A Weekend in Paris

On Thursday, we discovered the excitement of Ryan Air. When the shuttle from the airport to the airplane stopped and we were in a ridiculously large herd of people fighting their ways onto the plane, we sacrificed Ashlea to try to get 8 seats together. We laughed about how the airplane was a giant advertisement. The landing was more of a drop from mid-air and we kind of tipped a little, but we figured that was how we got our tickets for so cheap, so we laughed it off. Once we got to the exit of the airport, we realized that it's 11:00 at night, freezing cold, and we don't actually know how we're going to get to our hostel. We had the address and everything, but we coudln't ever get directions from the bus stop to the hostel. We ended up just getting a taxi to avoid wandering in the suburbs of Paris indefinitely.

Friday morning, we asked for directions to the bus (which we later learned was not what we wanted). We got on a bus and Anna tried to buy a ticket. Well, Mr. Bus-Driver doesn't speak English, so he's firmly telling her what to pay, but she has no idea what he's saying. A couple blocks down the road, we figured out that we weren't going the right way. We got off at the next stop that had nothing near it and tried looking at the map. The bus didn't leave, so Ashlea tried to go ask how we could get to Paris. As the group is staring at the map, I figured I'd see how Ashlea was doing and we found out that the bus was about to turn around and go to Paris. This made the second time we walked away from a driver only to come back a few minutes later. (We walked away from the taxi at first because it was too expensive, then came back when we realized it was our only option.) We finally got into Paris and made our way to the Louvre. We ate in the food court at the Louvre (one of the best meals all weekend) and then tried to redeem our online tickets. After hopping between like 9 different booths, etc., they finally sent us to the Virgin store where we were told that they couldn't be redeemed because our credit cards didn't match out confirmation numbers. We tried combining them all different ways, then realized that they had all been sent to Reed's house. Reed now has 8 passes to all the Paris museums. We spent most of the day in the Louvre (later learning that it's free for students after 6) then went out to dinner and headed back to our hostel. As we went to get on the bus to go to our hostel, we discovered that buses do not stop running at 12:30, like we were told, but rather at around 9:30. There was an RER station nearby, so we decided figuring it out and it running was the only way we were going to get home for less than 50 euro a piece. The man in the information desk insisted that the stop we wanted (which we found on the map) was simply not possible. We didn't care what he said because this was our only option, so we start looking at the map and schedules on our own. He then decided to tell Reed that the last train to our stop was in 5 minutes. (that's right, all of a sudden, he knows what we want) We had to buy our tickets from the one machine that was working, so Anna is trying to buy them and it has 2 options: 1 ticket or 1 book. At that point, we're thinking we can get 8 tickets at one time. Anna buys one and we can't get it to do more than that without an entire book. I'm standing there trying to get it to take my credit card, but the symbol on the machine and on the screen are opposite, so I keep flipping it. The machine takes about 20 seconds to reload every time, so after trying my card and cory's both directions, we decided to go for cash. It only takes coins, so we're trying to get 11 euro between us in coins. It really must have looked funny to see 8 people shoving any coins they could find in the hole until it said we had paid. As the tickets are printing, we hear a train showing up, so I grabbed them and basically tossed them around to everyone. We ran through the entrance and down the stairs, yelling to see if anyone knew if it was the right direction. Reed kept saying it was and Anna double-checked on a map. We got downstairs and realized that it was the opposite train that we heard and we were going to wait a couple minutes for our train. Once we got to our station, we realized we didn't know where our hostel was from there. We pretty much looked left and right and decided to walk in the direction of more cars. Luckily, we chose right and got to the hostel in about 5 minutes.

Saturday, we got up went back to our beloved RER station to get tickets for the metro for the day and headed into the city. We ate lunch/breakfast at this little bistro, thinking that they had breakfast because Ashlea asked and they said yes. Instead, we all had hot chocolate, eggs with mayonnaise, and about half of us had ham. Most of the people hate either mustard, mayo, or both. Our eggs come and they're hard boiled with a mustard-mayo combination on top. I personally hate mustard, mayo, and egg yolk. UD cafeteria skills came back as people were discussing how they were managing to stomach it. The ham came out later and it was definitely pieces of ham encased in jelly. The escargot was actually the one thing everyone liked. We went from breakfast to the Eiffel Tower, the Arch de Triumph, Notre Dame, and the Rose Line. Anna, Cory, Ashlea, and Anna hurried off to their train and Reed, Stephen, Jordan, and I went to find a restaurant for dinner. We found a little bistro that seemed like it was going to have decent food for less than 10 euro a person, so we went in. Ashlea's fragments of elementary french were no longer there, so we had the ability to say numbers, yes, no, excuse me, and please. We managed to at least get by for the night with that, though. When we went to order, we decided to just point to what we wanted. I pointed to the hamburger and asked "with cheese?" in french (that was Reed's additional phrase that had been figured out earlier that day) and the lady said "yes, with cheese". Jordan then also asked for cheese for his omelet and she said yes. Stephen asked for cheese with his hamburger and she said it was not possible. Our food came and Jordan had cheese in his omelet, but Stephen and I were not so lucky. We not only didn't have cheese, but didn't have buns either....we did have fried eggs, though! It was a great dinner to celebrate Reed's birthday. After dinner, our plan was to go get dessert by the Eiffel Tower. We're on the RER and it gets to a stop where apparently it doesn't go past. The lights turned off and the announcement said something about getting off, so we did, then figured out a new plan to get to the Eiffel Tower and decided we'd just hope we could take the RER home after. We're standing in the metro station figuring it out and this girl is standing next to us and then asks "Where are you trying to go?" in perfect English. It was SO nice to hear an American. She told us how to get to the tower, then the metro came so we turned to get on it. I wanted to know how to get to the hostel, too, though so I asked her how we could get up to Epiney sur Seine. She's standing there explaining it when I hear Stephen yelling at me to get on the metro. She was also getting on (why she didnt say that to start with when we were clearly getting on the metro, i don't know) so we talked with her on our way, then she repeated how we could get to our hostel.

While this was happening with us, the 4 who were riding the train had their own adventures. They had to hop the metro a few times to get to the train station and at one stop, rachel got on and the other three were at the door as it shut. There was like a 2 inch gap and they're looking at each other trying to tell each other where to go when a man walks up, pulls the door apart, pushes Ashlea, Anna, and Cory on the metro, then shuts it. They then went to the wrong train station and had to go down the road a few blocks, but they made it.

This morning, we got up nice and early and headed to the airport. It was a great weekend with a ton of excitement and memories. I think the phrase "I wish Kristen were here" was said like 500 times. Next weekend, Barcelona!