Shall We to Paris?
Trip Start
Sep 09, 2010
1
33
36
Trip End
Dec 24, 2010
Beauvais, Picardy, France
Friday, November 12, 2010
The other girls teach in southern Ireland so they took the train up to Dublin. Our flight was at 6:30 Friday morning so we crashed at the airport because public transportation doesn't run early enough for us to go the next morning. They texted me from their train when they were on their way. I was getting all my things in order. We decided on a place to meet and I printed off my boarding pass and was ready to go.
I took a bus into town. From there I walked to the bus station and waited for the 747 bus which goes to the airport. I was at a stop on one street but the 747 followed by a 748 drove down a street perpendicular to mine. I hurried to a stop on that street and the 748 almost stopped but then kept going. I realized they were going around the block and would end up where I had been standing. I went back there and waited to board the 747. The 748 honked and the driver waved me over saying his was the bus that would be going to the airport and that I didn't need to go to the other stop because this was where they pick people up. Yeah, I'd kind of figured that one out (I just had to make a fool out of myself and sprint down the street dragging my bag behind me first).
I got to the airport and went inside. We didn't think we'd be able to go to our gate yet because our flight wasn't until morning so we'd decided to meet up near the food court. Rachel had slept in this airport before an early flight before and she knew where there was a long padded bench like a booth seat that would fit all three of us to sleep. I laid down on it and listened to an audio book ("Ireland" by Frank Delaney). I struggled not to fall asleep but I wanted to stay awake until they got there in case they needed to call me for directions or anything.
I was laying there wondering if I would even remember the part of the story I was listening to because I suspected my body was betraying me and nodding off occasionally, when I heard a familiar voice saying, "Is that girl asleep? Who would sleep in an airport?" I rolled over and saw them walking towards me. Yay! They made it! I could go to sleep!!!
Of course we started talking about their trip and how excited we were for the weekend and what an adventure it felt like so I quickly became very awake. Eventually though we decided we did need to get some sleep so we took turns going to the bathroom to brush our teeth and wash our faces then we laid down and went to sleep.
Airports always have announcements and warnings coming from the intercoms. In Chicago I kept getting reminded that if someone came up to me and offered me a ride I should refuse because it was illegal for taxi drivers to solicit riders. In the Dublin airport they have an announcement every 15 minutes or so that you should not leave your baggage unaccompanied or it would be confiscated and may be destroyed. I laughed to myself as I drifted off thinking that I would probably hear that announcement so much while I was sleeping that it would get into my subconscious and I would wake with a horrible fear of ever parting from my luggage!
The next morning we got up a little before 5 (after going to sleep well after midnight). We got our stuff in order and headed down to security. We made it through and found our terminal. Then we sat and waited for our flight to be called. Then we lined up and went out to the plane. I got stopped when they checked my ticket because they wanted me to prove my bag fit in the dimensions of a carry-on, so the other two waited for me. Then I put my ticket in my bag and had to stop and get it out before getting on the plane. They made fun of me because I kept holding them up but we managed to find seats sitting together none-the-less. It didn't really matter because we slept the whole flight.
We flew into the Ryanair airport in Beauvais. We knew we'd end up in a little airport outside of the city because most of the time that's how Ryanair works. We had to get a bus to shuttle us into town. We got through customs and we weren't quite sure where to go. We walked over to the information desk and in French I asked the man how we could get into the city and he explained where the buses where. Behind me I heard Laura say, "Wait, she speaks French?" Rachel and I joked that that was the only reason I'd been invited.
We went out and got in line to get tickets for the bus into town. We looked at a couple of maps to plan out what we all wanted to see while we were there. We got on the bus and caught a little more shut-eye on our hour-long drive to the city. When we got to the stop we checked to see what time they had buses back to the airport on Sunday morning because our flight back was at 9:30. We saw that we could get a bus Sunday morning at 6:30.
We had no idea what part of the city we were in. (Turns out we were just a little ways away from the Arc de Triomphe, but we didn't know that yet.) We just knew that between us we needed and ATM and lunch, so we started walking.
