Start Paris - Rough Start- End in Dublin

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This would be my 4th trip to Paris. I keep meaning to go to the top of the Eiffel tower each time before but something always gets in the way. So I was determined to make it work this time but things don't always work out the way you want it to.

I was on a very narrow schedule and that was probably a mistake. I landed at CDG more or less on time but to exit the plane required us to board a bus which took us on 20 minute tour of the airport before dropping us off near the terminal. Customs and immigration line was another 15 minutes but Paris has a laid back immigration system and they simply stamped my passport and waved me through. I was already running late by this point so I opted to take a taxi to my cousins' place in Noisel. I could have taken the TGV train to Disneyland than the RER to their place and that would have taken me about 1 hr 15 minutes. The taxi was supposed to be 40 minutes. We started out ok and I was making good time until we hit travel on the outskirts of Paris. Than the cars were not moving. I realized quickly that I was not going to be on time so I made a call to my cousin to let them know I would be late. So almost 2 hours later I pulled up to the Noisel RER station. The cost ran to over 80 Euros so I not only arrived later than I would have on the train but spent 4 times the amount. So lesson learn always use mass transportation

My cousin met me at the station and than I was told than her children were not home because they were at school and wouldn't be home at the time I would be there. I had a miscommunication with her kids about times. My mistake I should have been more careful on this point. So I spent a bit of time at her place before heading into the city on RER hoping to make it up the Eiffel tower before my next catchup that afternoon. I am familiar with the Paris transit system which I am quite a fan of. I made it to the CDG Etoile station and took the inner city lines to Trocadero station and made a run for the Eiffel tower. Once I got there I realized with the length of the lines I would never make it. I quickly bought a ticket to use the stairs hoping to make a good enough time to take the elevator on the 2nd floor. I run stairs in my apartment building at home so I am good shape to run stairs. After running as fast I could I reached the first floor in an exhausted state. I hadn't calculated running up the stairs with my carry on backpack. Resting for a bit I did some time calculation and realized I wasn't going to make it. I will say it was a hard realization knowing I had been to Paris 4 times now and not made it up the one monument all tourist do. I resolved to make a specific trip to Paris for this next year. After gathering some gifts and candies I walked for a few minutes on the see through floors and I will say it is quite disorienting but a good view. I took the elevator down to the ground floor and took the Metro to Saint Denis station where I had a catchup.

I was meeting with Cristina who I had met earlier in the year in Hong Kong. A little background, she is Spanish but lived in London all the way up to a few weeks ago. She had recently accepted an internship at a media company in Paris or else I would have met her in London. Traveling around you meet all sorts of people but it is usual a case of random chance. If I had slept a bit later in Hong Kong I would have never have met Cristina and probably met someone else in the common room of CheckINN Hong Kong. I do make an effort of meeting up with people again from earlier trips. It is becoming a bit more complicated as I meet more and more people and I end up coordinating with multiple people each trip.

So the plan was meetup just outside of the Saint Denis Metro station and go to a coffee shop during Cristina's lunch break. I got there just before 1:30PM but she was not around. I did some wandering between the 2 Metro station openings but she did not turn up. I would have sent her a message but my phone was not working properly so if she had sent me a message saying she was going to be late or cancelling I would have not have gotten it. I wander around to various fast food places nearby but none of them had wi fi. This was turning into a nightmare of a day. Effectively everything had gone wrong today in Paris. I was sad at this moment wondering what could have happened. My mind wandered back and forth to the possibilities as I wandered up and down Saint Denis Street. I was about to give up and head to the airport and message Cristina using their wi fi but I decided to get something to eat at La Central, which was a café nearby. lo and behold they had a wi fi which I used to message Cristina. 10 seconds later she responded back with F**K and informed me that she thought it was next week. 2 minutes later she was at La Central and after a hug greeting and an apology, which I told her was unnecessary, we sat down.

She told me about her new job at the media company and I told her it was interesting career she had chosen and how jealous I was she could just move countries to a new job. I still hoped someday to move to another country and start over. A funny thing in that Café, one of the waitress starting sing "I believe I can fly" in the background in an American accent while her regular voice was Parisian. Cristina and I chatted about various things and what had happened since Hong Kong. Cristina was as nice as I remember her and too soon it was time to part ways and she headed back to work. I stayed at the La Central a bit longer and finished my delicious meal of chicken. I wished I had gotten some wine with it but I was so tired I had a feeling it would have gone straight to my head. Oh before she left I gave Cristina her gift of maple syrup in a maple leaf container. It was a good thing we ended up meeting because it was too large for me to take on the plane and I would have to throw it away or drink it.

Now it was on Dublin. I took the RER train to CDG and got on my City Jet flight to Dublin. It was a short flight and I managed to get some sleep on the plane. Landing in Dublin I was disappointed to see it was raining because I was in sandals. Braving the wind and the rain took the 747 bus to central Dublin. My phone was still not working so I was wandering around a bit looking for the Isaacs hostel. More or less by chance I found it and checked in. The Isaacs hostel is clean and well run but it is colder compared to other hostels. I mean colder in the sense people weren't chatting with each other as they usually would.

The first person I met in the hostel common room I made a mistake I usually don't. When you meet people for the first time it is always advisable to keep conversations casual. She had commented she didn't agree with my facebook profile picture which is me hugging a Koala. She said she thought it was wrong to do that to animals. I pointed out they restrict the number of interactions Koalas are allowed in a day and they are handled by professionals. She than commented about they don't put humans on display like they do to animals in zoos. I said back that we do that all the time to humans and they are called models. I thought it was a nice debate but I must have offended her at some point and she later declined my friend request 😞. Oh well these things can happened.

Beyond that I had a nice conversation with a 2 American students from Rome who helped me out with a vending machine which was surprisingly confusing. I than had a final conversation with my roommates about various movies and actresses before going to sleep.

Tomorrow I would start the day in Dublin and end it with The Primitives in the evening in London.

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Photos

Cristina
I met Cristina in Hong Kong. Always good to see people again I have met previously