Anways, I've written a story for you of my three day adventure, so if you get time to read it, here it is! Its pretty long haha... like 15 pages... But thats ok. Its full of details :) I'll also put up pictures later because I don't have time or internet power now. And I may go through and edit mistakes and highlight important stuff too later. But here it is.... And please, ignore spelling mistakes. This things way too long and I don't have nearly enough time to edit it. >.<
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Ok, So I'm in Charles De Gaule after 3 days in Paris, and I'll be writting this story during my trip home, and maybe a little into me actually BEING home. My friend Ellen from Uconn hooked me up with a place to stay for 7 euros a night... which was extremely cheap. Especially since it was only 3 or so stops on the metro from the Notre Dame. I even had a cot! But anyways, there's miles worth of text to tell, so I'll try and give a bit of a condensed version.
Here's the story:
DAY -0.5
I left my apartment in Granada at 4:30pm Sunday to walk to the nearest bus stop to catch the 5:20pm bus to the Airport. I arrived at around 4:45 so I decided to run across the street to the bar and split my 50 euro bill. They of course charged me 1.78 as a commission... but at least I got a free soda out of it. Anyways, I sat at the bar anxiously as I waited for the bus because I knew I'd be making 4 flights over the next 5 days and I was a little nervous about getting lost, missing a flight, delays, or any of the other number of things that could go wrong. I had risked booking a series of one way flights so that I could both save money and fly out of Granada instead of having to fly from Madrid, which would have involved a 5-6 hour bus ride AND navigating Madrid...
As I sat in the bar, I suddenly got the urge to finish my drink and run over the bus stop, because at that moment, missing the bus to airport was the last thing I wanted. As I crossed the street, a large bus pulled up- the airport bus had arrived 20 minutes early. I hoped on thankful that I didn't miss the run, and I payed the 3 E fare.
When I arrived to the Airport, I walked around wondering where I supposed to check in. Granada airport is small. Really small. Probably smaller than Bradley, so there were very few check in points, only 3 gates, and you had to walk outside to board the plane. However, none of the checkin TVs were labeled ryan air, so I panicked a little, after all, my flight was scheduled for 8:30pm and I didn't even know if I had accidently booked the wrong airport. After sitting down in the cafe, and reviewing my confirmation emails, I realized that I had in fact arrived early, before check in was scheduled to open >.<
The flight over was calm and nothing really happened. I can't say it was comfortable, but at least there was no turbulence. We landed a little under 3 hours later in the East Midlands airport in Southern England, right out side of Nottingham at around 10:30 pm, Sunday night England time. This was fine... except I had booked my next connecting flight for 6:40am Monday ( as to allow time for delays or other problems). I didn't realize at the time of booking that I would be sitting in an empty airport (which thankfully did not close) for 8 hours in the middle of the night in England.
The first thing we did after exiting was walk through the international check in line...which about half a mile long and of course empty. I had to fill out a landing card, which took forever because I received a wonderful phone call from a certain someone ;), so when I was finally finished, I was the only person left. I had to put down my passport number, nationality, previous flight, and duration in England, which I wrote down as "Aprox. 6 hrs". When I walked up to the man checking, I handed him my card, and looked at me:
(English accent) -So your in England for 6 hours?
-Yeah...
-What'ya doing for 6 hours?
-Waiting for my next flight....
-What times it leaving?
-I dunno, around 6?
-So that would be 8 hours then.
-Okay, then I'm in England for 8 hours.
-Where you flying to after?
-Paris....
-What for?
-(Holy shit) To visit a friend who is also studying abroad.
-....Right then. *stamp* Through there *point*.
That was the first time I had been questioned at a passport check... and it was pretty funny because of his accent. I continued on, and found my way to the exit. I walked outside, and I thought
-man, there is nothing for me to do right now! Its 11pm on a Sunday night in Southern England.
There was a bus that was making trips every half hour to Nottingham, but I didn't think there would be any point. And since I have the same lay over on the flight back during the day, I would try and stop by then.
