Why am I writing these in chapters?
Saturday, 3.29.08 - AM
By the time we arrived in Paris, it was 7AM local time. As we got off the plane, we were corralled through customs, another new experience for me. I did have a twinge of excitement, as the little person in the booth was going to stamp the first stamp in my passport!
"Bonjour!" she says, as she takes my passport. She thumbs through it & hands it back to me. No stamp. WTF? I even paged through it in case I somehow missed the process of her stamping it. No stamp.
Anyway, we're now following the other passengers from our flight, but I'm also paying attention to the signs in an effort to teach myself some French. I look up and see "Baggage Claim" with an arrow, next to "Sortie" with the same arrow. Aha! I learned my first French term while in France! Sortie = baggage claim. It makes sense, sortie is close to sorting.
I'm shuffled to the side, while Matt waits for the bags. This part of traveling always makes me nervous. What if my bag doesn't pop out onto the conveyor belt? Would I have to spend money otherwise designated for fun in Paris on stupid clothes? Out comes my bag. Woohoo! More money for fun and not stupid clothes!
As we're headed to the currency exchange/ATM, I notice more "sortie" signs. We're nowhere near any baggage claims, so I'm wondering why they'd have sortie signs upstairs. Meanwhile, I send Matt to the currency exchange line, as he's at least able to speak some French. I stand in line at the ATM, but then begin to freak out a little, thinking, "what if all of the directions on the machine are in French? What the heck will I do?" Again, my non-international traveling self should have realized the machine likely offers multiple languages. It did. Hooray.
With cash in hand, Matt and I head to the taxi line, again, passing under a sign that read "sortie." Once I saw the sign hanging over a door to the outside, I realized "sortie" must not mean baggage claim, but rather "exit." At least I kept that to myself, no one knew how dumb I was.
We get into a cab, and once again, Matt is able to communicate with the driver, using the French he remembered. The ride took quite sometime, and ended up being about €40 (which translates to roughly $63). When we're almost to our hotel, we pass by a pretty old & large building, with well-dressed kids standing outside smoking. We're told this is one of the richest high schools in Paris. First, it was Saturday, what were kids doing in school? Secondly, everyone seemed to be dressed really well, like professional-business well - they weren't in uniforms, rather, their own clothes. I know this shouldn't be surprising to me, but it was.
We pull around the circular drive, see the Pantheon on our left & our hotel straight ahead. What a cool place to be staying!
Entering the hotel, it's Matt duty again to do the talking. I sit in the quaint lounge area of the hotel lobby while Matt speaks with the two guys at the desk. There seems to be some confusion. There isn't a room for us at the hotel. It's not under Reynolds, or under his coworkers last name either. The men behind the desk seem a bit frazzled, and ask numerous times for the last name & if we're sure we're at the correct hotel. Eventually, one of the men calls the hotel located directly next door. They have our reservation! Thank goodness.
We lug our what seem to be well over 100lb bags out the door and into the oddly similar hotel next door. I take my seat, Matt once again does the talking. Because it was around 8:30AM at this point, we weren't able to check-in. This ended up being a good thing, as while I know it's probably best to stay awake once arriving in a foreign country, the odds of me getting into the room, seeing the bed, and wanting to crash for a few hours was pretty high. The hotel was gracious enough to hold our bags while we ventured out into the city, not able to check in for 5 1/2 hours.
We decide to head to the subway and head to Montmartre/Sacré Coeur. (More can be read about it here ). Here are a couple of pictures:
Saturday, 3.29.08 - AM
By the time we arrived in Paris, it was 7AM local time. As we got off the plane, we were corralled through customs, another new experience for me. I did have a twinge of excitement, as the little person in the booth was going to stamp the first stamp in my passport!
"Bonjour!" she says, as she takes my passport. She thumbs through it & hands it back to me. No stamp. WTF? I even paged through it in case I somehow missed the process of her stamping it. No stamp.
Anyway, we're now following the other passengers from our flight, but I'm also paying attention to the signs in an effort to teach myself some French. I look up and see "Baggage Claim" with an arrow, next to "Sortie" with the same arrow. Aha! I learned my first French term while in France! Sortie = baggage claim. It makes sense, sortie is close to sorting.
I'm shuffled to the side, while Matt waits for the bags. This part of traveling always makes me nervous. What if my bag doesn't pop out onto the conveyor belt? Would I have to spend money otherwise designated for fun in Paris on stupid clothes? Out comes my bag. Woohoo! More money for fun and not stupid clothes!
As we're headed to the currency exchange/ATM, I notice more "sortie" signs. We're nowhere near any baggage claims, so I'm wondering why they'd have sortie signs upstairs. Meanwhile, I send Matt to the currency exchange line, as he's at least able to speak some French. I stand in line at the ATM, but then begin to freak out a little, thinking, "what if all of the directions on the machine are in French? What the heck will I do?" Again, my non-international traveling self should have realized the machine likely offers multiple languages. It did. Hooray.
With cash in hand, Matt and I head to the taxi line, again, passing under a sign that read "sortie." Once I saw the sign hanging over a door to the outside, I realized "sortie" must not mean baggage claim, but rather "exit." At least I kept that to myself, no one knew how dumb I was.
We get into a cab, and once again, Matt is able to communicate with the driver, using the French he remembered. The ride took quite sometime, and ended up being about €40 (which translates to roughly $63). When we're almost to our hotel, we pass by a pretty old & large building, with well-dressed kids standing outside smoking. We're told this is one of the richest high schools in Paris. First, it was Saturday, what were kids doing in school? Secondly, everyone seemed to be dressed really well, like professional-business well - they weren't in uniforms, rather, their own clothes. I know this shouldn't be surprising to me, but it was.
We pull around the circular drive, see the Pantheon on our left & our hotel straight ahead. What a cool place to be staying!
Entering the hotel, it's Matt duty again to do the talking. I sit in the quaint lounge area of the hotel lobby while Matt speaks with the two guys at the desk. There seems to be some confusion. There isn't a room for us at the hotel. It's not under Reynolds, or under his coworkers last name either. The men behind the desk seem a bit frazzled, and ask numerous times for the last name & if we're sure we're at the correct hotel. Eventually, one of the men calls the hotel located directly next door. They have our reservation! Thank goodness.
We lug our what seem to be well over 100lb bags out the door and into the oddly similar hotel next door. I take my seat, Matt once again does the talking. Because it was around 8:30AM at this point, we weren't able to check-in. This ended up being a good thing, as while I know it's probably best to stay awake once arriving in a foreign country, the odds of me getting into the room, seeing the bed, and wanting to crash for a few hours was pretty high. The hotel was gracious enough to hold our bags while we ventured out into the city, not able to check in for 5 1/2 hours.
We decide to head to the subway and head to Montmartre/Sacré Coeur. (More can be read about it here ). Here are a couple of pictures:
No comments:
Post a Comment