Americans In Paris

Salute! Our second (but technically third because of that layover flight with Jersey) flight of the trip took us to sweet Paris! We were up at 5:50am getting ourselves dressed and pressed to head to the airport. Teresa had Irish pancakes (the thin ones without buttermilk) waiting for us in the kitchen while she ran about and finished up a few last minute things, like washing the sheets we'd slept on. She was heading off to a wedding that day as well and wanted to have everything done before she got back, which I completely understand! We at our breakfast of pancakes and orange juice without pulp which I hadn't had since I'd come to Ireland and was very grateful for because while I can stomach pulp I just don't think I should have to. Too much extra work.

Now as we were on the way to the airport it became clear that Jess and I didn't understand how Teresa was talking about time. The night before she'd said we'd leave at "twenty to 7:00am", but when we were on the road at 6:30pm she indicated that we were running behind time. She wasn't upset of course, I mean it's our flight not hers, but Jess and I had a ponder over where the confusion had occurred. It's possible she'd actually said she wanted us at the airport at "twenty to 7:00am", or that she meant (or we misheard) something about 6:20am and not 6:40am, or she talks about time in some Irish way that we don't understand. It doesn't matter in the long run, but Jess and I had a chat about it so it goes in here. Anyway, we made it to the Dublin Airport without running into any traffic at 6:40am-ish a whopping 3 hours before our flight took off. This was excellent for Jess and I, but mostly me because I'm the chronic worrier of the pair and my nails can prove it. They're doing better though, so I must be more relaxed.

We hung around the airport for about 2 hours waiting for the screen to tell us our gate because the airport is small or something and they don't tell you in advance. We had no issue with this and found some comfy red chairs to relax in right next to one of the televisions. At 8:50am, 25 minutes before boarding was set to begin according to our tickets, gate 335 showed up on the screen and we proceeded to follow a long path to a sign that told all 335 passengers to get right on a bus to take us to our terminal. There was a short wait for the bus but we were on it and at the terminal for another short wait while the plane was getting prepared. Jess and I were first in line for getting on (except for pre-boarders) because everyone else was afraid to get in line or something and we were the only ones standing there. Well sitting as we parked ourselves on a low windowsill, but still. As we waited I realized I'd forgotten to fill my water bottle (rookie mistake) and went to the coffee shop station to ask if they knew where I could fill it. Given there was no bubble at that direct terminal the woman filled it for me with the coffee shops water after considerable effort was put into taking the lid off the bottle. We had to ask the guy there to help us, it was a pride shot to us both. By the time I got back though, we were ready to board and we walked up the steps to the flight via the back entrance as our seats were in the rear. I have never used a staircase to get on a lane before and it was very exciting! I felt so Pan-Am! Situated in our seats we flew about over an hour or so before arriving in Paris! I cried when we started the descent because I was so excited. I never thought I'd actually get to Paris! I'm such a sap.

We exited the plane with no baggage to pick up but ended up in the baggage area anyway because we were lost and never figured out anything in advance except the AirBnB and that we wanted to buy a 5-day metro pass. We hadn't bought it or even researched it though so we were sort of stuck. Eventually Jess found a map to the metro area and kiosks to buy tickets so we headed that way until we found the Tourist Information booth and made a Bee-Line for that! The woman at the desk was exceptionally helpful, showing us the best way to get to our address and selling us our pass right there nice and easy. It cost us about 150 euro together for the passes and it was a hard thing to part with given we had spent no money whatsoever for the whole of the trip. It was sad, but we paid the price and received our tickets, two little stub things that look to be very easily lost. Following the nice ladies instructions we took the RER B metro into Garde de Nord then switched at the station to the metro 4, Porte de Clignancourt route then got off at the Chateau Rouge stop.

  Once out on the street Jess and I were excited but also realized we never Googled the directions from the Chateau Rouge to our AirBnB and were now sort of stuck wifi-less in Paris. Jess and I don't have a data plan so there we couldn't look it up unless we got wifi somewhere and everywhere you have to buy something for wifi and we're too cheap for that so we walked around for a bit trying to find someone to ask. Highly introverted we couldn't muster the courage to ask anyone in our broken, mediocre French but accidentally happened upon a street we knew was right. We hadn't got directions for Chateau Rouge to our AirBnB but we had looked up the 16 minute walk from Garde de Nord to the address and found we were on the last streets before turning onto ours! Walking about a minute or so further we found our AirBnB and were thrilled beyond belief! We were a half-hour early for check-in so we sat on the steps of a nearby street across from a lovely little Fruit & Legumes shop that was setting up for the afternoon and ate an orange we'd been saving. We probably didn't have to wait the half-hour because it was self check-in but I didn't know if there was some reason he'd said 4:00pm and didn't wanna be rude or touristy by checking us in too early. Regardless, at 4:00pm exactly we got ourselves into our lovely little apartment!