So I went back inside, walked into the eNOURmous, and empty I might add, check in room to my left, where I saw a few people sleeping on the chairs. Fortunately there was a line of 4 at the end, so I took a seat. I sat there for while, and eventually layed down and I slept intermittently for about 6 hours. At one point, I felt so uncomfortable that I sat up. There was an english bloke laying near me, and he suddently stood back up and left to the other room. When he came back I looked up at him and he said:
- well'h, time to assume the position eh?
We both laughed a bit and went back to sleep.
DAY 1
Finally, I was able to check in and we boarded the flight. The airline was called BMIbaby, strangely enough, which stood for (according to the website) Book Mi Baby. How cheesy is that? But it really was cheap, since their slogan is,
- The Airline with the smallest fairs! (SO cheesy.)
so I couldn't complain.
They did however try to yell at me for having my earplugs in while landing, which I didn't like to much. Its normal to have to turn your electronic devices off, but My iPod WAS off, and even unplugged, but they felt the need to have me take my earplugs out as well, which I was keeping in for noise reduction purposes so I could sleep. I suppose if the plane is going to crash, they want everyone awake and aware, and able to hear all of the sounds associated with their death, so they couldn't POSSIBly allow earplugs. Frigan English people. They way they talked to me, I'm convinced it was because I was American, but maybe that was just me.
This guy on the right sounded and looked JUST like the fat midget from WILLOW. The one thats mean to Willow in the beginning.
We landed in Charles de Gaul at 9:40 right on time, and I got off the plane and fortunately, my friend Ellen was waiting RIGHT THERE for me...Thank God.. I of course went through the passport checkpoint, but he just stamped my book and I was on my way. Charles de Gaul is a little big and I didn't have any of the metro system figured out, so I would have been totally lost, and I was pretty tired still, or just out of it from traveling all through the night, so I'm glad she was there. We hoped on the train it was about 45 minutes back to the dorms where she lives.
The way the international dorms are set up at the cité université are kind of funny. They are set up by country, so each building has something that shows what country it is from. For example, the United States dorm has the Nations insignia, and Mexico has in huge whites letters vertically written MEXICO. I had rented a cot from Ellen (through the school) for 7 Euros a night, which is tough to beat in a town like paris. This is what it looked like:
From there, we dropped my stuff off and went to get some food.
Although, what was supposed to be a quick run for food turned a 3 hour trek around the center of the city help me get used to it a little bit. After getting an excellent chicken panini and water for 3E, we walked and saw the Louvre, the Notre Dame, and some other buildings. I was unshaven (like 2 weeks...) and really greasy (gross!) from traveling all night and I was walking around Paris, but I didn't even really care because the day had become very beautiful. I had checked the forecast before leaving and it was supposed to rain Monday and Tuesday, and then be cloudy for Wednesday, but the weather had changed and the day was gorgeous. We walked around until about 1:30 when we went back to the dorms for Ellen's class. There I washed up a bit, shaved, put on deodorant, a got ready to explore the city. I had a few ideas in mind, all free of course, but there was much exploring to be done too :) I walked across the street, took a picture, and then resolved to make my way through the metro.
The first stop I made was to one of the cities enormous graveyards. This one was called cemitiere Pére Lechais, and it houses the graves of such famous people as the composer Chopin, Jim Morrison, and journalist Victor Noir. 
It was a pretty amazing place, and it was built onto a very long hill, so you are always looking up at these magnificent mosoleums (like in New Orleans of course, or that movie with the two motorcyclists). And at the top of the hill, was a HUGE cremetorium...where I took pictures of a group of people leaving what was apparently a cremation... Oops. But I also took a video that is PERFECT testament to how creepy this place was. Its a little big, but I'll try and put it up.
