I'm not sure that I'm up to this pilgrimage. I hiked halfway across Paris today carrying my day pack with a heavy load in it, from the Ring Road on the Eastside to the Arc of Triumph, and my legs are quite sore. I'll be carrying more weight on the pilgrimage and walking a longer distance the first day.
I got back to the hostel early enough in the afternoon to watch most of the Tour de France stage on TV. That big crash that split the pack certainly will affect the outcome. I have to hand it to Team HTC, however. They had all of their guys near the front so they missed the crash, and in the final kilometers their six-rider (I think six is the right number) sprint train delivered Mark Cavendish right to the front of the peloton a few hundred meters before the line, where all he had to do was ride hard enough to hold his position to win the stage. No other team had enough riders in the front group to challenge the HTC machine.
By the way, the bleachers are already set up for the end of the final stage in Paris.
There is no need for me to describe the many delights of Paris; they are well known. Instead I'm going to mention three tourist scams I saw today designed to separate the unwary, especially the unwary male, from his money. The are the shell game, the ring drop, and the deaf charity.
The shell game is the classic scam, and here it seems to be run by Russian men, and you can find it in tourist cities all over Europe. The chief scammer shuffles three items on a board, and under one of them is a white card or ball. When he's done shuffling, if you can guess which item the card is under, you win. Several people standing around him are placing bets, and they are winning more than losing, and it looks easy to win. The betters are actually in cahoots with the shuffler, of course. When a potential mark comes by, someone in the audience tells him that taking money from this guy is like taking candy from a baby. If the mark bites and places a bet, he may be allowed to win the first time, but if he keeps playing, he ends up a big loser, and the accomplices among the other betters sympathize with him as he wanders off with a lighter wallet. I didn't get close enough for any of them to invite me to play. I was more interested in observing who all in the audience was part of the gang.
The other two scams are perpetuated by young Gypsy or Roma women. In the ring drop, the usually attractive young woman appears to find a gold ring almost at the mark's feet. She asks him if he lost it, then insists on giving it to him since it's nobody's property and she wouldn't know what to do with the ring. All she asks in return is for a modest finder's fee (I don't know how much). The mark gives her some money as a reward for finding the ring and walks off as the happy new owner of a valuable gold jewelry, until some time later he has the ring appraised only to learn that it's only worth its weight in gold-colored tin. I had two women try this one on me today, and I waved them both off with the words "je connais ce truc (I know that trick)." I had seen it in action on a previous trip to Paris.
In the deaf scam, which was new to me today, an attractive young woman appears to be deaf and dumb and using signs asks the mark to sign a petition to promote a non-existent deaf organization. As the mark signs the petition and puts down his country (again the mark is almost always a man), he notices that there is a column to fill in the amount of the donation. Of course, then he feels obligated to fill in some sum and donate it to the deaf. I observed several of these young women animatedly chatting with each other when they were taking a break from running their scam. They all have perfect hearing, of course. This one was tried on me three times today.
My advice, when in Paris, don't sign anything, don't let anyone give you anything, and don't carry your wallet in your back pocket.
Tomorrow, more walking around Paris to toughen up the legs, if it doesn't rain.
Jack
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