Rocky Start in Paris 5/27/09

This is the first time I totally knocked out on a flight. Usually I have trouble falling asleep on planes, but I didn't realize that I fell asleep and I even missed takeoff! That's usually my favorite part of a flight because I love the feeling when the plane first lifts off the ground. Anyway, it was a pretty smooth flight - Easyjet is a no-fuss, cost cutting airline (which is why their tickets are so dirt cheap) - but it wasn't a bad experience.

We got off the plane at Charles De Gaulle at 9:30 PM and took the metro to Gare De Norde. That part went fine, but after we left the metro station, it took us over an hour to find our hostel. We got directions to the place ahead of time, but Google Maps kinda screwed us over - to make a long story short, it basically told us to turn left/right at LOCATIONS, not STREETS, which doesn't help if you don't know the area/are visiting a foreign country for the first time. Anyway, we gave up the tough guy act after walking through a few shady neighborhoods, and asked for help. An old professor looking guy was the best pick out of the characters on the street, and he even had a map. The guy was super nice, and told us how to get to our destination. Thank God David speaks a little French.

We were pretty beat, but hungry so we dropped our stuff (said 25 pound packs that we lugged around for the past 2 hours) off at the hostel and went to look for Aleth, Rebs, and Jen at the hostel they got moved to. Their hostel had a curfew/non-friendly receptionist. Darn.

So we got food instead. We ended up at a kebab place that was still open (it was past midnight at this point), and EVERYTHING in there had cheese on it. I got a panini with fries because it had the least amount of cheese on it, and David got something that had a heck of a lot of cheese on it: on top, between layers, etc. I forgot what it was called, but here's a picture:



The panini was ok, but the cheese was kind of putrid. I've been taking these lactose-intolerance pills, so let's see if they work! Another thing that I was having trouble getting used to was the fact that fries are served with mayo. It's like eating fat and dipping it in more fat...yummmm. Heart attack...

They had this pretty good sauce for the fries (Samourai sauce), that was basically mayo with ketchup and tabasco, and that was pretty good. The flavor was great, but it was still a little too thick and greasy for my tastes.

After our midnight snack, we took another shady walk (our theme for the day) through Pigalle, a neighborhood with a lot of pimps. We got approached by two, who handed us cards of their girls. Not interested! Haha. We made it back to the hostel in one piece, took hot showers, and washed our laundry in the tub (very necessary at this point in our trip).

I'm going to sleep soon, but totally looking forward to free French breakfast provided by the hostel. The only downside is that it's served between 7:30 and 9:30, so that means less than 6 hours of sleep again followed by a day of walking like 10 miles. Oh well. Gotta make the most of our trip here.

The plan is to spend tomorrow (or today, now) visiting the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower. If tonight was any indication of how the rest of our stay here is going to be, Paris is going to be realllly interesting!