After I had spent about 2 or 3 hours in the graveyard, I walked back towards the Notre Dame, but I took a bunch of back roads to get a taste of Paris where its not so touristy. I ended up finally at the Opera house of Paris and the Bastille obelisk. Very grande, and on the way I found a bunch of tasty pastry shops. There was a mob of french kids all walking from this one shop caring was apparently a very popular treat. I don't know what the name was, but it was like a soft sugary bread stick with chocolate chips cooked in. MMM!!! Then further down the road (it was a main road at this point) there was a very good looking pastry shop where I bought an apple pastry and a soda. I sat outside the front of the story and I was sooo content. Then I took a bite >.<>
As I continued, I found myself coming up from behind the Notre Dame. It honestly wasn't quick as big as I had imagined (since I had seen pictures) But it was still big, and very incredible. Its just that all of the pictures I had seen had been taken from an angle that made the flying buttresses that are so famous seem inCREDIbly high in my memory, but in fact, they were only about 60 or so feet high. I took a ton of pictures and some video, and by that time it was almost 6:30 and I headed back to the dorms to rendesvous with Ellen.
When I got back we decided to walk around the latin quarter a bit and we found a descent and cheap restaurant to eat at, it was about 10E which was pretty good considering the water was free, the bread was free, and we were a 10 minutes walk from the Notre Dame.
I had wanted to check out a Jazz club I had found online, but we ended up staying at the restaurant talking until around 11:00pm and since the last train left at 12:00, we dediced to walk by the Pompidou (museum) and the Hotel de ville (city hall)
at night where we found a demonstration. It was small, but it was still a demonstration... essentially it was a group of hippies walking in a circle for countless hours.
Afterwards we caught the train back and set up my cot, and went to sleep because she had class early the next day, and I wanted to get up early and start my day walking around. I had been fortunate that day with very good weather, but the next day was supposed to be very bad. So, the plan was get up early, get into the louvre (quickly of coruse) check out Pompidou, go see the crypt of the Notre Dame - which I advise against, its ruins and there aren't actually any dead people...
DAY 2
I woke up and hung around in bed until around 11:00 when I finally decided to get up and take a shower. I'm not really sure why I didn't do it the night before, because I was QUITE filthy.
I had traveled 15 hours and then walked around most of the inner city of Paris the day before after all. I took the metro to the Notre Dame, and found some food, and to my surprise, it hadn't begun to rain; it was still overcast heavily, but there was no water.
As I was walking around for food, I noticed also that the weather was slowly improving. I didn't feel like going into a basement for god knows how long (at the time) when the weather was excellent, so I just sort of drifted south. I walked for a while, and decided to hit up the Pantheon, but when I used the map to walk to it, I ended up circling around it. Its a big circle around it, so I was actually able to just completely miss it. I started on the east side, and ended on the west side, and when I was looking at my map deciding whether or not I really wanted to go back and look for the building, I noticed an enormous gate in front of me leading in to a park. I walked up and went in, because the weather was still improving.
The Luxembourg park is very big, and very pretty. It has fountains, lawns, the senate building, statues, and there are even chairs everywhere along the water and lawns that fill up when the weather is really nice. It was pretty incredible. However, there really isn't much to tell, except that you should look at the photos.
I left the park and began walking. Starting to feel hungry I stopped at a shop where they were selling bread, pastries, and these bocadillo like sandwiches (sandwiches like the ones subway sells) and I ordered one with chicken cutlets for 3 euros. OH MY GOD it was so tasty haha. Then again I was pretty hungry.
I stopped in at a church/museum to check out what looked like an art exhibit. I walked in, looked around, then realized that the exhibit was 10E so I said, eh, the church was nice, but I'm cheap. >.<>
After, I wandered in the direction of the Eiffel tower. Since the weather had become very nice, I wanted to hit the Eiffel tower, and the the arch de triumph and then head back to the center of town. I saw a lot of cool shops and stuff.
The weather by this time had drastically improved and I was just walking down the road looking for food now when I happened upon a panini stand. Funny Story:
I walked up and there were two people with hiking packs on that were struggling to order some food. The guy was tall and Extremely Irish and the girl was shorter, around my height, and blond. While they were struggling in english, a second man came out and asked me in french if I wanted anything. I told him directly,
-Je ne parle pas francais....Pero hablo espanol.
