To Paris We Go
Trip Start
Jun 27, 2008
1
7
11
Trip End
Jul 11, 2008
Paris,
Île-de-France,
France
Friday, July 4, 2008
We were out of the horribly decorated apartment and into a cab by 10. I, being the genius I am, forgot to eat breakfast. I do that a lot, though, so it was all good. The cab ride was uneventful, except for my mom's laptop falling on the ground with a loud thud. That was fun! Luckily, it still worked later.
St. Pancras wasn't interesting, but it was well decorated. Besides that, the security was almost as annoying as the airports. To make matters worse, our train was supposed to leave at 11:05 and we were supposed for board 20 minutes beforehand. Come 10:45 they told us it was time to start, and then proceeded to not open the doors for fifteen minutes. Incompetent idiots.
The train ride itself was uneventful and the seats just a little cramped in coach class. I was stuck with the plebeians =( I did, however, have one of the best sandwiches ever to meet the face of this earth. The sandwich did not take away my disappointment at the Chunnel, though. I thought it'd be like all sweet and awesome, but noooo; you didn't even see the ocean for the whole trip and only knew you were in the Chunnel when one of the turns through the many tunnels went for longer than usual. The only reason I knew we had for sure arrived in France was that my phone attached to a French network, rather than a British one.
I was super shocked when entering Paris Nord; there was so much graffiti. It was the most I had ever seen, more than New York or Los Angeles. Jeff was kind of upset, but I convinced him it was because the major airports/ train stations of cities are always in the dodgiest part of town. Turned out, that wasn't bullshit; the rest of Paris was graffiti free, for the most part.
We ended up taking a van limo thing, which was ridiculously expensive, because we didn't want to wait in the literallythreehourslong taxi waiting line. Hell no! Whatever. Paris, it turns out (though I suppose I already knew that) is really pretty. Most of the buildings aren't really tall and they all have flower beds or terraces. Our flat here certainly does.
Speaking of said flat, my mother has redeemed herself. This apartment is awesome. It's tiny, but well decorated and just generally very adorable. There are two balconies, and one is only, oh like FIVE HUNDRED YARDS FROM THE EIFFLE FRIGGIN' TOWER! THE VIEW IS AMAZING! At night it lights up blue and sparkles sometimes. I've only taken like a hundred pictures so far; it's ridiculously sweet.
After we arrived at the apartment around 4, we set off to find food. First, it came in the form of an extremely expensive restaurant where I had a fish that was still staring up at me. I must say, though, it was quite good. Unfortunately, I had to endure my mother and Jeff making the fish talk. And people wonder why the world hates Americans. That, and Bush, I guess.
Next, food came in the form of a grocery store where I almost peed my pants because they had no bathroom and I ended up having to run back to the extremely expensive restaurant to use theirs. That was most definately the highlight of my day.
Last, my mother stopped in a bakery. Big surprise. Luckily, not too many sweets were bought. Eventually we made it back to the apartment, where my mom decided to be very French and just sit on the balcony and drink wine. I, however, was totally engrossed in watching Raptor Island in French. I didn't really know what was going on, but I did get to see stupid people get eaten by small dinosaurs even though they had large guns. That was very enjoyable, indeed.
Here's where the real fun started. The couch. Ah, the lovely lovely couch. So, here's what happened: We decided to see if the pull out bed worked. After disassembling half of it and discovering a set of levers and metal that's worthy of an Apollo, we analyzed and attempted to get it to fold out. We did this for an extremely long time, but were unsuccessful.. I will continue my crusade to figure out said coach because there was a breakthrough involving clicking right before I was forced to give up. According to my mother, this is not uncommon with Italian furniture.
After that I watched cartoons in French and had no idea what was going on. Then, I proceeded to use the washing machine. Though, it was nearly as loud as the British one, it wasn't evil.
Something I Learned Today: Italian furniture is like NASA's and the Devil's illegitimate child.
Comments
Paris
Can't wait for the pics!