After Barcelona, I was excited to see what else this trip had to offer us. I did not want to leave Barcelona though, but I was positive I was going to have more fun experiences the rest of the week. God was I wrong! We arrived in Paris Monday around 1pm. First thing we did was to look for the information booth in order to ask how to get to our hostel. I can't say the lady was mean to us because she really did help us and didn't show any signs she didn't want to, but the way she helped us was so cold. It was as if she didn't mind helping but if you gave her the option on either helping us or not, she would choose not to help us. We bought a ticket that would allow us to take the train to the center of Paris and from there, as long as we would't exit, we could take the tram to our hostel. Well, which train to take was our first challenge. Even though some trains are labeled with the same number, they have different destinations. We were so confused at first, but using signs, I was able to ask a French guy that was standing near us. I have to say it was a little akward asking without knowing French but I had to do it. Once we arrived at the terminal where we were going to grab the tram, we started following everyone since they were all going to the same location. There was a big sign saying "Sortie" above us, but we didn't know what it meant. Now we do. It means EXIT! We accidently exited the terminal and had to buy another ticket in order to go back in. Once we finally got to the hostel, they made us wait almost two hours just to get our room. We were hungry, so we decided to buy some things from the market while we waited forever. For the rest of the day, we just walked around to get to know the area around us, went to stores, and saw the Moulin Rouge. Even though its not my thing, I have to admit it look awesome during the night.
The next day it snowed! I usually like snow, but ever since I arrived here in Europe, I started hating it. It has snowed often in Bonn, Germany and I thought that for Spring Break, I was going to have a break from that weather. To make things worse, French people do not really now how to drive in snow. Just in our way to the bus stop, we literally saw about five accidents with the drivers standing outside the cars shouting at each other. To make things even more worse, the hop-on-hop-off bus we booked for our days in Paris got canceled. We had made all our plans depending on those buses and know our stay in Paris was ruined. If we wanted to see things, we were either going to buy a bus ticket or walk everywhere. Here is the thing...we didn't have a lot of money. Therefore, we decided to walk everywhere. Oh my God was it tiring. When I left Bonn, I was afraid I wasn't going to work out but I was so wrong. We literally walked all Paris. Our first stops were the arch of triumph and the eiffel tower. By that point I felt like giving up, but we did not. After the eiffel tower, we decided to eat at a cafe, where I had a Diabolo Menthe, a limonade with mint syrup that my host mom had recommended me. The waiter looked at me weird because the drink was not in the menu, but according to my host mom, every place has it. You just need to know about in order to order it. After eating, we walked to Notre Dame Cathedral and were able to go in for free. That church is beautiful and what I liked the most was that they had an altar of La Virgen de Guadalupe, our lady of Mexico. After the cathedral, I wanted to go to Saint Chapelle because they have the crown of thorns Jesus wore, but the line was huge and I had to pay 10 euros to go in. After there, I had to make one more stop for the day. I decided to spend a little bit of money in order to go see the Stade de France. This is the stadium where the France national team usually plays all their home games. This is the stadium where Zinedine Zidane raised the world cup in 1998. This is the stadium that has been home to many soccer legends such as Deschamps. After admiring the stadium, I decided to go see what was around. I found myself with a big market with a lot of cheap things. What I liked the most is that I was able to buy five pane schokolade for 1.25 euros. This was a great deal, specially since that bread has a special meaning to me. It was the first thing I had for breakfast here in Europe and my host mom bought it exclusively for me, since it is typical French.
The next day, Wednesday, we didn't have a lot of time. Our train to London left at five, so we had to hurry and see what we wanted to see as fast as possible. We decided to go to the Louvre museum first since we wanted to see the Mona Lisa and we were scarred there was going to be lots of people. That place was gigantic. In order to see everything, we needed a whole day or even more. For that reason we decided to just focus in what we wanted to see. What I liked the most were the paintings from the resonance era. I couldn't stop looking at them and taking pictures. By the time we got out, it was already 2pm and we wanted to be at the train station by 4pm, so we decided to just call it a day and go pick up our stuff from the hostel in order to head to the train station. Once in the train station, we saw a sign in the first floor saying our train was retarded. To us, that ment our train was delayed, so we decided to just chill until they showed in which gate our train was going to be. Lucky us, we decided to ask like around 4:45pm if the train was going to stop in the first floor. The guy we asked told us we had to go upstairs. When we went upstairs, there was a sign saying the train was on time. We tried to rush into customs, but it took us a good while getting our passports stamped. The customs lady that stamped my passport kept asking me things as if I was some sort of terrorist. Once we passed customs, we started walking towards our gate when we suddenly heard "Attention passegers, train #1904 destination to London is about to leave". As soon as I heard that, I felt my blood pressure drop all the way to the floor. That was our train! When I looked up to tell Paula, she wasn't there anymore. She was way ahead running as fast as she could to catch the train. I wanted to run too, but I couldn't. I had the suitcase plus my big laptop back with me. Up to now, I still don't know how I did it, but I manage to carry the suitcase and catch up with Paula. We were able to barely catch our train, but I have to say sometimes I wish we would of stayed in Paris instead.
No comments:
Post a Comment