We settled in real fast, desperate to unload our backpacks which had gotten at least 30 pounds heavier the minute we realized we were lost. Hungry, we cut up and ate 2 kiwi we had, the last of our fruit, and decided a good idea would be to go shopping before we did anything else. I did a quick Google search (now we had wifi) of places to eat close by and we found a supermarket and a McDonald's. We decided to check both out, figuring in the event all the French food was too expensive we'd just have McDonald's for main meals and buy pastries and whatnot when we were out. It turned out the supermarket we found was totally ab-fab with awesome prices for awesome food! We got a load of stuff, mostly chocolate and bread honestly, for 9 euro and it's definitely enough to last us our whole short trip, except maybe the water which we might need more of sooner. Home with our loot, Jess made us Nutella on bread, actual legitimate French bread, and we ate quite content at our little table. We grabbed some cookies to-go after our little meal and began the unbelievably short walk to the main staircase up to Montmartre!

I actually knew nothing about Montmartre, except that it's a hill (which I only learned while Googling directions the day before we got there) so I wasn't sure what to expect! The first thing Jess and I saw at the top of the stairs was a perfect view of the city hidden between several bushes of flowers and it was just the most gorgeous introduction to anywhere. We found the Sacre-Coeur fairly quickly because it's literally right there and you can't miss it and wandered around the area looking down at the city from all the difference angles and viewpoints. We saw the street peddlers hawking wares that are mostly useless but still adds to the climate of the area I suppose as we navigated legions of tourists all vying for the best new profile picture. No shade on my part though, I took many pictures myself, some of just the view, pics of myself that Jess took and vice versa, and definitely some selfies, so I totally get it! It was cool to see all the people sitting on the steps, taking a break from their lives to just watch the city as we just walked on by.

On our way down one of the numerous and long staircases we went up and down a lot on our walk we stopped and had a chat with a Parisian man who was taking a cigarette break to the side. We'd said "Bonjour" to him and he'd said something in French so we replied "Je ne parle pas francais" and said we were American. He was surprised by that and said he thought we weren't French but he had assumed we were European but he couldn't explain why. We had a nice conversation where he gave us recommendations of places to go for our first time in Paris and wished us happiness on our travels. We thanked him and moved on new advice in hand and the knowledge that at least to some people we were not overly-obviously American. On this extended walk we ended up strolling a lot of different routes to the same places and way up high saw a carousel somewhere below. Jess loves carousels so we were determined to find it as a little mission and began the search.

  Along the way we wandered into I suppose the wrong lane. Not wrong necessarily, just wrong for us. Several people offered to sell weed to us, which if we smoked would have been a decent offer, but we don't so we said no thank you and just claimed we had asthma, a trick we use at parties sometimes. A few of the people had short conversations with us following our refusal, welcoming us to Paris and telling us to have a good time. Now, it wasn't a long stretch of walkway that we walked where this occurred and we were right in the huge touristy area of Montmartre so we weren't in any danger with any of the sellers who probably make a great fortune off American's looking for a good time in Paris, but it did occur to Jess and I later that a different type of person might have gotten scared. Rich American's who'd never experienced being asked if they wanted to buy drugs from strangers probably would later claim they were "set upon by a fierce set of dangerous junkies" when that wasn't what happened at all but to them it would have felt like that! After that little detour, however, we did make it to the carousel which was right around the corner! It was 2 euro to ride and we figured we'd get a free carousel at Disneyland Paris so we opted out but still took pictures in front as it is a beautiful carousel! We might ride it yet, but at the time we didn't feel like spending even 1 euro given the 150 we'd spent that morning!

  We then did the long trek back up to the Sacre-Coeur and realized it was free to go so we did a turn about. The inside is supposed to be silent because it's a house of prayer, but tourists don't listen to that and there was chatter inside. Jess and I kept quiet as we took a slow walk around the cathedral. It was just as lovely as the St. Mary Cathedral in Ireland so it wasn't a huge gap-and-awe moment for us, but it was still very pretty. At the end of our turn about we added short messages to the large book underneath a painting of Jesus that had hundreds if not thousands of messages from people all over the world who had come to visit. We did this after the guy in front of us wrote some War And Peace length novel in it that required him to check his phone for some reason. Not sure what kinda details he was adding, but I promise no one needed them. But we did sign it and add a message like so many others and it felt powerful.

As we walked outside a street performer was finishing an opera song he'd been performing in the street and we caught the tail end of it before he took a bow and went around with his hat, reminding us very much of Bert from Mary Poppins (in the best way possible). We found the up-hill tram thing on our way back down which we recalled from A Monster In Paris and both thought looked much different than how the movie had made it to be. Discussing this we went back to the carousel for a break. We each had a chocolate croissant we'd purchased earlier and pulled them out to sit outside the carousel to people watch, our favourite past-time. A family of foreign people boarded the carousel without tickets but they had very small children so the man didn't press them for it and let them ride. A man with a large speaker walked by as it played exceptionally loud music and that was just dubbed normal. A woman got quite frustrated that people existed in the world and she would never get shot of the Sacre-Coeur without swarms of them in it. It was all rather interesting and we enjoyed it thouroughly while we finished our pasteries.

Following our people watching session we made one last march up the hill and sat by the carousel, watching the view as the sun finally began to set. They got like 5 extra hours of sunshine in Europe, what's up with that? Enjoying a last few minutes of people watching and the view, we finally made our way back to our flat to stay in for the night. We made up the frozen pizza we'd gotten from the supermarket and ate it, some cookies, and just water from the bed-mezzanine-thing in the AirBnB with a skylight that opens up. We played classic French music as we sat and ate in our nightgowns and bathrobes right up until bedtime and felt exceptionally fancy and rather pleased with ourselves for a day well spent in Paris!