L'histoire de Paris

That's about all the French I can speak...actually, I know how to say the following words: snails, bathroom, where, how much, train, station, bus (it's "bus"), hello, goodbye, what's your name, how are you, and a few other conversational things.  None of them could have prepared me for the day that was to come, though...the next few posts are going to be almost entirely pictures (with brief brief captions) so here's the written bit for you...the story of our trip:

We get up at 4am and somehow don't oversleep...throw a few essentials together for our day trip (water, zucchini cookies, passports).


We leave my flat just after 4:30am and walk to King's Cross b/c the tube isn't running yet, and it's only a 20 min walk.

We arrive at King's Cross (/St Pancras NOT pancreas as I always want to say!) and find out that we have to go through security. This shocks both of us as we were given no info from Eurostar that we needed to get there, say, 30 minutes or more before departure...WHOOPS #1.

We (and about 60 other naive people) are rushed through passport checks and security...I guess international trains are a lot like international flights, except we don't have them in the U.S. (who wants to take a train to Mexico or Canada?!?) so we didn't know!

We rush to our lovely carriage and I pass out for the majority of the train ride...backwards-facing-movement evidently lulls me to sleep.

We arrive in Paris! YAY!!! So we go to buy our carnet (book of 10 metro tix) with our pitiful amount of French when Dwivs and I decide to be efficient by splitting between the machine line and the counter line. Dwivs gets there first, calls me over, and then we find out her card won't work with the machine (European credit cards all have nice chips in them, whereas U.S. ones are old-fashioned with a magnetic strip). So back to the counter line...at then end. WHOOPS #2.

We buy the carnet and get a metro/bus map (you hear that London??? BUS MAPS. MAKE THEM!) and head towards the metro. We accidentally walk through without paying for our trip. WHOOPS #3.

We take the metro to an awesome market where we buy a croissant (fantastic), a baguette (pretty good but not my type of bread), and a bottle of wine (take note, this will come up later). Some woman tries to ask us for directions, to our great amusement.

We then head out for Sainte-Chapelle, which is absolutely beautiful but absolutely overpriced, and we want to save our money for Notre Dame....so we take some photos, take a guess at which way Notre Dame is (we guessed wrong) and start strolling. Actually, first we tried to ask the very nice French policemen who were very smiley and cheerful, but they couldn't tell us (we asked about a street that it's off of, not Notre Dame...silly Americans!).

 

So we realize we're going the wrong way but get some beautiful shots of the Seine. We go back the other way, and find out that Notre Dame is FREE. We take a very long stroll through, light a candle (not free but who cares!!!), and stop for a quick prayer before heading out. Most gorgeous cathedral I've ever seen. West Point is #2. Westminster Abbey is #3.

After Notre Dame we head out for "the Champs Elysees." Yes, "The." Let this be a lesson as to why you don't plan trips on little sleep. Champs Elysees is a high street of shopping (I went in Louis Vuitton!!!), which we had conveniently forgotten while standing on it and then asked a lovely French woman where Champs Elysees was. She points in both directions, which confuses us greatly, and I say "the monument?" and she tells us that the Arc de Triomphe is at the end in a certain direction. We then realize our mistake. WHOOPS #4.

We stop for a scoop of Haagen Daazs (sooo yummy) and then continue our quest to find reasonably-priced escargot. We find one place that has it for 7.90 and decide to go there after the Arc.

 

 

The Arc is beautiful!!! But not handicap-accessible (Dwi has bad knees) so we don't go all the way to the top. The tomb of the unknown soldier is there as well. I've now visited that in 3 countries!

On to the escargot. We stop in this wonderful little restaurant that has a kitchen utensils theme...the lamps are decorated with spoons. the door handles are copper pots, etc. Almost kitschy but not quite. We order our escargot to share, and they bring us free water and bread. love france. Then, as if that weren't enough, they bring us two lovely American boys (maybe 24, 25?) to sit next to us (it was a table for 4 that they pulled apart). We entertain them greatly while trying to figure out how to eat escargot, they amuse us with their failure of french (not that ours is amazing). We find out they're in London on business and I give them recommendations of places to go. Go figure, they're staying in Bloomsbury (where I live)...because that just had to happen. This will be a theme of the day. The escargot are delicious, by the way (thanks Maggie!).

