Ladies and Gentlemen, my first Europe pic! After 10 months, I finally get to show you the reason why I bought my SLR in the first place! Yes, I bought it because I was going to Europe. Anyway, these buildings were across the street from the hotel we stayed in in Paris. I took this picture from the 3rd-storey window, which I was pleased to discover didn't have a screen! Actually, none of the windows in the hotels we stayed in in Europe had screens, which was fantastic for me as a photographer.
I'm going to try to geotag these Europe pics!
Edit October 9th, 2021: 13 years later, my wife showed me a link to a hotel in Paris, and it made me wonder what hotel I stayed at in Paris during this trip, in 2008...four years before I met my wife, and five years before I started typing trip journals.
Upon scouring Google Maps and Street View, and comparing it with this picture, it would appear that the hotel we stayed in might not exist anymore. I have reason to believe that it was above what is currently a Gap or André store. Or, it was rebranded and redecorated to such an extent that I don't recognize it. There's a hotel online at the corner that has view of the Eiffel Tower, and we definitely couldn't see that from our hotel room. But the Hotel Saphir is still there.
Edit October 16th, 2021: Upon perusing Facebook, I found some France pictures that didn't make it to Flickr, and I also found out that the hotel we stayed in was called the Apart'hotel Tour Eiffel.
Tags: Paris France Europe houses row houses buildings concrete chimney shutters balcony roof flowers windows city urban
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A street in Paris.
Finally, I was going to go to Europe!
We left Toronto - my mom, dad, sister and I - on the evening of Friday, August 22nd. We sat in the lounge and I had a Fruitopia and vodka. I don't remember what time we took off, but I slept here and there, and we landed in Paris in the morning. After much stressing out, we found a taxi and took that through the city to our hotel, which was in a building similar to these ones. It could have been on this street, although I don't recognize this one. Anyway, we took a nap in the hotel room, and I got up a little while later to go exploring.
To be continued...
Tags: Paris street sidewalk pavement asphalt buildings cars sky city urban
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I turned the corner to the right and walked for about a minute, then came to this round thing. We don't have these in Toronto. It was basically a big paved (with stone) circle in the middle of the intersection of 4 or 5 streets. It's almost like a city square, but without any obviously person-friendly structures in the middle of it. Anyone know what this is called?
Tags: Paris city urban street pavement buildings circle cars automobiles flag public space sky clouds
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Looking back in the direction of the hotel.
Edit, October 9, 2021: It's interesting to look back on this scene and compare it to how it looks in Google Street View more recently. Street View has an image of this scene from August 2020, which is exactly 12 years after I was there. From left to right, there is still an optical store, but that hanging sign has been changed. There is a Para Pharmacie, but the plus sign is gone and the storefront is different. The Hotel Mondial sign is gone, and that unmarked horizontal 'marquee' (above the motorcycles in this picture) has been rebranded as Art Hotel Paris Eiffel. The shop past the man and woman talking has been changed to Sushi Shop, and across from it is a bus shelter that didn't exist in 2008 when I took this picture. The Citadines storefront is still there, although the wordmark is grey now instead of blue, and the orange awnings are gone. Also, the purple Citadines sign in this picture had been changed to brown and white by 2020, and to reflect a foolish trend of several years ago now, they've decapitalized the word to make it #trendy. The McDonald's is still there, naturally, although the "M" sign is smaller now. The "C" at the corner of that building is still there, and the same color, so I guess Citadines only did a partial re-branding. Monoprix across the street is still there, although they removed the big vertical sign and the awning further down the street.
Tags: Paris street crosswalk pedestrians orange dress pharmacy cars buildings light McDonald's 15th arrondissement 15e arrondissement
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The security cameras in Paris are sleeker than the ones in Toronto. Or at least, they have an angular shade on top of them that makes them look sleeker.
Tags: Security camera watch video view big brother panopticon surveillance the man paranoia paranoid delusions of danger fence pole metal grey gray city urban
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