We took a moment to examine where the bus station was and what the buildings and landmarks around it were so we'd be able to find it again on Sunday. Then we picked a street and started walking. We did manage to find an ATM just looking around, so a couple of us withdrew some Euros. Then we found a cute little bakery and stopped for lunch. French bakeries have a nice variety of baked goods, sandwiches, and salads. I absolutely love french cuisine so I was already having a good time.
We got out the map again and tried to figure out where we were. We finished eating and kept looking. We looked some more and realized we still had no idea what part of the map to be looking for the street names we saw out the window. So I took the map over to one of the shop workers and asked her (in French) if she could tell me where on the map we were or even which part of the city to be looking. She looked at it and called over another worker to help her find where we were then showed me. We were right near the Arc de Triomphe, that settled what our next destination would be! We thanked the ladies and headed down the street to our first major monument of the weekend.
I don't know if it's annoying for me to constantly point out times that I spoke in French, but that was a major part of this trip for me. When I visited Lea I definitely practiced French more than I have since my last French class (which was probably 2 years ago). But for some reason I was more nervous speaking it then. I don't know if it was because it had been so long since I had practiced it and I felt really rusty, or if I felt like I was getting to know people at that point and I didn't want them to judge my poor speaking skills, or if it was because I was surrounded by natives and I was the only one who didn't speak French fluently (as opposed to this trip where I was the only one who spoke French at all). For whatever reason I was a lot more comfortable speaking with locals on this trip to Paris than I had been before.
After seeing the Arc de Triomphe and taking the first of many pictures, we decided we should find a place to stay. Our original plans for a place to sleep fell through a few days before we left for Paris. We discussed trying to find and book another place before we left but we decided it would be more fun to just go and find a hostel when we got there! Usually when any of us had traveled we had spotted hostels all over the place while looking for the ones we had booked so we figured they are pretty easy to find and it would be a lot easier to just check in at the first one we found instead of having to look all around for a specific one just because we had booked it already.
I'm sure some of you are shaking your heads and saying, "No, you guys did not just fly to a foreign city without any plans and just start walking around looking for a place to stay!" But it was a very unique experience and I would definitely call it an adventure which is exactly what we were looking for that weekend!
Once we had seen the Arc de Triomphe we had our bearings and knew where we were. Laura kind of became our official map guide and for the rest of the weekend she kept track of exactly where we were with her map. By the end of the trip that map was very well worn and I'm sure it made a great scrapbook souvenir.
We walked around for a while and realized we were not seeing any hostels. We joked that we were in too nice of an area. Hostels don't pop up in ritzy neighborhoods. But as we walked and continued to look for a place to stay we saw some pretty cool places. One street we walked down had the really fine shopping boutiques (like Gucci, Prada, Chanel, those kinds of places). Obviously none of us could afford anything within the shops and we would have felt silly just looking around while hauling our luggage around with us, but it was really cool to be in the middle of Paris walking down some shopping boulevard that is probably world renowned!
Another cool thing we saw was a movie set. We didn't recognize the actress and we don't know what movie they were filming but we stayed and watched them shoot the scene a few times. It was pretty interesting.
Eventually we decided that wandering around wasn't really getting us to a Hostel so we tried plan B. We found a couple of hotels and went in to gage prices. After realizing that we really didn't want to spend the money on a hotel we tried plan C. I asked a few locals if they knew where we could find a youth hostel. No one around there knew, so we tried plan D. We looked up Parisian hostels on a blackberry and walked to the nearest one. Success!
It was a pretty nice hostel. It was reasonably priced, offered breakfast, and even though we weren't allowed in the rooms until after a certain time they could store our luggage until we came back. We checked in and stored our stuff then we headed out to pick up some toiletries we hadn't been able to bring over (no liquids like shampoo because all of our luggage was carry-on). When we got back to the hostel we decided to rest a little and then go out for the evening.
Since we were planning on having a long day on Saturday we didn't want to stay out too late Friday night. We left the hostel and walked around a little to get a feel for Paris at night. Having a place to stay and having rested a little we were re-energized and really excited. We walked near the Eiffel Tower but decided we would wait until Saturday night to go up in it. We found a nice restaurant and had great sit down French meal. We discussed our plans for the next day and we enjoyed the ambiance of a nice French evening. Then we headed back to the hostel and crashed for the night hoping to be well-rested and ready to take on Paris for Day 2!