Then we get to chatting about why we're in Paris, and all 4 of us decided that London's vicinity to Paris accommodated a slightly hectic day trip quite nicely...aka they were on our morning train and will be on our return train. Also part of the theme of the day. They head out, with a very amusing "I'll think of you at breakfast" (I recommended a place for a cheap Full English), and we say goodbye...or so we think.

We get some creme brulee because it's France, and it's delicious. We then head off to walk along the Seine, but on our trip we discover a beautiful garden patio that looks straight at the Eiffel tower. Score.

While sitting along the lawn fountain (yes, of COURSE there was a fountain), we discover that our wine bottle has a cork, and we have not a corkscrew. So, we continue our walk, and I wonder aloud where we could find a corkscrew.

10 seconds later, in front of my face is a sign for the Musee du Vin. Brain: GIFT SHOP=BINGO! So we head there, or rather, try to follow what will hopefully be a series of signs. Just when we start to think that we missed the street, there's another sign pointing to the museum, which is just on our right. So we go in, there's a gift shop (of course) which has several different corkscrews for sale. I opt for the most unusual and we go on our merry way, still slightly thrown by that occurrence.

We cross the Seine, and walk along it for 20-30 min. The sun is starting do go down, so we decide to go find some cheese, so we head back towards the street.

Dwivs comments that she hasn't bought all her souvenirs yet. You guessed it--suddenly there's a souvenir shop. We go in, I hear the guy talking in Spanish to someone else, so I talk to him in Spanish. So does Dwivs. He gets very excited at this, and then is very confused when I say I'm from NY. Yay for SPA 202. He tells us where we can find cheese.

We go to the small "supermarket" (supermarkets in Europe are about the equivalent of American convenience stores. Also, this is the 3rd grocery store I've been in in 3 countries in 3 days) and buy some Gouda and Babybel. We then stop by a patisserie and get a brioche and an eclair.

We then go back to the Eiffel lawn, camp out (plastic bags make a great blanket) and open our wine after much concerted effort. Then we devour our picnic and watch the sun set and the tower light up. Then it sparkles. Furthermore, the bathrooms are clean and FREE. love france.

Then we take a ride on the carousel across the street, a perfect way to end our day in Paris. Note: don't ever attempt to take pictures at night from a moving carousel. They don't turn out well.

We take a very complicated (okay, 2 transfers) route back to the train station, with enough time to go through security this time. Then comes the fun passport control. The Frenchman stamps our passports, telling us to come back soon. The Englishman checking our passports for entry asks me for my immigration letter. This is the first time I've been asked for it when entering the UK (my 3rd time entering) and the first time I've forgotten it. WHOOPS #4. He goes through a rather long schpiel about how he can deny me entry (and should, by all rights...I agree with him!), but when I succeed in answering his many questions without missing a beat, he lets me through. Whew! I am very grateful. We go to the waiting room, eat some cookies, and get ready to board.

Guess who we see in line while boarding? That's right. The American boys. But we hide from them and board our coach. I'm walking down the aisle wondering why the car is so much nicer this time when we stop at our seats, and lo and behold, they're right in front of us. Freaking small world. So we laugh for a bit and then settle down.

20 minutes in, they come by with drinks. I hear the boys in front of us order champagne, and then see them not get charged. So we get champagne. It was bad champagne, but free! We are confused as to why there is free champagne.

Then they come by with trays. Trays with salad and rolls and chocolates and bottled water. These are evidently free as well. They also come with free wine, which we took to go.

Then they come by with entrees, because apparently that wasn't dinner. Despite having eaten at Eiffel, we indulge, because, hey, it's free.

Then they come by with coffee and tea, which we decline, but still.

I joke to Dwivi that all that's missing is someone coming by saying "hot towel."

Five minutes later, someone comes by with a bin of hot towels, although they don't actually say "hot towel." We nearly die laughing. love eurostar. (and france).

Then we find out we're in business class, as the rather loud Englishwoman sitting on our right who asks for more wine (also free) has a phone conversation describing how "utterly crap" (yay english phrases) the trip has been, and how first class is the only way to go. Now we know why our tickets were more expensive on the return!