So we conversed in Spanish and I noticed the two others looking at me. They turned back, and then the guy I was talking to went off to cook my food (they apparently had gotten their request across so their guy had already taken off). Anyways, I stood their for a second, and then I asked them a little loudly so they would hear me over the cars and bustle,
-So where you guys heading?
They turned around suddenly with a very surprised look on their face >.<>
We introduced ourselves, and their names were Bobby and Madelyn. Turns out they were actually out of state students at Boston University. She was in her senior year, and he had just finished his first year of Med School at BU, and they were traveling all around Europe together. As we walked down the street a bit, I asked where they were going, and they said the Eiffel tower. I told them
-Me too! Mind if I walk with you guys?
-Yeah sure!
It was very funny, they have been dating for a while, and they bickered quite a bit, but it was the funny kind of bickering.
It took us a while to get to the tower, despite how close it looked but when we finally got there, it was pretty packed.
As we approached from the lawn, we decided that we didn't want to wait in line and pay the fee to use the elevator, but when we arrived, we realized that you have to pay almost the same fee to take the stairs as the elevator, and either way you had to stand in line. So we left >.<
After, I said,
-Well, I don't know what you guys are up to, but I'm heading over the arch de Triumph right now, so....
-Oh yeah? Hey Madelyne, where are we going right now?
-I dunno, its your day, why don't we just go to the arch?
-Yeah babe, that sounds like a great Idea!
So i said,
-Oh, you guys are gonna come?
-Why not?! So we all went over the arch. hahaha
I wasn't expecting them to follow, but they did, and I'm pretty glad.
On the way over we saw a family of mullets....
We got the arch, and you have to actually take a tunnel from one side of the roundabout to the other because its so big, and there is a ton of traffic all the time. So there we saw the enduring flame and the tomb of the unknown soldier. The arch was HUGE, and it should def be a place to see if you go to Paris.
I really loved the sculptures on it too. It was all quite amazing.
Afterwards, I told them,
-Well, I don't know where you guys are heading next, but I'm gonna walk back over to the Notre Dame and check out the crypt there. Hear its pretty cool...
-Oh really? Oh cool, we're going to the louvre next.
So we all walked together since they are practically right next to each other. We walked probably for an hour or so trying to get to the center of town again, because we were pretty far out there, but it was ok because there were lots of cool parks, lawns, the Hieroglyphic obelisk, and whatnot. Very pretty all of it. We finally arrived though, and we walked around.
Again we were supposed to split up there because they were going to run through the Louvre real quick (they had a 10:30 train to catch).
However, when we arrived, we found out that it was in fact closed on Tuesdays. Bummer.
So instead, we walked through a giant outside flower shop across the river, made our way to the Notre Dame (about 15 minutes) and went to the cript. When we got there, it was 6:30pm... and we read the sign which said
-Last entry: 5:30
Dammit.
So that kind of sucked, but then we noticed people walking out a side door beside the entrance and we thought, you know what, to hell with it, lets just sneak in the back.
So we waited...
Then suddenly a group of kids and adults came out and thats when we made our move! We grabbed the door behind the last person before it shut and quickly ran inside! We were sneaking into the crypt!! Then a lady came in behind us! We were all thinking it, man, we're all sneaking into the crypt of the Notre Dame!! There was a camera so I pretended to scratch my forehead too haha.
We were excited as we walked around the corner, but as soon as we did we stopped dead in our tracks. Busted....
Actually, not busted, the plan was busted because we had snuck into a 2 level parking garage... Good job us!
We left defeated and decided to walk north to the 10th district in hopes of finding some cheap tasty pastries.
We stopped at a cafe for about 15 minutes, they bought a coffee, and I ended up getting 2 crepes from a vender on the corner because they were SO good, and when we left, they started digging through their pockets for change so a group of older french people bought the coffee for them. How nice huh!? Lucky them, I had to pay 5.20E for my 2 crepes... But it was sooo worth it.
