Good time over Chinese New Year? Hail, yes!

 Happy Year of the Sheep, Goat, Mountain Goat or Ram. I’ve heard all versions and am not sure which it is officially (something about the Chinese word translating to multiple critters) so I just want to cover my bets.

Speaking of, while on the flight to Manila the other week, I read the new year horoscopes. You know how they hedge the bets and say in all of them that something will be really bad and something will be really good? You know: “your love life will suffer, but money will coming rolling your way” or similar. Well. Most of them were pretty feel-good. I read everyone’s in my family and they were all “the stars will align and you’ll have a fantabulous year” and the like.

But mine. Oh, man. I have no idea what the rooster ever did to the sheep/goat/mountain goat/ram, but basically the gist of the horoscope was “consider suicide because it’s going to suck.” I mean, holy cow. Every single aspect of the thing was awful. Apparently, all my investments will go south, forget friendships and love, I’ll lose my job and I might as well cash in my chips in every other facet as well. Fortunately, I put no stock into those things, but oh, my. It was just brutal. No upside whatsoever.

And so far, so very wrong. I mean, we’re early into the Year of the Sheep, Goat, Mountain Goat or Ram, and it’s been just awesome. 

I combined with the holiday and took off three days to go to Frankfurt to visit a friend. The options from Frankfurt were limitless, ranging from castles to side trips. I’d just come from Disney in Hong Kong and had a great time and mentioned that to my friend S, whom I’m visiting. A Disney fan herself, she suggested going to Disneyland Paris. At first, it was like, uh, twice in a week? For that money? And I kind of put it in the back of my mind. But the more I thought about it, the more cool it became. I mean, seriously, when will I get another shot at Disney in Paris, and, if it ever happens, will it be just a mere seven days from when I was last at a Disney? I mean, I can now say that I did Disney Hong Kong one Sunday and Disney Paris the next. A little twisted, but bragging rights nonetheless.

It was COLD at Disney. As in, frost on the tables outside the Indiana Jones ride. I’d read the high was going to be close to 50, which sounded warm so I only wore short sleeves and my barn coat. Mistake. I was absolutely freezing almost all day long, and especially on things like the Indy roller coaster.

That, honestly, was a bit tame. I liked it and it went upside down, but it couldn’t have lasted more than two minutes, if that. But was one I hadn’t done before.

All the Disney rides are a bit different from park to park, although the parks vary in which rides they have. (I’ve been to three, so I can make that call!) The It’s a Small World ride has been the most different from the three parks I’ve visited. In Hong Kong, it’s very Asia-centered, which makes sense. As you cruise through the lands, it also identifies the continents. On the one in Paris, it was kind of your guess as to where you were in the world. It also started outside and was much brighter inside than either Disney World or Hong Hong.

Pirates of the Caribbean was also a bit different. The scenes were similar, but there was no narration. I guess this was because most of the stuff was in French and had they told a store, they would have had to do it in dual languages.

Paris is larger than Hong Kong, but nowhere near Disney World size. They do have some rides that were new to me, like Indy. There was also a Pinocchio, a Snow White and Star Tours, which was my highlight, I think. All three parks I’ve visited have had haunted houses, but with different themes.

The lines in Paris were longer than Hong Kong, but that was to be expected because those lines were so light. But we really walked on a couple of rides, like Indy, because we had good timing. We did have one long wait, which was Buzz Lightyear. That was about an hour. But everything else was much less.

At lunch, we left the park and went to the equivalent of Downtown Disney, which, unlike in Orlando, is literally right next to the park. When we got the shuttle to the area, we were dropped off at a train station (runs straight from Paris, 30 minutes away, but we stayed closer to the area) and you have three potions: Disney Village, the movie studio park and Disneyland. The movie studio park has Toy Story land and a Ratatouille ride, but we didn’t do that one.

Back to lunch … lots of expensive options, but we settled on the Earl of Sandwich, where I had some really good thing with beef. I ate a lot of beef. The Earl of Sandwich (and in my brain, I kept hearing, “And I am the Duke of Ted”) the place overlooked a lake and was quite warm inside. That was a nice respite, but we happily went back into the cold to hit Thunder Mountain Railroad. This is also in all three parks, but different in each. The Hong Kong one goes backwards, and Paris, I think, went underwater. We suddenly did this dip into total blackness, did a couple of other twists and when we came out, we’d exited the island. I really don’t know, but it was cool.

Had a wonderful time, and when S gives me the pictures, I’ll post them. I’ve given up all hope on my own camera.

Before we left for Frankfurt, we wandered Paris a bit, which was fun. My first trip to Paris, when the pre-paid debit card didn’t work, wasn’t so good, so this was a good balance to that one.

Yeah, I saw the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triumph and Champ D’Elysees, but believe it or not, one of my highlights was thwarting a con man.

We’d camped out at the Arc and this dude came up and tried the “Oh, I found a ring, wouldn’t you like it?” routine and we were like, go away. He pushed it and I basically shouted “Non! Non!” and he left.

We were beat and sat there awhile at the roundabout, to the point where he came by again. S stared him down and he avoided us (tourists look alike. At the Eiffel Tower, we were approached twice by the same con artists. The second time, we said uh, no, we are the same people you tried to con last time and it didn’t work.) Back at the Arc, we watched Conner try it on another couple that were walking by. I don’t know what happened there because I think the woman took it, but he came back with it again.

The backpack seemed to be the giveaway, and S and I saw a guy sitting on the other corner of our little pie piece of the roundabout angling up to the Arc. We both figured he’d be the next target, and he was. Conner went up and tried it and I don’t know what went down, but he stood there forever. I finally told S I felt I should go bail him out and we both got up and walked over to Backpack and then started yelling at Conner to get lost. He got pissed and cursed me out and I threw it back at him. Felt so empowering. Backpack was grateful and we all went off happy.

Later, as we bought metro tickets, the ticket guy started speaking in a lower voice, through the microphone. He darted his eyes to the left and told us that guy was a pickpocket and to look out. We were grateful for the warning and watched him. He joined us on the metro and, once he’d been pointed out to us, it was ridiculously obvious that he was a pickpocket. Everyone else was watching for the train or talking to each other, but this guy was eyeing everyone’s bags. It was really a good lesson in situational awareness.

The day in Paris was a little chilly, but much warmer than it had been on Disney Day, but it was so windy. We were too leery to do the elevator at the Eiffel Tower (and too cheap, let’s be honest), and the weather just went nuts at times here and there. The weirdest was while on the Champ L’Elysees, when it started sprinkling, and then sprinkling hard. And by “hard,” I mean solid – it hailed. I could not believe it.

So if that’s what my horrorscope meant by impending doom, I’ll take it. I’ll take a hailufva year.