First Few Days

Day 1

            My flight is at 9:45PM. I’ve extremely tired because I couldn’t sleep the night before and only got 3 hours of sleep the night before and also had work. I don’t know how I pulled through the day. Once I get on the place, I immediately pass out. Dinner comes and the menu says there’s wine. Wine me please. Besides the fact that I’m going to Paris, that is one of the great things about traveling to Europe.

            They give me a full drink in a little wine bottle, which gets me to a buzz after quickly downing it and having little food in me. For dessert, I say I don’t want anything, but the stewardess offers cognac. There’s no way I’m turning that down, so I gladly accept his offer.

            While working on my cognac, I watch The American. A slow action thriller with George Clooney, set in Italy. It’s not bad, worth a watch. I can’t really fall asleep and the flight is actually not too long, only about 6 hours. I get off the plane, go through customs, and off to the metro to get to downtown Paris. I have everything in a carry-on, even though it’s a bit tight. It’s good though because I don’t have to wait for luggage and I can get around pretty easily.

            I go to the train station where I’m supposed to meet someone from the hostel so he can bring me to it. He’s a guy in his 30s and shows up with his daughter who is riding a pink Hello Kitty scooter. She is the cutest little freaking kid ever. He brings me over to the apartment building. The hostel actually rents out rooms in a nice apartment building and uses those as the “hostel.”

            It’s a big living room with two three-layered bunk beds. There’s a fully equipped kitchen, storage, washing machine, and bathroom. It feels almost like living in a dorm with some people. I unpack and meet two other people that are travelling. They’re from Australia and it turns out they’ve been on a 10 week Eurotrip. They even went to Egypt a month back and have done the serious backpacking experience. They name city after city and they’ve been hopping between them and staying at each city for only three to four days each.

            I go to the local supermarket to grab some food and stuff I need. The supermarket reminds me of Prague. It has a very European feel to it and I try to be quick because I know I could spend two hours just looking through everything and inspecting each and every brand.

            For food, I get fresh bread, cheese, and ham. I then pick up all the hygiene stuff and then I grab a nap. After that, I overhear the two Australians talking about a bar crawl. I ask about that because I was planning to go out to some bars somewhere anyway. Hey, it’s Saturday night!

            By 9:00, the three of us head out. They found out about the bar crawl through a free walking tour of Paris that they took. We meet up with the people running it near the actual Moulin Rouge. It’s 12 Euro to join the bar crawl, which is about $15 (A Euro = $1.30).

            We go to the first bar and it’s pretty crowded. For 5.50 Euro, you get a pint and a free shot. The shot is BS and barely alcohol. However, it’s nice to be around English speakers. It’s basically people that are tourists. People that are studying abroad, vacationing, visiting from England, etc. I meet some random cool people. After going to two bars, we go to a smaller bar/club. I try to open a few conversations and stuff, but I give up after a while and call it quits by 1:00. The metro closes at 1:30AM.

            I get back and it’s still ‘early’ for me, so I stay up on the computer for a few hours while everyone else bitches out and sleeps. A slow first day, but we’ll see what the city will bring.

Day 2

            The sleep has finally caught up to me and I don’t get out of bed until 4PM. Well that’s a great way to spend your time in Paris… I’m groggy and shit, so I just sit around. So far, every meal has been bread, bread, and more bread. I didn’t buy much groceries, so dinner last night was a sandwich from the local bakery. Speaking about bread, my favorite food, the bread here is so good. Prague actually had awesome bread too at their random delis. Now I understand why Ela complains when we have bagged bread when in Europe, they’re used to going out every single day and getting freshly baked bread. It’s real stuff that doesn’t have preservatives, so it actually goes stale really fast if you don’t eat it.

            After eating more bread, and having eaten more bread in 2 days than I have in probably a month, I finally decide to get out and go to a creperie. The Montparnasse area is known for having creperies and I walk by dozens and dozens. However, Yelp has pointed me towards one and it’s the only one that has a line out the door. I order their special and it’s an egg, ham, mushroom, and cheese crepe. They should have this for breakfast in America. It’s a light pancake with an omelet. After that, I go to an internet café. I found out that Sleigh Bells is playing a show on Tuesday and I bought a ticket so I need to print it out.

            After that, I get back and chill out some more and get some planning done for the next day.

