To Paris With Passion
On a lighter note, I'd like to share some experiences we had while traveling Europe about a year ago. As many of you may know, my parents and three youngest siblings moved to Manchester, England and lived there for about two years. Melissa and I were able to go visit them early last year and spend some time visiting mainland Europe. Our first stop was Paris, France, after taking the Eurostar under the English Channel from London to Paris.
When traveling I love to plan out how were are getting from one place to the next, where we will stay, what we will see, and which days we will do what. I decided to carry all that information with me in a blue folder in my backpack complete with maps, tickets, dates, and other important information. Of course, I have all this information but don't want to appear as a tourist (which I fail at miserably), so I only ever pull it out when I desperately need it (which happens to be all the time).
So, first thing after we get off the Eurostar we needed to do is find where we are staying for the night. According to my "neat" packet of information we just hop on the Metro, find our stop, and walk a couple blocks. Easy enough for me....not. First off, we can't even find where to buy tickets! We end up walking up and down the stairway about five times and wandered around until finally some nice Parisian girls, who thankful knew English, directed us to the only logical area to buy tickets. Added to this, was a lady who kept trying to get me to buy something of which I refused (and I'm pretty sure she cursed me in French for it). So, we're riding the Metro and get off at the correct stop and first thing I do...pull out the map and directions to the hostel, very noticeably mind you. I'm pretty sure the directions said to go east or west, of which I have no clue if that means left or right. Meanwhile, Mel knows how touristy we look and starts walking. A man in a car stops and asks (in English) if we know where we are going. I, of course, say yes because if not he undoubtedly will throw us in the back and "take" us. Melissa tells him where we need to go and he point us in the opposite direction of where we were headed. Already, two kind Parisians who spoke English and we hadn't even been in the country for much more than an hour or two! Looking back it is a very entertaining situation and makes me laugh at how clueless I was.
Paris had many more humorous and clueless situations. For example, we asked to buy a two day Metro ticket (from a lady who spoke no English), received a two trip ticket instead (without our knowledge), got off to take another train and ended up exiting instead of changing, got back onto the wrong side, then couldn't get over to the right side because our ticket was used up. So, we're stuck at a random part of Paris, no way to buy another ticket, what do we do? Jump the ticket gate of course! (Which is video recorded, so now I'm sure we're wanted criminals in Paris.) We also forgot our cameras the first day when we visited The Louvre, the Eiffel Tour, and the Arc de Triomphe. Luckily, we were able to go back to the Tour and Arc to take pictures but you'll just have to take our word that we've seen the Mona Lisa! Our hostel only had cold water for showering, at least in the bathroom we used, not so fun in the winter time! When we went to go see the Arc (the second time) to take pictures, I read the stops wrong and took us to the Grande Arche de la Defense (a much taller and more modern looking arch, not quite as cool).
We were also able to see the Notre Dame and Sacre Coeur and I especially loved stopping in at random cafes for lunch. Being sure to always order cafe, which is almost unfailingly espresso, never drip. (So tasty!) My favorite site, to my surprise, was the Arc de Triomphe. I expected the Eiffel Tourto be my favorite. Which, don't get me wrong, is really awesome, but there was something about the Arc I loved. Maybe it's because we had just hiked through, what seemed to be, a mile of tunnel and as we rode the escalator to the top the Arc was all lit before us for the sun had just set. A very splended sight!
Seeing Paris really was an awesome adventure! In our experience, the Parisians were not rude in the least but helpful (I'm still trying to decide if it was because we were two young women or just their nature) and many knew English, a huge benefit to us! Having only ten days to travel across Europe left us with only a couple in Paris, but an overnight train ride to our new destination was next on our agenda...
(And thanks for looking!)
So, first thing after we get off the Eurostar we needed to do is find where we are staying for the night. According to my "neat" packet of information we just hop on the Metro, find our stop, and walk a couple blocks. Easy enough for me....not. First off, we can't even find where to buy tickets! We end up walking up and down the stairway about five times and wandered around until finally some nice Parisian girls, who thankful knew English, directed us to the only logical area to buy tickets. Added to this, was a lady who kept trying to get me to buy something of which I refused (and I'm pretty sure she cursed me in French for it). So, we're riding the Metro and get off at the correct stop and first thing I do...pull out the map and directions to the hostel, very noticeably mind you. I'm pretty sure the directions said to go east or west, of which I have no clue if that means left or right. Meanwhile, Mel knows how touristy we look and starts walking. A man in a car stops and asks (in English) if we know where we are going. I, of course, say yes because if not he undoubtedly will throw us in the back and "take" us. Melissa tells him where we need to go and he point us in the opposite direction of where we were headed. Already, two kind Parisians who spoke English and we hadn't even been in the country for much more than an hour or two! Looking back it is a very entertaining situation and makes me laugh at how clueless I was.
Paris had many more humorous and clueless situations. For example, we asked to buy a two day Metro ticket (from a lady who spoke no English), received a two trip ticket instead (without our knowledge), got off to take another train and ended up exiting instead of changing, got back onto the wrong side, then couldn't get over to the right side because our ticket was used up. So, we're stuck at a random part of Paris, no way to buy another ticket, what do we do? Jump the ticket gate of course! (Which is video recorded, so now I'm sure we're wanted criminals in Paris.) We also forgot our cameras the first day when we visited The Louvre, the Eiffel Tour, and the Arc de Triomphe. Luckily, we were able to go back to the Tour and Arc to take pictures but you'll just have to take our word that we've seen the Mona Lisa! Our hostel only had cold water for showering, at least in the bathroom we used, not so fun in the winter time! When we went to go see the Arc (the second time) to take pictures, I read the stops wrong and took us to the Grande Arche de la Defense (a much taller and more modern looking arch, not quite as cool).
We were also able to see the Notre Dame and Sacre Coeur and I especially loved stopping in at random cafes for lunch. Being sure to always order cafe, which is almost unfailingly espresso, never drip. (So tasty!) My favorite site, to my surprise, was the Arc de Triomphe. I expected the Eiffel Tourto be my favorite. Which, don't get me wrong, is really awesome, but there was something about the Arc I loved. Maybe it's because we had just hiked through, what seemed to be, a mile of tunnel and as we rode the escalator to the top the Arc was all lit before us for the sun had just set. A very splended sight!
Seeing Paris really was an awesome adventure! In our experience, the Parisians were not rude in the least but helpful (I'm still trying to decide if it was because we were two young women or just their nature) and many knew English, a huge benefit to us! Having only ten days to travel across Europe left us with only a couple in Paris, but an overnight train ride to our new destination was next on our agenda...
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(And thanks for looking!)
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