Tonight, I booked flights to Paris (as well as paying a deposit on somewhere to stay). The last time I was in Paris was back in 2008, with Ryan. We managed to  pack a lot in that weekend, as well as spending a day in the park getting wasted. I say wasted. I don’t drink, so that wasn’t really a factor for me. It was, however, for Ryan.

This time around, I’m going with Emily.

Emily’s currently in London for a couple of months, and during that time I had thought about going down to visit her, however, when she mentioned wanting to go to Paris, I offered to go with her, be her guide (though it’s yet to be seen how well that’ll work out).

After making sure we could both afford it all, we finally got around to booking today. We leave in 9 days. Short notice to be booking a trip like that. Especially in the height of Summer. Our options for reasonably cheap accomodation were limited and flights getting more expensive by the day.

However, as I said, it’s all booked now.

I’ll be flying out of Inverness, down to Luton, where I’ll meet Emily and we’ll fly to Charles De Gaulle airport, all on the Thursday, then on Monday, Emily leaves first thing and I leave at night. Which’ll be interesting. I opted for a cheap flight back to Glasgow, instead of flying to Luton and back up again. Because of this, my flight doesn’t leave until ten at night. Meaning I’ll have a day to kill in Paris by myself. I’m sure it won’t be too hard though — I actually already have something in mind for me to do.

We’ve got a list of things that we, or rather Emily, wants to do — I’m mostly just along for the ride, having been to most of the big things before. It should be fun though. It’ll also be the first time being in Paris with a video camera that’s practical to be using all the time, so hopefully I’ll be able to come back with some good video (as well as the copious amounts of photos I’m, of course, going to be taking). As well as the cameras, I’ll also have my phone, meaning I’ll be able to, in theory at least, blog while I’m over there. Which I’m looking forward to. When I went in 2008, I used my phone to write notes, which I then compiled into one big blog when I got home, but being as it was a N95, typing all that I typed was very time consuming.

Any way, until next week!

30th of June, 2011

I woke up at around 5:30am, which I wasn’t that happy about, given that it was long before my alarm was due to go off. Once conscious, I went online for a bit, and generally woke myself up before getting out of bed. 
I then showered – new haircut doesn’t do well overnight – and got all my stuff together with the aim to fitting everything I needed for the weekend into an averaged size rucksack. 
Everything includes, but is not limited to…
– Shorts
– 6xtshirts
– 2xshirts
– 5xsocks
– 5xboxers
– Hoodie
– 3xchargers (a photo camera, a video camera, and a phone. 
– 4x euro adapters
– Glasses (case)

Once all packed, and once everyone was ready, we set out for the airport. Inverness airport first of all. We arrived super early, so we sat and had something to eat before my Mum and Granny left, leaving me alone to get though security. Easy. 

I bought some water and got a free paper. I started reading it, but stopped soon after. Stupid free paper.

The flight, according to the couple sat next to me was 20mins late in leaving, but it arrived 10mins ahead of schedule – there was a severe lack of fanfare upon arrival… I miss ryanair.

I then sat at the airport, myself, waiting for Emily, watching all the people mill around me, it reminded me of Tampa airport times. The cold opening of Friends, and other general hilarity. There’s a lack of L. Ron Hubbard merchandise here though (probably for the best).

Emily arrived at the airport a little after 5, and we went to check-in. Or, at least I went to check in, if I had known she’d already checked in online, I wouldn’t have waited. The queue was massive, so it took a while and, by the time we were through we were told that we were running crazy late and if we wanted to get through security we would have to go with the priority line, which cost money… A grand total of £3. £3 to walk, pretty much, straight through security – I can deal with that.

Once through through we rushed to a departures board to find what gate we were at.

19:00 Charles De Gaulle
Wait in lounge

Wait in lounge? What lounge? It remained ‘wait in lounge’ for another half hour or so, before eventually telling us the gate number. Easyjet say ‘if you’re late, we won’t wait!’ -What if YOU’RE late, easyjet, what then?!

