Eurostar, Le Petit Prince and Amelie café, and lots and lots of laughs throughout the city with such an amazing time spend together. Surprisingly I actually liked Paris on this trip. Each trip keeps getting better and better.
I was caught in two minds of this trip — on the one hand, I didn’t really want to go as I am not a big fan of Paris. I thought it would not be that fun, but on the other hand, I wanted to go as we had spoken about it in the past and she was quite excited about the possibility of visiting Paris. I have to admit now that we have been, I am so glad we went.
Arrived in Paris around mid-morning after a cool Eurostar trip, aside from my usual nervousness to get to the station much earlier than required and that somehow I managed to choose the only seat without a window.
Arrived in Paris and what better way to experience the city than getting on the Metro to really feel and smell the ambience. The fragrances tickling our noses. Eventually got to the hotel and deposited our bags to go out exploring.
Returning to the hotel was an experience I have never come across before. Opened the door to our room expecting our bags to be there, but they were nowhere to be seen. Went to reception and the manager says to look again as it must be there. After convincing him that we had checked with our eyes open, angrily, he grabs a few keys to check for himself as in typical French style “the customer is always wrong and knows nothing”.
He checks the room and surprise surprise no bags. At this stage the poor guy is looking a bit worried, and he decides to call the employee that was on reception when we arrived and stored our bags. After a hush hush conversation between them, we were off on an adventure opening two or three rooms where our bags could be. Eventually, we found our bags in room XXX which other guests had occupied. Luckily the room’s guests were out, so the manager opens the door, and there were our bags, phew, panic over for us but more for the manager who was sweating with worry.
I learned two things from this odd experience
1. People are rude and idiotic, these guests see a bag which is not theirs in their room and do not think to say anything?
2. Never leave anything of value in the room, it was so easy for the manager and us to pop into occupied rooms that who knows how often this happens.
In addition to doing the touristy stuff like Eiffel Tower, Louvre (from the outside as neither of us are big fans of museums), Arc de Triomphe, and Le Moulin Rouge, we also went to the Le Petit Prince store and the café of the film Amelie.
It was also cool to try out different things with her like crepes, croque monsieur (aka croque mansoula or croque sheroulerou) and to walk around, get the tour bus, and experience something a bit different.
The surprising thing about this trip was that I am not a fan of Paris; if I can avoid going, I will, but this trip actually made me enjoy it. I saw the beauty of it and the city’s sights in a completely different light — the only difference to my usual trips to Paris, the company.
