Paris - One heck of a beginning.
I have had dreams of flying to Paris for the last several years and still at this point can’t believe I am on my way to you. I wake this morning earlier than I would have thought possible without an alarm. I have a piece of toast and a coffee because I am too nervous for anything else. “Is this really going to happen?” is the single question on my mental ticker this morning. Frank’s mom offers eggs and I accept, realizing I will need all the energy I can get for what’s ahead. She is the best!! Somehow Frank and I manage in very little time to book and organize a huge chuck of this journey at the breakfast table. How quick you ask? In under two cups of coffee we have more than a 1/3 of our trip settled with dates, rooms, cars, trains, flights, and boats. Stress can be good and in this moment, it was motivating in all the right ways.
We give a few last hugs to his family and we are both thrilled to be able to say see you soon in Copenhagen. His mom had us on the way to the airport with moments to spare, must be an awesome parent thing! I don’t recall ever having flown either in or out of the Orlando airport but given the fact I was brought to Disney World (Land? Whatever one is in FL) as a kid I must have. Either way, my expectations were not met, there was no one in this airport. We were literally through security after checking in our bags in under 10 minutes. It was pure insanity. I know there is a hurricane coming, and I was convinced it would be much busier. Any who, moving right along. We have a beer while waiting for our flight and end up next to some hella drunk dudes that I would have bet money were golfers. It’s not judgement people, it’s simple facts. Certain sports have certain wardrobes, like hockey and caged face gear, soccer and shin guards. They were hammered, not soup sandwich drunk, but I’d guarantee one more round of Cuervo and Corona was going to get them there.
Per usual, when near drunk bar patrons we paid our tab and bounced out. Flight was easy peasy lemon squeezy to Atlanta, and upon early arrival we thought we had more time than we really did. We should have had an hour and a half minimum layover but somehow it went too quickly. Between getting to our correct gate, trying to do a brief French lesson, and overall just collect ourselves for what’s about to come, we suddenly find each other standing in front of a gate listening to the woman announce in French that our plane is boarding. I have no idea how we went from plenty of time for a beer to quickly making sure we have every last-minute task we would need a functioning US cell phone for. EEkkkkk
On the plane our seats have changed from what we originally had, but in a worse way. I specifically choose them so Frank wouldn’t have a seat in front of him. He is a Viking sized human and needs space. I am less than pleased, but it’s a fully packed flight and at least his knees aren’t touching the back of the seat in front of him and if he wants to sleep he can lean on the plane since the head rests on the seats only go up to his neck. We are flying Air France, and they serve champagne as an aperitif, that’s the best thing I can say about Air France. He sleeps a little bit, I don’t, we land and stumble excitedly through Charles de Gaulle finally in France.
Customs was a breeze so was finding our correct baggage carousel, unfortunately only one of our two bags made it with us to Paris. So, begins our adventure in trying to communicate in a language we barely know. The joy of not being able to fully express ones needs while desperately attempting hand gestures is one I highly recommend. I know a little bit of French, enough to get around, but not nearly enough to express complete dis-satisfaction for something. We eventually find out that our (Frank’s) bag was for some inexplicable reason taken off the plane in Atlanta and was still somewhere in the ATL airport. We made a claim, took a phone number and refused to let this ruin the beginning of our trip.
We figure our way from the baggage request area, towards each sign that had a train on it. After successfully getting tickets we head in the direction we think we should be going. I am and will always be thankful for Google for the fact that you can route a trip and it will give you what train, direction train should be going, and each stop you will pass along the way. That way, if you somehow get on the wrong train, you’ll know by the first stop. We navigate their system, and make it to the correct stop, even joking that at least we only have one bag to worry about on the train that is filling up more and more with each stop closer to ours.
