Been a while, hasn't it? I will attempt to post as much about my days in Paris and Berlin as much as I can in the coming days, but I have a visiting brother and a paper to write and those things are mostly likely going to take precedence. But do not worry, I wrote down all these days in a journal as they happened for reference for this sort of bloggy thing.
22 Dec:
Ryan and I woke up at 2am so we can leave at 3am so we can get to St. Pancras International Station by 4am so we could make our 5am Eurostar train. Follow that track. Anyway, I had been worried about the Eurostar thing because that was another company affected by this Big Freeze/Giant Snowfall hoo-ha. We checked online the previous day and the three trains after us were canceled, but ours was still running normally and there shouldn't be any issues. Good news. I wanted to leave earlier than Ryan wanted to, but he was sleep deprived from traveling so I had to let him sleep some more.
We ended up not taking a bus directly to King's Croxx/St. Pancras because that was taking too long for my tastes, so we got off around Holborn station and walked the rest of the way. When we got to St. Pancras, there was already a giant queue for the Paris trains. According to a security guard in the area, we just had to wait for now. The Eurostar staff weren't there yet and they'll sort through everything as soon as they do.
We got talking with a French woman returning to France for the holidays. She said she had a text saying that she'll have priority boarding on the Eurostar because she had a pre-reserved ticket with them, then assured us that we had the same thing even though we didn't recieve a text for it (we didn't sign up). We got to complaining about England's lack of snow control and how, where we are from, snow is nothing, really. It's apparently nothing in France too because they get more snow than England. And Germany is awesome with snow control, according to this woman. We told her about our overnight train to Berlin, and she assured us that we should be fine with that.
Finally, the staff was around. We went into the building and followed the crowd before finding the staff calling for tickets. We showed ours and were let through the first checkpoint. We got checked in, went through security, and got our seats on the train. The train was late in leaving, but not everyone could maneuver through that crowd like we could (we kind of went around, actually).
We listened to some of the Harry Potter 7 audiobook when the train got started, but I turned it off by chapter three because I was completely gone. Slept the rest of the way to France and completely missed the chunnel. There was nothing to see anyway, I guess. But it was still cool that I actually took the chunnel! Life goal complete. So then I watched some French scenery pass by and slept some more. It was a good rest. Apparently, Ryan didn't sleep as well as I did on the train over.
Once in Paris, we decided to try to find our hotel so we could check in or at least see if we can drop off our backpacks. Ryan had to readjust himself for an unfamiliar way to write street signs but I was used to this sort of thing. France wasn't so different than Italy, which wasn't so different from London. Ryan has, pretty much, never seen anything like this before, so I was listed as the navigator for the day.
We couldn't check into the hotel just yet, but we could use the luggage room. So we dropped off our bags, stuff our valuables in inside pockets, and set out in the wild world of Paris.
It kind of stinks. Really. Ryan says there was a smell that I only vaguely noticed and didn't pay attention to. There was also random dog poop along the sidewalks. It disappeared in the tourist areas, but it still existed outside of them. (Note, our hotel was not in the tourist area. It was closer to the train stations than the Eiffel Tower). But we sucked it up because it's Paris and went on our merry way. First goal of the day: find the New Europe free tour so we can get a better feel for the city and its history. We wandered in circles around Rue de St. Michel looking for it and finally found it in the Obvious Place Listed on the Map. But found it at the last second we did.
Our tour guide was from Australia originally and she had a cold. She said to bear with her because if she seems high, it's because she's taking perscription drugs for her cold. She also wore like three scarves so her neck protruded past her chin and her lanyard nametag dangled over her shoulders instead of rested around her neck. Nonetheless, she was really awesome. She dropped more lame jokes than the tour guide in Edinburgh and would throw in random pop culture references from 90s movies. My favorite was her reference to Wayne's World ("If you're going to spew . . . spew in this") if only because my brothers and I reference that line all the time. The tour took as long as it did and it took us to all the places we hoped to visit. There was a distance view of Notre Dame, we walked around the outside of the Louvre, went through a park and through a giant super-busy square. We even walked along the River Siene and learned about the World's First Facebook. That was interesting. The tour finished up by the Champs Elysse and did not cover the Eiffel Tower. Why not the Eiffel Tower? It's too far away from everything else. You'll hear about that later.
Our tour guide had pointed out the museum where Napoleon is buried so we thought we'd check that out in the dying daytime hours. While walking there, it started to rain/snow, which we didn't mind at first. At the museum, we learned that it wasn't something you could just walk in and see, it was a museum and you had to walk through the entire museum to get to Napoleon. Besides, you had to pay. So we decided to find someplace to eat and maybe go back to the room.
About this time, we decided that, since we were so tired, we would wake up the next day without an alarm. So we wanted to return to the hotel room early so we could get to bed early so we could wake up earlier than if we stayed out late. Except, as we were walking back to the hotel, the snow thing didn't stop. And it was warm enough that the snow didn't stick right away and melted as soon as it landed, and that was a problem for us because we had jackets. And they're waterproof jackets, but that doesn't stop them from getting soaked. Also, our jeans were really wet by the time we were halfway back to the hotel.
We did look for restaurants on the way back, but nothing was as cheap as I wanted it to be. Ryan didn't complain though, he kind of wanted to go back to the hotel to dry off. We walked that entire way, and it took about an hour to get back. That's when we decided to take the metro to get around the city. There's a limit to how much walking you can do when you're limited in your time. But we got back to the hotel and checked in and dropped off our stuff in the room. We asked the woman at reception if there were any good places around the area, and she told of a couple behind the nearby church which were nice. So we went to one of those.
Our waiter seemed excited to be serving us. He didn't speak much English, and Ryan didn't understand him as well as I did. Ryan ordered lasagne and I had a chicken kebab (which was actually on a scewer and not in a pita shell which was my impression of kebabs over here). The waiter came back and mimed/said that they were out of lasagne, would Ryan like to try this other thing that was really really good? Ryan didn't know what to say, so I learned what this other thing was (similar to lasagne but with potatoes and meat instead) and told Ryan "They're out of lasagne. He's suggesting this other dish." He got that.
The food was good. I didn't realized I haven't had proper grilled chicken while over here. I also had a giant amount of fries that Ryan helped me eat. Both our dishes came with salads and a basket of bread. We split a giant bottle of water because French restaurants don't do this tap water thing British restuarants do. Ryan complained about that the entire time. I just rolled my eyes at him when he did.
Back at the hotel, we dried off our clothes with the funky hair dryer in the bathroom. Or at least got them mostly dry to completely dry over night. My jeans were really really wet, so I spent most of the time drying them off. My hat was also fairly wet so that had a go under there. And my socks. Because I didn't pack an extra pair of socks and I wanted to wear a pair while I slept so my feet wouldn't get cold and I'd be more comfortable. We turned on the TV and watched some French television for a bit.
Hey Mom, guess what Ryan did? While I was journaling, he switched the channel to a French documentary about the ocean (or something) and proceeded to fall asleep. Just like Dad, but in France.
The next thing on was a French movie that, from what I could gather, was about a woman who ran a small foster home for children. I only think this because in a scene where the children were eating dinner, the children kept exclaiming something about "ma mere" which means "my mother". So I assume they were calling for their mothers and refused to listen to anyone else but their mothers. I didn't pay attention long and fell asleep shortly after. It was barely ten o'clock, perhaps even closer to nine when the TV was off and we were sound asleep in France.
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