Michael - CS #21

I don't know if I really slept at all on that overnight train. They're such a great idea, in theory. But with 6 people including 1 sick, coughing child, and 1 crying baby and the window that never seemed to shut letting the loud whooshes of the night come in - it was near impossible.

After the night train to Frankfurt we had to take another 3.5 hour train to Paris. On that train, we met a girl named Cathy from Oregon who was living in France and I had her give me some quick French lessons on things that I knew were drifting away from my foundation. That was good. I flipped through Laura's phrase book to make sure I knew how to say all the basic things (I was pretty sure I did...I just get nervous) and soon I was feeling ready for a trial run.

We arrived at Gare de l'Est and I was so freaking excited to be in Paris again. It was really warm and sunny and everywhere you look there are boulangeries and patisseries and crepes and other delicious things. It's hard to explain how or why I love this city so much. We had really good intentions of going all the way to Bordeaux today but we knew that trains to Bordeaux might already be fully booked. We'd coordinated with a CouchSurfing host in Bordeaux in case we DID make it, and also with a host in Paris in case we got stuck. After talking with a ticket person (IN FRENCH!) and learning that there were no trains to Bordeaux until Sunday our decision was made for us.

Side note: the French have an awful reputation of not speaking English to you. But they also have a reputation of starting to speak English as soon as they here you aren't perfectly fluent. So I was not sure how my rusty french would go over.

I don't know if the woman I spoke to did not know English, did not want to speak English, or did want to speak English but knew I was trying to practice my French (or some other possibility), but she spoke in French with me the whole time and I got the information I needed.

I got to use my French a number of other times for little things here and there - figuring out how to use a payphone (always a challenge for me in foreign countries), ordering crepes (obviously the first thing I ate), buying metro tickets (oh, good story), etc.

Metro ticket story: Paris has expensive tourist passes for like 9 euros for a day. It covers zones 1-3. I asked the tourist office if there was any cheaper way of getting around (individual tickets are 1.6 euros). They said no. I felt like they were lying. I went to the Paris ticket seller booth and saw a sign that said 1 day pass, zones 1-2, 5.6 euros. Half the price! And we had no reason to go to zone 3, because seriously, what's in zone 3? Practically everything is in zone 1. So I was able to buy us the way cheaper all day unlimited passes which we then commenced to use profusely.

We had to check our bags because our host was not home and not picking up his phone. It cost 5 euros a bag (!!!) so we only checked our big bags and I was stuck carrying my green bag and my Baby (my bag of breakables with dying handles) all day.

On our way to go see the city...finally. After 2.5 months of traveling, after 24 hours of commuting, after practically no sleep and little food - but still, I was excited beyond belief so running on adrenaline was no problem.

Then I realized it was Friday, and I just happen to know that the Louvre is free on Fridays for people under 26 after a certain time. So that's where we went first. It was about 3 when we got there and free entrance didn't start until 6. So going off of pure memory, I led us to a neighborhood close by that I remembered having cheap, yummy crepes. I was pretty sure I had gotten to the neighborhood and we stopped at the first crepe place. After I'd finished eating, I pulled out my trusty travel journal (that I got right before I was in France almost 2 years ago). I flipped through what I wrote during August 2008...and found a line scrawled that some street had great crepes. I looked at where I knew we were on my map...and saw that the street I had written down 2 years ago intersected with the street we were on, just half a block up. I had made it on memory!!!

At this point, I've got to be honest. I was feeling pretty damn clever. Back in my Paris, speaking French, jumping off a train on no sleep and knowing what museums are free and where the food is. It's a GREAT feeling. I need to live here.

After that, we were within walking distance of the Notre Dame. It was here that we realized that both of our cameras were dead. Hilarious considering the weather was beautiful and we had all day metro passes so we'd be going to see as much as we could. After that we headed to the Eiffel Tower which was majestic and gorgeous as always. There we saw some really good street performers dancing. Usually I feel like only guys do street dancing, but this group had a girl who was also really good! I wish I could dance...at all.

After the street performers, I really wanted to go to the fountain close by and sit with my feet in the water. I love doing that. But...right now there is no fountain because Paris has set up a huge outdoor screen for the world cup games and the whole area is fenced off and labeled "FIFA FAN FEST." Pretty cool! Except that there's no fountain :( Tons of people were sitting outside though watching the opening day of the world cup. I wish the States like soccer as much as Europe.

So, by now it was time to head back to the Louvre to get in for free. Laura and I are not huge museum people, especially by this point on our trip, and I'm just jaded having been to the the Louvre 2 or 3 times already. This resulted in the fastest whirl wind and totally under appreciative tour of the Louvre ever. We saw the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, and that was pretty much it. A little lame but whatevs. If we really want to go back, we'll be here next Friday too :)

After the Louvre we went back to Gare de l'Est, called our host from Bordeaux to say we weren't coming and tried again to call our host here in Paris. When he didn't respond, again, we walked until we found a McDonald's. We sat outside stealing their internet and trying to Skype our host and check for possible back up hosts on CS. Finally we got through to him and found out he was home, so we went back to the station to retrieve our huge bags and took the metro to his stop. But the story doesn't end there. He said he lived really close to the metro, but Google maps told us to go the completely wrong direction. So we walked around lost with all of our freaking stuff for at least half an hour. Then I finally started using my French once again to figure out how to get us to his place. A nice shop man helped me and let me use his phone. After 15 minutes of having the shop man help me and letting me get through to our host (who said he was too tired to come and pick us up...a 10 minute walk away) I didn't want to leave without buying anything. The closest and cheapest thing in sight was a beer and I was hot, tired, thirsty, and frustrated, so that sounded great. No idea if it's legal to drink on the streets here but I picked up all my bags and drank my beer on the way to host's flat. His name is Michael by the way.

Michael turned out to be a really nice guy from Mauritius working as a train engineer here. He made us a great little pasta dinner with chopped green onions and really tender beef. We picked up a bottle of red Bordeaux wine to go with it. Happily fed and not carrying all our bags around the evening was going much better. By now I think it was around 11 or so, but we had all day metro passes so I wanted to keep doing stuff!

When I was here two summers ago I stayed at a hostel where I met Rich who was in the process of moving from England to Paris at that time. He works at an English pub here so I thought we could go see his bar and see if he was working. It was a Friday night so I figured he would be. His bar turned out to be really cool and really huge. It's also a microbrewery and they brew six different beers on site. Rich was working, but he didn't recognize me at first which was prettttty awkward. But it has been almost two years and my hair was up instead of down. I tried a dark beer (cleverly called "Dark de Triomphe") and Michael, who agreed to come out with us, got a ginger beer. Both were pretty delicious. It was really fun seeing Rich and I chatted with him on our way out and he asked if I was watching the world cup games. I said I really wanted to see the US/England game and asked if the Frog (his pub) was showing it. He said of course it was, so I think we'll be back tomorrow.

Then we began the slow trek back to Michael's flat...couldn't have asked for a better first day in Paris. It was a fantastically full day for not even knowing for sure 24 hours ago that we were going to be here. Love this city. Love it.


Accomplishments:
Speaking French again and still knowing my way around :)