Life in Paris...

Europe » France » Île-de-France » Paris » Sarcelles
August 2nd 2011

Published: August 4th 2011

Day One: Ok so it now has been 2 days here and we have had our good times and our not so good times. It all started at 4pm from Dresden when we couldnt figure which was our bus, but that was not too hard in the end! We boarded the bus and headed first to Berlin to catch our next bus. The itinerary said we were going to arrive in Berlin at 6:35pm and our next bus was at 7pm. When we got closer we noticed that we were getting into traffic and the time was getting closer to our due time!! By the time we finally arrived it was 7:05pm and were freaking but we did see our bus there with the sign Paris on it! we grabbed our baggage as quick as possible and ran there just to be told that we had to go to a service area to sign in. so we ran back to where it was and waited in a line, then a man said "Are you going to Amsterdam?" we said "No to Paris" he was like "You are late it is due to leave why you so late?" we said "our bus was late we only arrived now!!!". He quickly signed us in and we ran again to the bus and chucked our bags in and went inside only to find not many seats left letalone together! but one guy insisted we sit behind him, but there was a bag of golf clubs on one seat and so we were confused and asked who they where and no one knew. then the bus driver came up and asked too and then the owner came who had been off smoking said it was his(in french, he spoke no english or german) the driver and him argued in l think two different languages for a while. the driver was saying the bag of clubs are not a person so they have to go in the luggage area and the owner didnt know what he was saying. in the end the owner grabbed them and put them away and we sat down there and he sat somewhere else! The trip from there was not plesant, it went for over 14 hours long with maybe 2 small breaks in between(one which we both slept through). We struggled and struggled with sleeping maybe getting an hour or so at start then got so tired we slept abit more even when uncomfortable! We arrived in Paris at 10am in the morning and was so buggered by then and a bit dehydrated and sore! we went straight to the metro station and caught a train to our hostel we were staying at. Then came our next blow... our reservation had been declined just because thay couldnt seem to charge me for one night on my card. but they still had room(lucky for them or l would have fumed about it). We then found out the rooms are lock and unavailable From 11am till 4pm, which sucked because we really wanted to have a 2 hour nap and a loooong shower as we felt sticky travelling on a bus for 17 hours long! but we had no choice so we left and decided to explore the city around the area and ended up checking out the Nortre Dame not too far from us! It was cool! l descovered their public toilet that washes itself after every use which is good except when your busting and just want to go inside but takes too long. but it was good prob better than other public toilets and its free too! Finally we went back to our hostel got our key and our bags and went to the 5th floor to our tiny double room which uses a bunk bed instead of a double bed, but we were smart we took the mattresses off the bunks and put them next to eat other on the floor. it was awesome. we then had our much needed shower and slept for 4 hours. We got up and decided we needed some food to eat. on our way downstairs we noticed there wasnt a kitchen in site, so we asked reception and they said no kitchen but they had 2 microwaves to use...yipee microwaves!!! So we bought some microwavable rice and some other none cook food and lots of fruit. and ate happily and then went to bed and slept really well!!!
Day two: After a nice well needed sleep we got up and and packed our bags because we had to move to another room for the rest of our nights. l decided to go down early and take advantage of the free breakfast, but just found out its some small bageutte breadm butter and jam oh and free coffee, tea or hot chocolate! since andre couldnt have it he thought about heating some rice up in the microwave but then we found out some bad news...the microwaves are turned off until 1:30pm so no brekky here for him or a healthy one for me(except fruit which we got in the end)!! From there we went off to explore the city and its many sites. We bought a 2 day ticket on a double decker open top bus which you can hop on and off at any of the sites whenever for all the days bought! Our Destination mainly was the eiffel tower but we saw many other gorjez sites on the way. When we finally got to th Eiffel tower it was so beautiful and soooo busy. lines to everything there were way too long to wait and waste our time and it cost to go up so we settled with just looking and taking photos from the ground. We had also found a vegan macrobiotic resturant in the area aswel and had something yummy to snack on, and for dinner we went for a very long walk in a very none touristy place to get to a 100% vegetarian indian resturant which sounded nice. The staff were friendly and the prices were good too. Only thing was communication not so good some l could express that l didnt want anything spicy and so l got really spicy food but it wasnt too bad maybe l get used to it now!! In that region we also found yummy ripe cheap mangoes and also very cheap dates for andre! When we finally got home we were exhausted as we are here everyday and so had a nice shower in our new room and went to sleep!
Day Three: l woke up not so good, with a sore throat and puffy eyes. We had our brekky as usual and set off to see a few more places around. By the time we reached our first destination my sore throat went away but l was sneezing alot, had a bad runny nose and just felt really bad, like a flu but no fever, its unusal for me to get that bad in one day. Though out the day it just got worse and worse, l was having trouble enjoying my day as much as l could especially with all the hiking around we did! We went to the tallest building in the city and paid 11.50 euro each and went to the top which had a 360 degree lookout to the whole of paris. It was BEAUITFUL!!!! The eiffel tower looked small from there like the keyring souviner you could buy at most stores. From there we found the best ice cream store around that had chocolate flavoured dairy-free ice cream, which we thought was never going to be found and it was deliscous too. Later in the day we went to a vegetarian felafel place in town, there we came apon a nice soon to be friend!! Her name is Kat and she is from Melbourne Australia. She has been traveling around parts of the world for over one year now and will be heading home soon. We chatted for ages and then walked down to the water front to check out some dancing happening there. We exchaged emails and parted ways hoping to meet up again maybe in australia. oh and shes a vegan too! It got late so we went off towards home stopping to see if a vegan resturant was open we hadnt been to but found it was closed from the 1st to the 8th august...sucky!!! oh well doesnt matter. We went home and l managed to eat some rice even while l felt sick and hoped l would feel better soon. But it didnt happen!!!
Day four: l felt worse than ever. l barely slept at all that night waking up all through the night and not being able to get back to sleep till hours later sometimes. l decided to get something for it from the pharmacie...it didnt really help!! But it was our last day in Paris and we had yet to see the most important site....The Louvre!!! Which would prob take more than a day to see all. We managed to see it all in one day from 1pm till 5pm but man did we rush. no need to stop and study the paintings and artwork for hours anyway. It was fun but l struggled through the whole day. Poor Andre had to put up with me sick as l was, he did so well trying to cheer me up and all, l wouldnt have done this with out him. It was a long but interesting and hard day, but we did it!!! Then we took the metro home and l had a shower rested ate some watermelon to get my fluids up and now here l am interneting. We will be off to be soon, and then tomorrow early we will be off to our next destination...Amsterdam!!! hope l sleep well tonight.
l am publishing it now so you can read it but l will add some photos later on be sure to check them out when they are on!

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