How Can You Get Lost in Paris??!!

May the 22^nd, 11:42 PM, Paris

                Tonight Andy and I had the best croissant, almond pastry and braided pretzel bread we’ve ever had in our entire life.  We bought them from the extremely kind pastry chef across the street from our bed and breakfast in Paris.  She didn’t speak one single word of English but we got the point across with pointing and smiling.  Our time in Paris hasn’t been easy so far, however… let me tell the story of how Andy and I almost spent our first Parisian night on the street, in the rain, with the hobos.

                This morning we got up early to check out of the Barcelona hostel (FINALLY!!).  I took one last, awful “shower” in our moldy bathroom, we got our deposit back for the keys and never turned back! Down Las Ramblas, we got coffee and fruit from La Boqueria (it was open again today! That’s two days in a row! So impressed).  We bid our farewells to Barcelona and hopped on the Aerobus back to the airport.  Our flight to Paris cost about $75 each through EasyJet.  The flight wasn’t bad at all actually… boarding was kind of a pain because they don’t tell you the gate number until the flight is actually boarding… so that’s kind of a scramble.  Then they make everyone prove that their carry ons can fit in the luggage compartment by making them fit their bags into an equal sized box they have at the gate.  If your luggage doesn’t fit, it’s a €40 charge to check it from the gate.  Our backpacks didn’t even raise an eyebrow as they let us just skate by without making us prove they fit.  Mainly they’re looking at bags with wheels or anything that just looks oversized.  The flight doesn’t come with food or drink (unless you bought them) but it was only an hour and forty five minutes long so we didn’t mind. 

                We landed in Charles de Gaulle airport, and due to just bad math on my part (not used to military time!!) I realized I had absentmindedly given the wrong arrival time to our bed and breakfast owner.  I meant to say we would be there between 5 and 8, but I accidentally selected 15:00 and 18:00 which is obviously 3 and 5. Such a dumb, I-was-in-a-hurry mistake.  We figure we’ll call from the airport … only to learn that confirmation didn’t have her phone number saved in it!! In addition… we couldn’t get on any wifi.  Why is airport wifi always such a scam?? It should just be free!!

                We went to the tourism desk and got a map and some cash from the ATM.  I think I know from memory the metro line to take to the BnB so we just go for it.  The RER B Paris by Train will take you straight from Charles de Gaulle to the heart of the city for €9.50.  The ride reminded us of being on Chicago’s Metra.  We took the RER B to Chatelet Halles and walked to the nearest metro stop with our line (M3… aka, puke green line).  Just getting out of that train station was anxiety provoking.  People everywhere!! No one says excuse me, sorry or anything.  If you stop in the middle, you will simply get run over. No one will care. It’s a stampede of hurried French people.  The station is even attached to a rather large mall that you have to weave through just to get to the street.

                Stepping outside is like stepping into a new world.  There are people everywhere… puts Chicago to shame.  So far, it’s nothing like the friendly, English speaking tourist city of Barcelona.  It’s hectic and the people are brief and intimidating.  We find the metro station we need and take the puke green line to Gambetta which is what I thought we needed.  Our dinky, free map from the airport doesn’t even have the street on it that we need so we’re wandering around, lost, no phone numbers to call, no internet and it starts raining.  Lost and wet, we trekked back down to the metro station and talked to the lady at the information desk that spoke a Tiny bit of English. I wrote down the address we needed for her and she put an “X” on our map of where it was supposed to be! I’ll put a picture of this up later.  Turns out we needed one more stop on the metro, and then the walk was less than ten minutes.  We arrived at a beautiful cobblestone street leading up to a gate that has two entrances.  We buzz but no one responds… Sound familiar? Keep in mind, it’s still raining, we’re quite wet, exhausted, carrying all our things and arguing about how to get a different hotel for the night.  Finally (thank god we’re a good team) Andy tries the buzzer again and sure enough, you have to really push HARD on the biggest button (yeah there were like 10 buttons) and someone responded.  A middle aged French woman with near-perfect English let us in.  She scolded us and said “How can you get lost in Paris?? Where is your map?”. Once she saw that her street wasn’t even on the map she scolded us again.

                We don’t think she likes us much.  We imagine to her, we’re dumb, young, Americans.  Which we are, in a way; we like to say naïve instead of dumb though.  We also imagine that she gets older people staying here, most often, and likely not many Americans.  People our age tend to stay in hostels near the city center.  I picked this place because it looked sweet, got great reviews, and Rick Steves raves about Bed and Breakfasts! After showing us around and lecturing us about how to become better Europe travelers, she asks us what time for coffee in the morning and retires to her part of the house.  Essentially, we’re staying in her house.  We have the lower level and she has the upper level!  The shower is the nicest one I’ve ever use… Andy described this place as “nicer than my house!”.  After where we stayed in Barcelona, a little luxury is a welcomed relief.  I took what felt like my first real shower in nearly a week.

                Before it got dark, we walked across the street where we bought two pastries and way more bread than we can eat, plus a 1.5L of Coke for €6.90. Our love/hate/struggle relationship with Paris has begun.  Tomorrow, we’re going straight to the Eifel Tower and buying a proper tourist map from a street vendor!