Last week I celebrated a big day, my 30th birthday. The day was fast approaching and luckily the Dutch weather was taking a turn for the better. I had been planning a trip to Paris to celebrate. Unfortunately my friend that was going to join me had to cancel. But I had my heart set on going so I went ahead and planned a trip sans ami. Paris is about a four hour train ride from where I am living, but because I waited so long to book the train tickets had gotten more expensive than I wanted to pay. So I decided to take the bus. The bus is about 7 hours but the best time that worked for me left at 10:45pm and arrived at 6:00am in Paris, so I pulled out my travel pillow.
My birthday landed on a Friday this year. When I woke up that morning my host family had put up streamers and decorations around the house and a banner on my door. Very sweat. They sang to me over cheerios’ in the morning and then we were off to our regular routine. The kids were great that day which was the best gift they could have given me. That evening we had a great bar-b-que dinner and they spoiled me with a couple of good travel books and apple pie. Apparently it is more traditional to have birthday pie, than it is to have birthday cake here.
The whole day was good and after dinner I had to get ready to catch my evening train. When I got on the bus I realized that it had already been in Amsterdam and all the good window seats were taken. The window seats were not a coveted spot for the view, but for sleeping. I only got about 2 hours of sleep and arrived early in Paris…very tired. The bus station in Paris is attached to the train station so I figured out my way to my hostel and was off to check in. When I got out of the train station I turned out to walk toward my hostel and I could see the Eiffel tower over some of the surrounding buildings. It was so surreal to see it in person, even from far away.
I arrived at the hostel at about 7:30 and unfortunately, I could check in, but couldn’t actually get into my room till after 4:00pm. I knew that before, but was much more optimistic about how much sleep I would get on the bus. I checked my email and Facebook and then went to a nearby bakery and bought some croissants to get into the Parisian mood. The hostel promoted New Europe’s walking tours which I had done in Copenhagen and Amsterdam. They are great so I met with the tour at the hostel at 10:30 and it lasted about 4 hours. It was a good way to see a lot of the city and learn a little about what I was seeing. I also met some fun people on the tour too. About half of the group went for a late lunch afterward and some of us went on to the Eiffel tower after that. Seeing it up close was gorgeous and still surreal. We took a ton of pictures and it was beautiful.
Later that evening we headed to another tour that New Europe put on. It was a two hour tour around the Montmartre District. Another gorgeous area with great views. We saw the café where Amelie was filmed, Van Goughs house, Sacre Ceour, the view of Paris from the highest natural point in the city and Moulin Rouge.
The tour included a glass of wine at a cute little pub afterward. New Europe does a pub crawl too, but by the time the Montmartre tour was over, I had been walking around all day in the hot humid sun with only two hours of sleep. It was time to crash.
I got back to the hostel and was able to get into my room. It was about 10:00pm. When I got to my room I opened the door and there was a 60 year old man in there. Kind of weird. I knew I was in a mixed room, but didn’t think it was a multi generation room.
Anyhoo, the next day I wanted to revisit a few places we walked by on the tour. Before I hit up a few gift shops, I visited the Pere Lachaise Cemetary. Maybe a little morbid, but it was actually a beautiful and peaceful place and of course the final resting place for Jim Morrison. Later I made my way to the D’Orsey Museum. Unfortunately, the line was really long and the sun was really hot. Who wants to stand in a long line by themselves? Not me. So I headed down to the Arc de Triomphe. There were people standing underneath it, and I noticed people on the top. I wanted to go over and check out how much it was to go to the top, but couldn’t figure out how to cross the crazy circle of traffic to get there. I did manage to get a couple of traffic free pictures.
So I took a couple of pictures and headed up Avenue des Champs-Élysées to check out all the shops. They just put in a new H&M and it was huge with crazy moving videos screens that go from one floor to the next. I have now been to H&M in 8 countries and they are all a little different.
By the evening I wanted to go back to the Eiffel Tower to see it all lit up at night. I picked up a crepe on the way and found a spot on the grass with hundreds of other people. I must have been asked a hundred times if I wanted to buy wine or Champagne. These guys are everywhere. All day they were selling water, then beer, and by dark it was wine and champagne. These guys are very ingenuitive. But be careful not to look at them directly, they’ll try to come in for the kill. But the annoyance of them didn't distract from the gorgeous tower.
The next morning I made my way back to bus station for the long trip home. This bus ride didn’t go through the night, it was all day. The ride back was long. It took considerably longer than on the way there. The driver was a smoker and took a few extra smoke breaks. We also had another delay. A lady from the back of the bus went up to the driver and they quickly began yelling at each other. They were speaking in Dutch so I didn’t know what was going on. But at one point the driver tapped on his breaks and she fell down the steps. Pretty sure he did it on purpose. Drama on the Euroline.
All and all it was a great trip and I am glad I still went despite my friend not being able to join me. Paris is beautiful, who would of thunk it? I am already looking forward to going back. I have plans to in the spring before going back to Canada.
And what do you now, I am procrastinating planning yet another trip. I have a week off this month and am finalizing details for Greece and Italy. Should be stellar.