From there we walked and walked, and ended up in what looked like a business district. We eventually got through that and stopped in at a bar that had a bunch of tables around the side, and a table near the road. That was a very awkward experience.
What happened was, we stood at the table because there were no seats. No problem. The waitress, who was wearing VERY thick...NOT flattering glasses...>.<, came out and tried asking us what we wanted. It was happy hour, so we tried pointing to the Anis and Martini on their blackboard but she really just did NOT get it. So she was like MENU.
She came back out, and a group next to the door let, so she was like, here, you can sit and she pointed to the seat.. So we were like, well, lets see. We looked at the menu, and then they were like, well, we won't get anything, but I really wanna listen to this jazz! Since I didn't want to just take up one of their tables and not get anything, I bought a happy hour martini (1/2 martini 1/2 price) I was also like, hey, we can even sit down if you want. So we sat down, and waitress came out and started bitching. I was like, wtf!? So she looked over and a lady translated,
-she says, you can only sit down, if you are intending to order. If you want a drink then food after, thats ok, but you can only sit if you are eating. Otherwise, you have to stand. (At the lonely awkward table I might add).
So were like, ok... lets get up I geuss. We stood at the table for like a minute, and then I was like, man, maybe we should jet... And the other two were like, yeah, I think thats a good idea. But then I was like, I dunno, she's probably already making the drink. Eh, whatever.
So we stayed, enjoyed the jazz, I had the half drink, and we were probably made fun of a lot, but whatever. Not much you can do when you don't know the rules and don't speak french.
After a while we decided it was getting pretty late, and we decided to take off. We walked to a grocery store and a couple mini marts so they could pick up food for their journey, and we found our way to Gare de l'est, which was the train station they were leaving from. Once there, we said our goodbyes, and they took off. Afterwards, I walked up two blocks through the ghetto of Paris >.<>
I'm pretty popular in Paris huh?
I got home, talked to Ellen for a bit and then that night, I did the smart thing and showered before bed, so when I woke up I was able to just get up and go.
DAY 3
The last day, It finally rained. Sad day. It would have been nice if Alyssa was with me, because she makes the rain really fun! But alas she wasn't and I had to make the best of it. I left by the metro again to get off at the Notre Dame stop. Oh, I should also mention that Ellen still had class and was very preoccupied with planning her own spring break trip, so she wasn't able to come with me too much through the city. We hung out the first night because she had class during the time I was at the cemetery, the second day she had class early and then I met the backpackers, and then the last day she was planning her trip. But its okay, I was expecting that and it was nice being able to walk around the city to whereEVER I wanted and explore...and I did a LOT of that.
So anyways, having gotten off at the Notre Dame again, I walked away from it towards the south again. My first goal was to see the Pantheon which I had missed the first day, then hit the crypt of the Notre Dame, the Sacre Ceour, and then the Catacombs of the city.
On my way to the Pantheon, though, it was raining off and on quite a bit, but every time I found a place to buy an umbrella, I suddenly became very reluctant to spend the 5-7E it would cost because it had usually lightened up by then. And since the weather had improved so much the previous two days, I kept thinking that maybe it would be nice today. So, I spent a lot of time dodging rain, diving under vestibules, and waiting conspicuously in stores for the rain to stop. >.<
I eventually got hungry so for breakfast I stopped at a fast food joint called Quality Burger. Honestly...I HAD to try it. So I fumbled through my french and was able to get across that I wanted the cheapest thing they had, which was still 4E. And it wasn't really worth it, because it was essentially a 3 dollar combination from the American Dollar menu from McDonalds which would of course Still be under 2.50 in Euros. I left after about 20 minutes of listening in on a couple of french teenagers talking and finally found myself at the Pantheon.
The area around the Pantheon was pretty big, and empty thank god because of the weather. So, I was able to take cool pictures and videos :) It was strange though, all the buildings and even random indented corners of buildings near by all had these very dangerous spikey pieces of metal surrounding parts of them. You'll have to see a picture.