We are thrilled to be in Paris, even with missing one bag, we are excited to explore and conquer the city. The first task we have given ourselves is a substantial breakfast. It’s nearly 9 am by this point and we need something more than plane food and coffee. We hop off at Notre Dame and at first, we need a full moment to really see it. The area surrounding it is so much different than I remembered if from 8 years ago. We snap a photo and continue the hunt for sustenance. We agree it should be a few blocks from the cathedral where pricing is more to our preferences. They had to have just opened the doors because no one was around. I really mean no one, not even staff. We forged ahead and tried to scrap the seats loudly as we sat to announce our presence, we are delighted that it does. We successfully stumble our way over the process of ordering coffee and egg dishes, pay up and decide where to kill time at next.
It turns out the answer kills a lot of time and it is to get a sim card with a local number to access to the local cellular networks. This will be my very first time being able to do this and I am thrilled. To be able to use a sim card not associated with your network, you need to have the phone unlocked by your carrier and make sure it is good to go on a foreign network. Everything is in place, we finally hunt down a place that sells the card, we guess what we need to start, put the card in and have nothing happen. Literally nothing. I am so thankful for the people at the store we purchased it at, they were so incredibly nice and helpful. They were everything you would want while trying to communicate in languages neither of you were born to. The owners of the shop even enlisted the help of the local patrons to help us set it up. The locals even let us use their phones to call Air France (boo Air France) to check when/if our bag will make it to Paris.
For a bumpy start everyone there, along with the beer, helped make it feel like we were at least treading water. Even without the new local sim card working, we use the Wi-Fi to Google our way to the Airbnb we will be staying at for the next week. Off on the underground we go, to our temporary home in Paris. The great thing about high hopes is that they can usually only go down from where they are at. I am not saying that we had high hopes, we did however have expectations. The place we are staying at is a completely fenced in neighborhood. We have no way to use our phones now off Wi-Fi and we have no code that we can understand. By the good grace of a local living in the area, they see our plight, and let us in the first entrance, once at the door of the building we are greeted with another door and code. After attempting every combination, we can think of with what little information we were given about the place and location, another kind soul exists the building and holds the door open for us. We attempt to ask after our hosts name, then give a description and are pointed in what we hope is the right door way. Aren't languages fun?!
I have noticed places here aren’t so up on the trend of numbering apartments (flats, whatever) in a way that I personally can easily distinguish. No number on the door corresponds to the buzzers on the outside. Sometimes there are names on the buzzer and a door plate on the door, but I have yet to see those names match. How am I supposed to know that Le Terrace on the door means I need to ring the buzzer for “apartment 5”? And what floor is “apartment 5” even on?? How many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop??!? The world may never know!
We knock on the door with the name plate Le Terrace on 0 Floor, that’s ground floor. Over here the first floor is the floor above the ground floor, what we in the states would consider the 2nd floor. The ground floor is always 0 and from there you either go up to 1, 2, 3 or down to -1, -2, -3. Yay learning!! A very shy girl opens the door and says she is the friend of our host and is still getting the room ready. We walk into the room, the girl gives us privacy, we look around and I am upset. Like, clapping between every word I whisper to Frank upset. The bed is a box spring, the sheets on are wet, and our host has ghosted us. I am trying to mentally calculate how much it is going to cost to get us the fuck out of here. In between toggling through all my travel apps, the hosts friend comes in, gives us a tutorial on where everything is, asks us kindly to be patient while she finishes setting everything up for us. Note for all y’all, the room was supposed to be ready an hour before we arrived. The host had specifically asked us to come later so it could be cleaned. I even doubled check that time and let her know we were landing in Paris after a full and solid day of traveling early in the morning and would be exploring Paris until it was ready.
Just like the saying goes, if you see something, say something!! If the room isn't ready, let a lady know! During “the tour” all the messages from the host’s phones finally made it to my phone. She was stuck on a train for two hours, had spotty signal, and was trying to have her friend (who is very reminiscent of Lilly from Pitch Perfect) help her out. Frank reminds me to breathe deep and of the fact there is a pub directly across the street. He sees the look on my face, surmises where my thoughts have taken me, and shakes his head no. Therefore, we leave our bags in the room, have “Lilly” walk us through how to use the codes for each of the locked doors and hit the pub up. Frank and I went over the pros and cons of just staying at the Airbnb, after much consideration and a glass of “a local white wine” we head back to the gates and let sheer exhaustion put us to sleep.
