Paris, France
We just arrived at our hotel a few hours ago. The trip getting here was horrible (more about that later, though)! Our hotel in Paris is soooo much nicer. As you can see, we have a lot more room and it is nice and clean! We have to hike up a REALLY steep spiral staircase to get to our room on the fourth floor, but the view is beautiful. And, we have a huge French window that opens up onto the street. I’ve already threw it open and sang songs from beauty and the beast twice. ( I’m quickly discovering that all my European knowledge comes from Disney movies. . .)
Getting here was a whole different story! We had to get up at 5:30 am to catch our train from London to Paris. We had planned to sleep on the train, but of course a family with a cranky baby sat behind us and we got no sleep. Once we arrived in Paris we were planning to buy a week long transportation pass and catch another train to our hotel.
Well, the lady at the kiosk obviously didn’t understand us and we ended up getting an unlimited one day pass that was very expensive and we really didn’t need. The train station was extremely crowded and smelled like cigarettes and pee (please excuse my graphic details, i’m just trying to paint the picture here).
While in London I was surprised at how clean the subway stations and trains were compared to New York. The Paris station made the New York subway stations look clean enough to lick! We waited and waited for our train for abut 45 minutes and it never even came up on the que. I tried to find someone to ask what was going on, but couldn’t find anyone who spoke english. Josh found a sign that explained everything, though. The drivers of the train we needed, and others, had gone on strike today so that line wasn’t running.
We studied the maps for a bit and found another route via the metro system. The metro station was even dirtier than the train station. It was so crowded in the metro car that I cold barely breath and Josh and I got separated, though we were still in the same car – just squished between 10-15 other people. During this time some angry french man elbowed me in the stomach really hard and said something mean in french about Americans. We had to ride for 5 or 6 stops and finally got off a few blocks from our hotel.
It was raining and cold and hard to walk on the crowded streets with our big backpacks, but we finally made it to the hotel. Since then, we decided to go grab a few groceries and do our laundry because the hotel has a free washer and dryer.
I decided to stay and do the laundry while Josh walked down the street to find a store and figure out the neighborhood. Unfortunately, he took our only key with him and I'm stuck in the staff laundry room with one of the hotel employees who keeps speaking french to me – though i have made it clear i have no idea what he is saying.
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