Day 3

            I’m overloaded with sleep, so despite going to sleep at 2:30AM. I wake up at 7:30, can’t get back to sleep, but still stay there for 1-2 hours. After having the same meal that I’ve had for the fiftieth time (bread, tomato, ham, cheese), I do my writing for the first time that I’ve been here. I do need to decide on my living situation though. I was planning on staying with a friend of a friend of Ela’s, but he hasn’t gotten back to me on Facebook messaging. I need to get on top of this and I’ll probably try calling him, though I think he’s at work. This is my last night that I have booked for the hostel, so I either need to stay with him tomorrow night, extend my booking here, or I’m screwed. Living by the edge of my seat.

            I end up calling the hostel by going downstairs, to the train station, and using a pay phone. Phone calls cost .50 Euro and I put a 1 Euro piece in. I make the phone call, and it doesn’t even give me change. $1.36 for a pay phone. Nice US Dollar. He tells me that I can book for only two more days. Ideally, I would want to book until Sunday and then find another hostel where it’s more party oriented and I can meet people, do nightlife, be in a good neighborhood for that, etc. Whatever, at least I’m safe for a few days.

            I then book another hostel from Wednesday night to Sunday. I wanted to get this nicer one, but I’m booking last minute, so I have to concede. One of the worries with some of these hostels though is a lack of lockers. I keep my wallet and passport on me, but my laptop is sometimes just chilling in the closet when I go out of this hostel. I’m fine with that though, it’s a very apartment-esque situation and the few people that are even here are chill. Either way, they’re all out during the day anyway. In a more regular hostel situation though, people can be running into and out and who knows what could happen to my stuff.

            After I book and pay and everything, I find out from Ela’s friend’s friend that he’s fine with me staying tomorrow. So I now booked for naught and I need to get that cancelled. Obviously I still lose a deposit and probably a night of paying for the hostel ($25) at least.        

            Finally all that business is past me, I get do something and go see stuff.  I take the metro to the Montmartre area to see the Sacre Coeur. It’s a basilica on the highest point of Paris. Pictures are posted on Facebook for everyone’s enjoyment. It’s a lovely site from up there.

            On my way up though, there’s these guys grabbing people’s hands wrapping them with string and tying something and trying to sell it. I will leave the guessing of the race of these individuals to the reader. I have my headphones on and I walk fast trying to get by them. This guy stops right in front of me and won’t let me by. He strongly grabs my hand and wraps a string around my finger. I try to pull my hand away, but he holds on tight. I probably say, “No thank you” about 15 times. He keeps trying to calm me down, “There’s no obligation. Where are you from? Hey, don’t worry about it.” I put a bit of pressure to pull my hand away, but I really would’ve had to put my whole weight behind it in a really aggressive way to get out of it. If I’ve learned anything from Howard Stern, never get into a fight with a black man and especially when he has a few other comrades in his area. Seriously though, this guy’s looking for a fight with this bullshit. He finally lets me go after an awkward confrontation and walk away glad I didn’t get into a ruckus with black dudes.

            In the back of my head, I feel like I knew what they were doing. With one of your hands strung up, one of the guy’s pals could’ve easily walked around from behind and snatch things from my coat pocket. It’s a really smart ploy if you think about it. It not only is a distraction, but they immobilize your entire arm with some string tying business and boom, they are free to pick at your pockets, backpack, or the bag you possibly had to set down. Then again, this is in broad daylight in front of tens and tens of other tourists trying to climb up to see the basilica, though what better place to pick pocket than one crowded with tourists.

            Around the Sacre Couer are beautiful small streets that have incredible rustic European feel to them. For those who haven’t heard my repping Blogotheque, check it out. It’s a French music site and they simply records artists playing their music in the streets of Paris. There is no lipsyncing, microphones, speakers, or anything, just the raw sound of the artist set in the gorgeous city of Paris. One of my favorite artists, Andrew Bird, did this and he walked down those streets near the Sacre Coeur. Before I took my trip, I scoured the map looking for which street he walked. This was through some great investigation skills of mine because I looked closely at the video looking for any names of establishments, I found a restaurant, Google Mapsed, and that got me what I needed.

            It’s dinner time so I go to Monoprix. It’s like a French Wal-Mart. It sells clothes, pharmacy stuff, and food. I could literally spend so much time in the supermarket, but I try to be quick about it. I grab eggs for an omelet. Butter (which is on a whole different level here), fresh bread, crème fraiche (French sour cream), goat cheese, tomatoes, and some apples. I probably should explore what other options I have and try some new things, but so far, the food has been incredible and I’m so gaining 5 pounds here.