The flight to Paris was short and we landed on time. We made our way to the RER station and bought our travel passes for the weekend. We were promised a free shuttle, I can only imagine it was free because it didn’t exist.

Travelling into Paris, I thought it’d be nice to go into the city before going to the hotel – we had 24 hour check in, so it didn’t matter if we were a little late. The first stop took us to Notre Dame, from there we could see the Eiffel Tower, so we then headed to Trocadero to take some pictures of that and then, being as we were already on the right metro line, we headed a couple of stops to the Arc de Triomphe. 

Emily was hungry, so we went to the closet food place, which was Mcdonalds. On leaving there, it was already getting really late, so we headed to the RER, aiming to go straight back to the hotel.

I say ‘back to’… 

We walked down to the platform, which was all but empty, the TVs were blank. The sign not lit up. From across the.platform, a guard shouted. In French, but his hand motions made it clear, we had missed the last train.

Fuck.

We looked at the night bus maps and timetables, but considering I barely understand buses in the UK, knowing which one to get, and where we were going made it near impossible. So, we opted to walk and look for a taxi, figuring we could ask how much it would be before getting in. 

We walked. And walked. And walked…

And walked…

And walked. 

Eventually, we found a taxi rank, and waited. We didn’t walk to move any further. Even if the taxi was going to cost €100, I didn’t care any more, eventually, after a lot of waiting, an unoccupied taxi came along. I opened the back door.

“Parlez vous Anglais?” I asked hopefully.
“Non…”

Fuck. 

I pulled out my phone and showed him the address, and asked him how much it’d be. He pointed to the meter. I then used some hand motions to signify a rough guess, which surpisingly worked and he wrote down ’20-30’ – given that I’d talked about being okay paying anything at this point, that guesstimate seemed very reasonable. 

By the time we got to where we needed to be, it came to a little over 20€, and given that it was now around 3am, it was, to me, 20€ well spent.

We got to the hotel, the doors were locked, but there was a night bell. We pressed that and someone took a leisurely stroll over to open the door for us. Before checking us in. 

The hotel is nice enough, nothing fancy, but its clean and has beds. Upon getting into the room, I really wanted to just pass out on the bed there and then. I didn’t though, I managed to squeeze in brushing my teeth and taking my clothes off first.

So, yeah, all in all, a pretty eventful start to the trip. 

July 1st, 2011

Woke up at 9:30am, I’d woken several times before that, but figured that the alarm was due to go off in half an hour, so there was no point in going back to sleep.

I lay in bed for a while before getting my phone, to finish the previous days blog and then published it.

After that, I tackled the shower. The hotel is nice, nothing fancy, but definitely comfortable. The shower has a mind of its own though, spraying water out of multiple locations, causing me to soak myself (and the bathroom) long before actually getting into the shower. Once I was done, I got dressed and woke Emily, who had hit snooze too many times.

When we were both ready, we headed to the RER station. Made easy because the taxi driver had dropped us there last night. We missed the first train, as it looked to be going in the wrong direction, but got on the second.

We were aiming for Versailles, and got as far as invalides, where the train, rather promptly stopped. The lights went out and… Yeah, didn’t go any further. Apparently, the RER likes to do that sometimes, just terminate trains for no apparent reason. It’s really helpful.

The timetable screen said the next train wouldn’t be for another half hour, so we grabbed something to eat and headed to the surface.

When we went back under, we went back to where the timetable said the next train would be, and waited. Nothing.

Eventually, we went back out and onto another platform, where again, it said the train would be, only for it to finally appear on yet another line. All the messing around meant that we arrived at Versailles pretty late in the afternoon.

Once there, we booked ourselves onto a guided tour. Groups of 25 are taken around the private apartment of the king. It was interesting and some of the stuff was really amazing to look at. A lot of walking though.

