Parisian excursion

One more post about my trip to Germany and France and I'll promise I'll at least try to be quiet about it for a while.

For most of our excursion to Paris and Munich Dana and I were pretty good about knowing where we were and how to get where we wanted to go. But there was this one night in Paris....

It was Friday night and we had spent ALL day wandering around the city. Climbing the eiffel tower, searching for food, exploring the Louvre and Musee de Orsay, the arc de triumph, Notre Dame, Pompidou Centre. We were exhausted but it was almost dark and we really wanted to see the eiffel at night. So to kill time we picked up some beers and hung out on the plaza of the Notre Dame. Here's a tip: if you're looking to relax after a long day, it's best not to be a couple girls drinking beer in public. It didn't take more than 2 minutes for us to be approached by a nice looking French fellow, who actually was really nice and really funny and just seemed like he wanted to talk to us in English. Two minutes after we said "au revoir!" two other guys approached us. Their names are Kristoph and Philip and they barely speak English. Somehow, and by total accident, I may have told them (and they somehow understood) that we were planning on going back to the Eiffel tower to see it lit up at night. Perfecto! they would join us! But...they didn't have a metro pass so they insisted that we WALK all the way back to the Eiffel tower. A mere 3.6 miles on feet that had already seen way too many miles that day. But, they were charming and sweet and since I wasn't about to get in a car with them, we set out.

Did I mention they barely spoke English?? Yeah, and we don't speak french. So not only was the physical distance exhausting but most of the time we had to rely on hand signals and sign language to have a conversation with these guys. Pretty soon I was just nodding and saying 'oui' not at all sure what I was agreeing to.

We finally get to the Eiffel somewhere around 1:30am. We half-heartedly take some pictures because by this time I couldn't have cared less if we had been staring at a brick wall. Ok, that's a bit of an exaggeration. The Eiffel at night is a breathtaking sight.

I think Kristoph and Philip got the hint after we repeatedly ignored them and pretty much told them that nothing more was going to happen between us that night. So we said 'au revoir' and Dana and I walked over to a piece of lawn and collapsed.

No, the story is not over yet, remember when i said we had been really good at knowing where we were, where we were going and how to get there? Sit tight.

Around 2am we decided it was definitely time for bed. We walk 10 minutes (kill me now!!) to the metro, validate our tickets and promptly find a seat on the platform with a handful of other night owls. After 5 minutes, an announcement is made telling us that the trains are no longer running. It is 2:15 after all. We sit there expressionless, neither one of us knowing what this means for our commute home.

Enter in French men #1 & #2 (I don't think we ever got their names...)

Apparently these two fellows saw our blank expressions and asked if they could help. Turns out they were headed in the same direction we were! Perfecto! They would help us get to the correct bus and help us get home. Fabulous. So, we left the train station and walk out to a bus stop that I mistakenly thought was a shuttle bus. I don't know what made me think this. I blame the pure exhaustion and lack of knowledge of French terminology. Whatever it was, I thought it was free, or I thought the train tickets that we validated would be good on the bus system as well. Nope! Totally wrong. We were on the very packed bus for maybe 10 minutes before it stopped and 8 large men in uniforms got on and ask to see everyone's tickets. I don't know about dana, but I was trying to make myself as invisible as possible. No luck. Our tickets were deemed "No Good" on the bus and we were fined 40 euros ($60). The whole situation created quite a scene considering it was now about 3am and we were 2 young american girls on a bus filled with african and french men going home after a night out at clubs. I held it together for a while before I started tearing up. Nothing too serious, just enough for me to create an even bigger scene and to cause Dana to be completely embarrassed that she was traveling with me.

#1 & #2 were still on the bus with us, but they weren't offering any help until they decided it was time for us to get off the bus. We got off but we're not home yet, we just have to wait for another bus. Amazingly, the SAME group of bus police end up on that bus and ask to see everyone's tickets again! of course they remembered us so they pretty much left us alone. The night continued on like this. i think we ended up taking 3 buses and on our trip home we were able to see the Arc de Triumph, the Notre Dame and the Pompidou centre for a 2nd time.

We finally collapsed on our beds at 5:30 am.

Ahhh.... Paris....


I finally got all of my pictures posted to my flickr site so please check them out and let me know what you think. I also created SIX albums on facebook so if you have something against flickr you can check them out here and here for Germany. Here and here for Paris. And here and here for Munich and castles.