Paris Travel Day

I have to apologize, this might be quite long but I swear that you will enjoy it.

Thursday began my journey last week, and the journey began in class.  BES went by quickly enough, and in CBC we had a guest lecturer to teach us about the British Constitution.  After the lecture we broke off into our seminar groups and it was my week to present on the subject.  I love leading a discussion with my peers (sarcasm), everyone always answers right away and is very perky…NOT.  I honestly don’t know how teachers do it.

Anyway, classes ended at noon, but there was much to be accomplished after that.  Our coach for Paris was leaving at 9:30pm.  I will explain the rationale for the coach later.  Tasks to be completed before departure included directions to and from hotel, packing, exchanging currency, and learning basic phrases.  We probably should have done this before the day we left but what can you do.  In that span of time I became very antsy.  All I wanted to do was get on with the traveling.  Time seemed to go on forever.

Just after 8 we headed for the coach station.  Now is the time for the coach rationale.  Yes, we could have flown to Paris in about an hour.  Yes, we could have taken a train and been in Paris in just over 2 hours, but instead we opted for the 10-hour coach ride.  There was a simple reason for this; it was the cheapest option, and we thought we wouldn’t mind the long ride.  Bailey picked our seat behind the second exit and bathroom.   This was so that no one would recline on us, but sadly there was very little legroom and our ride was pretty uncomfortable.  Luckily for us the coach took a ferry across the English Channel giving us time to stretch out.  The ferry, however, is about one and half hours longer than the chunnel.

We found the bar area and two comfortable couches.  Bailey promptly fell asleep, even though our couches had noisy slot machines on our right, the bar directly in front of us, and an eclectic group of people playing a boisterous game of charades to our left.  I people watch for a bit but eventually took out my book Dear John, curled with my Strongbow and read for the better half of the 2-hour journey across the channel.  I wasn’t feeling tired even though it was 4am local time.  I was very anxious to get to there and get going.  It was my first ferry ride of the kind.  One with cars, and lots and lots of people.  Most of them were my age, as far I could tell, with a smattering of families here and there.  I would love to take a ferry like that again sometime at more suitable hour of the day to really enjoy it and properly take in Dover, the port where we left.  It was a real shame that it was night.  We could only see one cliff, but it was HUGE.  I would very much like to see the cliffs of Dover during the day.

We arrived in Paris around 8:30 AM.  As we were getting in it was hard not to notice the huge amounts of Graffiti around the city.  It made me a little wary, to be honest.  I associate graffiti with lawlessness.  Pop culture doesn't show you anything but the romantic parts of the city, so seeing the poorer, run down areas was a real eye opener.  It's quite humbling actually.

Luckily the coach station in Paris was connected to the Metro (underground) so we didn’t have to wander around outside to find it.  We bought 10 Metro tickets and were off to our hotel, located just south of the Pigalle metro station.  Like I said in my video, the area around the station was interesting.  There is a McDonald’s, 2 or 3 nudey bars and a pharmacy, along with a few other odd stops.

When we arrived at our hotel we tried to check in but we learned that check in isn’t until 2 PM.  It was 9 AM, and Bailey wasn’t so happy.  All she wanted to do was nap.  Again, I wasn’t really tired.  If you would have shown me a bed I would have slept, but I didn’t really need it.  I was feeling good about the adventure that we were partaking in.  As this is long enough, I will stop and create a second post for day 1, and a third for day 2.