We spent the next three hours underground. We learned our way around the Paris Metro partly by catching trains only to find they were the wrong ones or going in the wrong direction. In London, the Underground lines are very clearly identified by various colors. In Paris they are identified by numbers (or letters for the trains which are also underground). Once we learned the subtleties of train identification, we came to appreciate the Paris Metro signage even more than in London because the platforms are clearly marked with the direction of the train. At each entrance to a platform is posted a list of the stations connected from this station. These were both very helpful and something that would be great to see in London.

We finally got to the d'Artagnan Youth Hostel around 9:00pm. It was a large, 9 story building on an urban side street with apartment buildings and office buildings all around. We had a room on the 3rd floor (4th floor to us) which we shared with a guy from Australia. They had a bar in the basement and advertised the lowest alcohol prices in Paris. I didn't do any comparison shopping, so I don't know if that was actually true. They also had a mini theater with a video projector and a library of videotapes. They seemed to show mostly films in English or with at least English subtitles. They had two small elevators, one which held 8 people, and the other which held 6. These were covered with mini-diamond textured aluminum and looked like oversize dumbwaiters. They were made by the same company that made the dumbwaiters we saw in several restaurants and cafés that had kitchens in the basement.