There was also a bit of art that didn't really look like art...
The Pantheon was big and very intricate, but I could only look at it for so long, so I left.
Don't worry, I took video and pictures. I walked through the rain that had picked up again through, what seemed to me, like a very Paris-y kind of neighborhood. Small streets, cool little shops and restaurants. It was nice!
These are a bunch of random stores that I took some shots of :)
The rain picked up pretty heavy though at one point, and I was forced to stand under a vestibule where they were selling lots of stinky seafood. Thats wasn't too fun, especially with all the dead crab staring me in the face. Plus the people from the restaurant it was connected to who were also working the stand kept coming out and I was constantly in their way. I didn't stay too long.
I kept walking and finally I found the Notre Dame again (not that it was too difficult). Since it was raining, I didn't really look around too much, I just went right for the crypt so that I could see the dead people. What a surprise.
When I walked in, it smelled horrible. Like, 1000 year old rotting people. Not really, but it was a stale, pungent smell that sort of just smacked me across the face. Didn't punch... just smacked. The worst part was that it wasn't even dead people. In fact there were NO dead people. It was just ancient, and I mean REALLY ancient, ruins of Paris.
Apparently they were from the Parvis of Paris from almost 2000 years before, which was the town square and the surrounding areas. The way it was set up though and the way they described it, it didn't really make sense, and it looked as if maybe 10 people lived in the whole place. Who knows. Most of it was in French anyways. What I did get was that the Parasii, hunters, fisherman, and boatsmen during the 200's B.C. settled the area, were annialated by the romans, who were then destroyed by the Germanic tribes, who were then taken out again by someone else, then Paris. Haha, It went pretty much like that I think.
Anyways, I left after about 50 minutes, and decided to take the metro up to the Sacre Coeur church. That was pretty exciting. I had heard it was beautiful, but the view was breathtaking. It sits on pretty much the only hill in paris, and its high enough for you to see the entire city.
The only bad part was that all of the streets were filled with americans and english people and it was extremely touristy. At points it was like, despite the view being to amazing of the church and all, it was kind of sad that most of the activity going on around the church was strictly tourist based. There were even souvenir vending machines inside the churche... At least it was clean though.
Yo pat, check how close I was!
The church itself was gigantic. Like, giants could have used it.
And it is very white. I went through, but I wasn't allowed to take pictures, sadly. However, it was really beautiful, and if you ever make it to Paris, Make sure you make it over to the Sacre Coeur :) It does, however, tend to be a bit touristy.
After taking a ton of pictures and checking out all the sites, I took off towards the Moulin Rouge. Since I didn't like the whole touristy scene too much, I opted to take the back roads and cut around from behind it... or so I thought.
I tried taking a back road to avoid the tourists and see if I could find a pastry shop, but when I tried to go west, I accidently went north and east. Big mistake. Not because it was dangerous (it WAS a bit sketchy) but because it added at least 2 hours of walking onto my journey. Before I knew it, I found myself in the slums of arrondisment 18 and I was a little annoyed.
Also, despite having a map, and good one at that, I could NOT find my way back. So, I ended up walking to just about the outskirts of the central part of the city (not the suburbs) and walked allllll around the 18th arrondisment.
Bummer.
Near the end, I finaly found my way and while searching for the metro both nearest to me, and the last metro within the zones that I had payed for on my metro passes (thank god) I found a shop selling crepes. I HAD to get one.
Funny story again.
