Rachel
and I arrived in Paris with no idea where we were going to stay, but that
actually added to the excitement. I remember walking up the stairs of the tube
station to be greeted by the sight of the Eiffel tower, which was a very
surreal moment, to be in the shadow of such an Iconic landmark that until this
moment I had only ever seen on television.
The
people at the tourist information point were very helpful in terms of providing
maps of the city and they gave us a booklet of all the youth hostels in the
area, being on a budget I wanted to find the cheapest one in there, and so once
we spotted it we headed on over there, I don’t think either of us envisioned
how long the walk would be, plus the heat was sweltering and our bags, although
not exactly big were quite heavy. Paris in June is so hot!
Four
hours later we were still none the wiser as to where this hostel was, did it
even exist? But due to the fact we pretty much had no money and so needed the
cheapest we could find we persisted on the search. After some particularly bad
directions from the locals we surprisingly found it and booked ourselves in for
the same night, eighteen Euros for the room which in all fairness was actually
a stationary cupboard with a bunk bed in. We then bought a 3 day metro ticket
and decided we would use it as much as possible, so get our money’s worth, and
to save our legs from dropping off!
For
as long as I can remember I had wanted to climb the Eiffel tower. It had
always been on my ‘to do’ list, so that is exactly what we did. We took the
stairs half way up and then took the lift to the summit, those stairs are so
tiring!! I’d say you have to have a decent level of fitness to climb them, in
fact on the way up we overtook a morbidly obese American man who was struggling
to get up, I actually felt quite sorry for him and as we were coming down he
was still half way up, and we were at the top for quite a while.
The
Louvre was just amazing! I really was in awe of some of the magnificent
paintings; I have always had a love and appreciation of art.
I have no
idea why the Mona Lisa is one of the most famous paintings in the world; if I’m
being honest I don’t think it’s that great, it is protected by bullet proof
glass and two security guards. It is actually quite eerie. However I would
still recommend going to see it.
The
whole first day in Paris was magical; we managed to learn how to get around
quite quickly after a questionable start. We passed a nice looking restaurant,
in fact it was really quite posh but we thought we just have to experience was
it’s like to eat in a fancy French restaurant so we just did it. Plus, we had
hardly eaten a thing all day and were actually starving. I had a really nice
duck dish.
One
thing I noticed pretty much straight away about the French is that they just
looked a whole lot healthier than the English do, and I didn’t see a single
obese French person.
So
after a great day, we decided to go back to the hostel and sleep, now this is
where it gets interesting...
We
arrived at the hostel around half eleven if I remember correctly, no problems
finding it this time luckily. We asked the man at the desk for our room key to
discover after a lot of fumbling around behind the desk that he had actually
given our room away to someone else!!!
We told
him "Well you'll just have to go into our room and tell them that you have
made a mistake and that they have to get out because we booked it first"
"I
can’t do that, they are sleeping" he said
"Well
wake them up! We booked our room this morning! Our luggage is in the storage
room! Here is our receipt!! Look!!"
"I
made a mistake" he said” but it’s no longer my problem, it’s your problem"
When he
said that I was fuming as you can imagine, and so was Rachel, we were not going
to go quietly, someone was sleeping in our room that we had paid for, we were
knackered and all we wanted to do was sleep.
Rachel
was so funny!! I found it hard not to laugh
"je
suis annoyed!" she quipped
"je
suis tired" I added
"je
suis screwed" we both said in unison as we looked at each other
He kept
on saying "it’s not my problem, now it’s your problem" so we
threatened to call the police
It was
far too late in the day to find someone else to stay; we couldn’t roam around
Paris all night!
We were
prepared to stay at that desk all night arguing with this guy till he was
forced to sort out the problem that HE had created.
In the
end we ran up the stairs when his back was turned and found a room with two
spare beds! That wasn't actually too difficult, we had somewhere to
sleep! An hour or so later we were drifting off to sleep then two Chinese girls
came in the room, “what are you doing in our beds?"
*now this
was one of those really awkward moments as you can imagine*
er..."the
guy at the desk gave our room to someone else so we decided to find some spare
beds, we didn’t realise they were yours"
"Well
where are we going to sleep? They said nervously"
"er,
well okay, I’ll go and sleep in Rachel’s bed with her if you two sleep in this
one!! Don’t say anything to anyone about this" I told them, "keep
quiet!"
So
reluctantly these two girls had to share a tiny bed between them, and Rachel
and I slept in the other one.
The next
morning I was awakened with a pretty horrendous sight, a morbidly obese
American girl completely naked standing above my bed, not a pretty sight, to
this day I have no idea what she was doing there.
The next
morning we sneaked downstairs and went to the desk, it was a woman there this
time, she was a lot more reasonable and understanding, Rachel told her that
because this knob had given our room to someone else we had to roam the streets
of Paris all night, and she actually believed us!! So she agreed to give us the
second night for free! All’s well that ends well, so they say.