a 2 quart size) filled with mint.
Route 66 Mojito…
-mint leaves
-lime wedges
-simple syrup (like half a shot worth)
-sweet and sour
Muddle all that then add rum and ice
Shake
Poor into glass and top with bottle sparkling water.

They did have a soda gun and I asked them why they don’t use the gun soda. The girl just said it’s better this way. Interesting.

Drinks have a lot less ice in them too…which sorta sucks. I had to ask for more a couple times. And water isn’t automatic…you gotta ask for it.

Today for me is laundry day. My room gets cleaned every day (expected), but I’m starting to stink the place up a bit…and I’ve been taking plenty of showers. I’m not quite sure how to dry things though…you see, my shower has no door. It’s about the size of a closet but with a hand held water spraying thingie. Actually, the fixtures here are remarkably modern and new…right down to the toilet paper dispenser. But the electrical is not. There are only 3 plugs in my room…2 on the floor and one up high on the wall for the wall mounted TV. The two on the floor don’t work…so I’ve got my laptop charger sorta bungied up to the TV. It works…decently. Hums a bit though, which worries me a touch. If my laptop crapped out I’d be in serious trouble here.

You know those govt warning labels they put on cigarette packs? Here they are like 5 times the size…the warning on the front is 1/3 the size of the box…on the back it’s 1/2. The front says “FUMER TUE”…I’m trying to get a webpage to translate for me…someone else do it.

Last night the people at the bar told me to go to Amsterdam today. Being drunk I said “HELL YEAH WOOOOO!”. Now that I am sober…I don’t think so. This place is enough of a trip while sober. Besides…I don’t feel like lugging around all my crap. I’m settled here, and very content.

I talked to a friend today…which made me extremely happy. I find myself being a bit more “needy” and “worried” about things these days. It’s probably because I’m so used to such instant communication. But right now, at 20 minutes to 6 pm…it’s only, what…8 in California? 20 to 9? Yow.

Two things….
Soldes = Sale…like “our store is having a sale”
And according to Google…

Fumer tue = To smoke keep silent.

Intriguing…

There are LOTS of people by the Bastille, and about four hundred thousand bars/restaurants. So many choices!

There is also lots of traffic there. And also people who have drunk too many beers to take actual decent pictures.

Tonight, on the advice of a friend, I went to Route 66.

Route 66 is a bar near the Bastille that pretty much caters towards Americans. Well…sort of at least. There is definitely American food on the menu (fajitas, hamburgers, Caesar salads, etc) and thank GOD a good chunk of the employees speak English. In fact, I had the longest conversations in 3 days.

I knew it was near the Bastille, and I had an address. Unfortunately I didn’t take that address with me. So the taxi (yeah, I shoulda taken the metro/subway/bus/whatever) dropped me off at the plaza and I…well…stood there a while and just looked around.

The area was packed with people…the busiest section I have seen to date. I figured I was pretty screwed. For a hopeful moment I saw street signs and figured I’d be able to come up with some sort of memory…yeah right, not a chance.

So I went ahead and wandered….which I am getting VERY good at by the way. And luck have it, down a little side street…there it was.

I walked right in and had a seat at the bar. This was about 6:30…happy hour. Perfect. I was the only customer there.

To make a long story short it was a blast. A seriously great time in fact. Most of the staff spoke English (I French bartender, a Welsh bartender and an Irish hostess). I made friends, I laughed and talked about everything I have seen and experienced, and I drank a serious amount of liquor. Spell check is constantly figuring out what I am typing…thank you Microsoft!

If anyone at the Blackhawk Grille is reading this…these people can NOT make a Cosmo. It’s in a rocks glass…way too much cranberry juice, and no where near enough triple sec. I did have some crazy French drink with strawberry juice, gin, vodka and triple sec. Very good! Add about a thousand and three beers on top of that and we’ve got a party.

I’ll admit…I’m dead on my feet. I’m dying here. I doubt I can type much longer. But I had to get some choice bits down….

First of all…YOU DON’T NEED TO TIP! Did I say that loud enough? Seriously…the French don’t tip…which is perhaps I reason why I’ve gotten such great service. I’m American…American’s tip. French know this. And there ya go!

Secondly…there are English speakers around here. You just gotta know where to find them. I did…and got some free drinks and a painful shot of tequila as I left (they all wanted to know the proper way to do a shot…there was rampant discussion of salt, lime, tequila and how you do it. I, of course, educated them…and all was good).

Once again…everyone is so freaking nice. My taxi driver had no clue how to get me back here to the hotel…I had to actually bust out the map and give him directions. He barely spoke English and our conversation was pretty much like this…

“Bush no!”

“Chirac so-so”

“Paris bon!”

And lots of other extreme strange combinations of French Spanish and English. Oddly enough the taxi ride back was not only faster (I think…wow, lost track of time) but cheaper (that I am aware of for sure).

I was going to take pictures at the bar but seriously lost track of time…which I am very proud of. By the way, one of the managers is from California so I’m going to cruise over tomorrow and talk to her about how the place is run. I am a hotel/restaurant management student after all.

Oh yeah…last note (before pictures). Drinks are cheaper when you sit at the bar vs. sitting at a table. Odd isn’t it?