I walked up and a sign said 'crepe nutella'- 3E. So I'm thinking, great! I walk in and I immediately see a sign that says crepes- 4.50E. So I'm like, shit. But I really want one. So I walk up, ask if the dude speaks spanish, and he says no. SO I converse in English. He tells me he has to start the grill so it will be a minute so I sit down. After waiting a few minutes, I decided I was pretty thirsty and the chocolate Nutella wasn't going to help, so I walked over to the cooler and grabbed a water. I sat back down for a minute, and when a man walked out, I thought it was time to leave, so I put my water on the counter and pulled out my wallet. Turns out I was still waiting. At that point, I look above the counter where I see a huge selection of what looked like very tasty and filling meals for only 5E and I'm thinking, dammit, I should have ordered one of those. Chicken, hot dog sandwichs, salads, they looked good. But I didn't want to try and tell him to cancel the crepe and make me one of those. Eventually he came out, and I payed the 4.50 for the crepe, and I left. The crepe was very tasty and FULL of Nutella. I took a swig of the water and kept walking. >.<
Yeah, for whatever reason, I didn't pay for the water. He probably thought it was mine already. But I didn't feel bad because I had just paid 4.50E for a crepe, which were normally no more than 3E. So I said, well, 3E for the crepe, 1.50E for the water. Works for me.
After, I caught the train back to the dorms, hopped online for a bit, and fell asleep for about 30 minutes until Ellen got back from what she was doing. I felt back for not getting in touch with her after meeting the backpackers, so I decided, Since I'm super tired from days of walking, and I'm hungry, and I should hang out with the person who is hooking me up like a bandit, I'm gonna do whatever she wants to do. So, I also got a taste of what it was like to dorm and eat in the Paris program :)
We went to the grocery store, picked up some food for stir fry, and I bought her a bottle of wine as a gift for letting me stay and so I could introduce her to the tinto de verano drink ( I had to show SOMEone. I really like the drink, so it was nice to be able to show someone from the states what I drink every night haha). We went back and we just sat in the kitchen waiting for the food, then in the room eating, just talking about all kinds of random stuff like the coolest things we've done and plans. And then we went to the upstairs kitchen and cooked some apple filled muffins. MMMmm. We stayed there until about 1a.m. just talking and then went to bed because I had to catch a 9:45 flight from Charles de Gaul... which meant getting up at 6:45 so I could use my remaining 2 metro passes (out of 10) to get some cash for traveling and paying Ellen for the cot, and the 45-50 minute metro ride to the Airport.
We got to the metro, and I said goodbye to Ellen, thanked her again, and got on the CORRECT train. The B line goes the same way, but some of them don't go all the way to CDG airport (there is B1, B2, B3, and I think B4 as well)... So fortunately I didn't screw that up.
I arrived, and found my way to my check in desk, and found out my flight was delayed an hour. Blahhh, I could have slept! Oh well, I just found my gate and sat down and began writing this epic story :)
The flight finally left and we landed in England at the East Midlands Airport at 11:05, which meant that I had 6 hours to kill at the airport before my flight, but only 4 until check in. When I got off the plane and went through the passport check, though,
Funny story (this ones in first person):
The passport check woman I talked to was this big black English woman. Not very friendly right from the start. But, she ended up getting pretty mad at me. I'm not sure if it was because I was white, American, or she was just having a bad day.
Funny thing is, all i said was - Granada, Ryan Air, no I don't have my ticket yet. It wen't something like this,
- Hello sir, where will you be traveling to?
-Granada -Which airline will you be using?
-Ryan Air
- Ok, then Sir, we need your contact address for where you will be staying in the UK.
- Well, I'm only here for 7 hours waiting for my next flight, so I don't actually have one...
- Ok then can I see your ticket then please sir.
- Well I don't have that either yet, because I haven't checked-in. I booked a series of one way flights.
-Oh well, yeah, see thas a problem then. One of the rules in England is that for passengers flying through our country need a proof of travel with a ticket, or a confirmation number that we could check.
-Oh, I have a confirmation number for my flight, its right...
- Sir (getting pissy at this point, probably thinking I had to be a terrorist), if you have your flight booked, why then did you tell me you didn't have a ticket?
- Because I don't have a ticket, just the flight confirmation number. I haven't checked in yet for the flight.
- Well then you need to clarify then sir, because I've obviously misconstrued what you've said, and you've misconstrued what I've said, and that can lead to problems.
-Well you didn't ask me for a confirmation number, just my ticket, so I said I didn't have one. Heres my confirmation number...