Because we arrived later than planned, we missed put on a lot of he gardens, we were out there for around 20 mins before the tour, but they closed at 4, and it was well after 5 before we were finished with the inside.

We stopped for something to eat/drink at a place near the station, before getting the RER back into Paris, getting off at the Eiffel Tower.

I had said when we were looking at it from across the water that despite how big it looked from there, it still didn’t do justice to just how big it is up close.

I remember from the first time I was in paris just how struck by the sheer size of it I was. When you eventually round the corner and see it in full for the first time, you can’t help but be in awe.

After taking some pictures underneathe the tower, we walked up the path by the gardens, hopping the fence at the far end and taking a seat.

And so began over an hour of taking creepy photos of strangers…

Most were unaware, making it, arguably, less creepy. Others noticed, despite our best efforts at subtlety, and soon we had to move. The sun was setting, so I suggested a trip to the Louvre, part to see the sun set over the Louvre pyramids, part to continue being creepy.

Which we did, to what is in our opinion, great success. We even made some friends, post-creep.

At around 10 – the end of any creepers day – we headed back to our hotel. Making it on to the RER this time, so no need for French taxi drivers. Boom!

July 2nd, 2011

Well, its official, Emily MacAgy takes the longest to get ready of any one I know…

We left the hotel and got out to Disney just after 10. Because I was hungry for the first time since arriving in Paris, we went for some breakfast opting to visit Annette’s diner, because it appeared to be the only place actually serving breakfast.

After Annette’s we headed into the main park. There was no queue at all for tickets allowing us to walk straight in. Using our Paris Visite pass, we got the park hopper ticket for 55€.

We wondered around the park for a bit, one thing that stood out was the amount of characters just wondering around (throughout the whole day, we didn’t see a single photo op line).

After seeing what was on offer, we went to phantom manor and then got a fast pass for Space Mountain. We passed Big Thunder on the way to Phantom Manor, but the queue for fast pass tickets was so long that we didn’t bother.

After getting the space mountain fast pass, we went to Mcdonalds to use the WiFi, and get something else to eat. From not being at all hungry, I was suddenly starving.

Finishing up there we headed back iron the park and to space mountain, and when that was done, we walked into Captain E.O.

Captain E.O was an… Experience…

From there, we went to the studios park and, again, explored what it had to offer, passing Crushes Coaster, we went to the new toy story land. Which was pretty cool. We then headed to Rock’N’Rollercoaster.

For some reason, once we got past Aerosmith, and into the part off the queue where you can see the Coaster take off, they were sending empty train after empty train. Eventually though, we got on and in a pleasant change to tradition, it wasn’t ‘Love in an Elevator’ that was playing.

From there, I rode the tower of terror alone, while Emily went to some show. Then we met back at the Mickey & Walt statue, before going to queue for Crush. It was already approaching 7, the time the Studios park closes, but they let us into the line anyway.

We got out of Crushes Coaster closer to 8, and headed back to the main park for the last 2 hours. We went on some of the rides in fantasy land, before walking onto Pirates of the Caribbean. With the choice of Buzz Lightyear’s laser blast, Big Thunder Mountain, or Star Tours, we opted for Buzz, as neither of us had been on it and it was a shorter line.

Disappointment.

It was a pretty lame ride, I really don’t see why people love it as much as they do. We had decided to try and get onto Big Thunder before the park closed, but we got distracted by the dragon. When we got out of its lair, the announcement came that he park was closing. We stuck around as the crowds poured out, taking some pictures. The sun was setting behind the castle and as it got darker the lights of Main Street came on, which was nice.

Getting out, we were sore, tired and in Emily’s case, hungry. We checked the times of the RER and went into Disney Village to get food. On the way to the station, we saw a drunk guy getting escorted off the premises.

Once back at Joinville Le Pont, I grabbed some juice from a nearby shop and we went back to the room where I proceeded to have an epic nose bleed. Like a tap, it was!

Once I stopped the gushing blood, I got into bed and promptly passed out. My feet still aching.