10/18/11 ----- Paris, France

At the top of the Notre Dame looking over the city 

 Bonjour! We just got back from Paris earlier today and I never got a chance to update while I was there so I’m just going to fill you all in now :) The first day there was a bit sad cos I was still missing Leicester like crazy and I was also very very exhausted to really enjoy anything. For some reason, even though I knew obviously that people didn’t speak much English in Paris but I thought that at least, there would be some here and there. Oh how very, very wrong I was. It took us about half an hour to get to our hotel which was actually only five minutes away from the station we arrived at. The reason? We couldn’t get any directions cos we didn’t know French and without that, it got pretty difficult. I told my parents though, just to find an Asian and we’d be fine and funnily, I was right! We found this Pakistani restaurant and they explained in Urdu, a language both parties knew thankfully, where our hotel was. I slept for most of the day until nighttime when we met up with some distant relatives of my mom. We went for dinner to that same Pakistani restaurant from earlier and it was nice to meet some khoja French people. They didn’t know too much English so we communicated mostly in gujurati. It was a nice time though and by that time, I was getting a bit more excited about our stay there and was ready for the next day. 

The way we chose to tour Paris was the hop on, hop off tour bus. It has four lines that goes through the city and you can get off the bus wherever, spend as much time as you want at a place, and get back on the next bus since they come every few minutes everywhere. The first day, we visited a really beautiful sculpture garden, the Notre Dame which we also went up (422 steps and a stitch in the side later) and last but not least, the Eiffel Tower. Oh and get this – right when we reached the Eiffel tower, my camera started dying. That would happen right? I just made sure to get a couple pics in the day time and then switched it off so we’d be able to get some at night as well. Unfortunately though, we only got one not so great picture at night before it did die. It’s okay though, we enjoyed our time there and the couple pics we did get were good enough. I have to say though, being there was surreal. Right when we were coming close to it and it was right in front of me I was thinking. ‘wow…am I actually here? Is this actually right in front of me?’ I mean, with a sight that you see so much on television and posters, it doesn’t hit you for a while when you’re actually right next to it. It truly is beautiful though. The structure and all the lights at night, it’s breathtaking. Being so wrapped up in how amazing it is, we didn’t realize the time pass by so when we got to the bus stop where our tour bus would come by, we got told that it was done for the night. I found it a bit weird cos it still was only 8:30 but anyway, we got a little panicked cos we had no idea how we’d get home. Taking a taxi would be way too expensive and we didn’t know how the routes worked yet to get home on the public bus. Thankfully, we were blessed with an angel sent from above right then. Honestly, this woman was our lifesaver that night. She happened to be standing right next to us at the bus stop and I just asked us how the metro lines worked and when she realized that she would be going the exact same way we needed to go, she offered to go together with us. She was also a tourist and had only been in Paris for a few days but was from Argentina and knew quite a bit of English. We all went to the train station together, she waited for about ten minutes while we got our tickets, and made sure we got on the right train and made sure we fully understood exactly where we needed to go. I can honestly say that if we hadn’t met her, we probably would have been roaming the streets till midnight trying to find our way home. She was so great to talk to and she was just one of those people that you come across very, very rarely.  I wish her the best in her travels and hope she gets home safely :)

   
Our second day was a little more relaxing…well, most of the time. We had walked so much the day before that we decided to just see things from the bus for the day unless there was somewhere we really wanted to get off. It was working just fine until I realized that my temporary pre-paid sim card I had bought when I first entered Paris had run out of credit and that my mom’s aunt was going to be calling any minute to meet up with us. We literally spent two and a half hours going back and forth around an area trying to find a sim card. One of the stores had them but get this – they don’t sell it until 3 pm. Really? What difference would it make to sell a sim card before or after 3 pm? And then we found the other stores but they wouldn’t give it without seeing our passports or some form of identification which of course, we left back at the hotel. Oh, and the pay phones don’t take coins, they take cards which we had to go buy and ended up not being able to use anyway because the phone was acting up. Eventually, we just used this gujurati worker’s phone to call and cancel. After that though, the rest of the day went pretty well. Until then, we had been staying and going around in the ‘old’ Paris and we got to see the new Paris with the big buildings and offices and it strangely made me feel at home haha. 

Overall, when I think of Paris, I think I had a love hate relationship with it. Love because it’s so stunningly beautiful. The architecture, the small little side streets which make you think of the early 1500’s, the tiny cafes and shop and of course, the dessert! Hate because a lot of the streets smelled like pee, the language barrier, and the WEIRD rules! I mean, forget sim card after 3 pm but no heaters on weekends at the hotel? French people I tell you. Oh and how could I forget? Most of the restaurants are all open so in one of them, there were and I kid you not, pigeons under the tables. And I mean like, five plus pigeons just walking around. I hate to admit but I turned so American so fast. I couldn’t stand being in there and eating so I had to actually go out to the street to eat. I’m sorry, call me spoiled but birds? In a food place? Not just that but I’m actually scared of birds when they’re not in the sky and when there’s more than two of them. Especially those city birds that aren’t scared of anything! In the end of it all, Paris was a great experience and I loved it but I think two days was enough for me and I couldn’t wait to get back to England. When I first got to the train station in London and saw English everywhere, I’m not going to lie, I almost wanted to jump with joy haha. So yes, I’m back in good ol’ London now and have got three more days here till we leave to go back home *sniff*. Gotta end this here though cos I’ve gotta go for dinner with my brother in law’s sister and aunt which I’m very excited about since I haven’t seen his sister since the wedding four years ago! See ya later! :)