-Well ( getting a serious look on her face and being really pissy) you need to be more clear in the future because since all this has been misconstrued (and I've been made to look like an idiot because I forgot to ask you for a confirmation number and I didn't know what you were talking about when you said you had booked 2 one way flights), and if you don't clarify, there could be serious problems. So i was just like,
-Okay... (Whatever bitch, just stamp my book and let me through so I can get some food. Damn. I have my shit in line, you're just an idiot. Even if there were problems, its not like they would go further than your supervisor, since I haven't done anything wrong.)
Haha. It was a pretty funny moment. And the best part was, just 3 days earlier, I had passed throught that VERY SAME check point, on my way to Paris, and all I said was I'm flying to Paris after a 8 hour layover, and they let me through without another word. Makes you wonder...
Anyways, I just passed through with no more problems (that it was a real one anyways) and sat down where I knew there was internet and sent peoples messages saying I was ok, and continued writing my story.
I took a break and decided to check the bus schedule and fares for Nottingham or another town closer to the airport, and I decided that the fare was far to high (like 10 pounds each way) and so walked down to a petrol station that was right outside the small airport. I got a sausage stick...which was burning hot sausage in this really flakey pastry, a danish apple pie, best I've ever had from a store, and an Orange & Carrot juice. Very interesting mix I should say.
I sat around outside, went back inside and met a woman from Wales who I could almost not understand. She told me she has family in America, Japan, and they are traveling now with her daughter, husband, and granchildren to a town grignon or something like that in France. I told her I was American studying in Granada and that I had just visited a friend in Paris, and she was like,
-oooo... isn't that nice. >.< (thick welsh accent)
She was really sweet :) We talked a bit also about how bad the economy is in america, england, and wales too. She told me there are fields of caravans housing people with no money in Wales right now...
When she got up to meet her family to leave, she said,
-oo, thats maey daughter and husband so I've got to run. Have a nice trip. *to her family* That man sitting there is an American. *the others* oooooo. >.<
Haha Soon afterwards, I checked in and boarded my flight with no problems. The flight was 3 hours, I slept through about half of it, and about 30 minutes before landing, talked to an English woman. She said she lived about 2 hours outside of Granada, and that she didn't really get around much since she has 3 dogs (hahaha) and we just talked about the country vs England (not politics though, she didn't seem like she knew too much about that), how cheap alcohol was, olives, and I asked her what the English thought of Americans, which she said she thought that English people like them in general.
When the plane landed, she said, 'well, I hope you get on well', and I said thanks, and that was it. We were back in Granada. I got another stamp, hoped on the bus, and got dropped off 40 minutes from my house!...wait...damn. Yeah that sucked. I had to use the bathroom and there were tons of people because of Semana Santa, and I had to take a really long way around to get home. Oh well, I got back, dropped everything, my senora made me a bocadillo, i had a glass of wine, we watched the tele, and I went to bed.
So thats it. That was my intense trip to Paris! Tons of walking, endless sights. And despite the fact that it rained, I was really happy I was able to see the city in both modes of weather, which made it even more beautiful. If you go, I hope you get to see the city in bright warm sunny weather, and cool wet rainy weather, because it really does transform it. Its bright, and happy, and alive in the sun, but sad, and mournful, and somewhat dead in the rain. Very cool stuff.
I hope you've enjoyed reading my story, I know the prose isn't that conducive to maintaining interest, but if you've made it through, good job! haha Hopefully I will have a few more stories from the rest of my Semana Santa, so I'll keep you updated on those as well. Until next time!
Paul G
P.S. Ok, so these are a few Videos I made for you guys. They take forever to load, so I'll show you the rest of them when I get back in May. Seriously, they are like 50-80MB a piece, so thats like 40 minutes sitting here at the school letting them load.
Thats not me....
The crematorium..!!
This one is for Alycat :)
I had to. Just watch the whole thing ok?
I like this video :)
haha That video. Goof. I will eventually make it all the way through this entry, though, I promise :)
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