Day 1 – Paris

Finally, we disembarked and for some reason, we found ourselves at the back of a huge queue on the tarmac. Too far back to see what was going on, it looked like the airport staff had closed all the automatic doors into the terminal, except for one, where we all had to try and squeeze through. When we reached these doors too, the reason for the queue was passport control. After waiting for another 30 minutes in this line, I had prepared my life story for these controlling officers as they were clearly taking too long to ask if you were on holiday or had any bombs with you. They didn’t actually ask us anything and I am still puzzled as to why it took us nearly an hour to get out of that airport (Beauvais-Paris Airport by the way – don’t go to it).

Reaching the other end of the airport, a mere arm’s length away from the plane, we were free and able to enjoy France. Except we were now 80km away from the capital. This was in turn my fault as the plane to this airport was vastly cheaper than into the main Charles de Gaulle Airport. The popular option amongst tourists was to get the bus from here into Paris. The line though was roughly the same as the one we were just part of, and Anna and I both decided quickly to opt for option B, and probably the better option in the end.

I interrupted a gathering of taxi drivers, speaking minimal French to them, in which they politely replied to me in English – must have been the poor French accent. The taxi man agreed to take us to the train station (15mins drive away) with us checking google maps in the backseat, just in case he misunderstood my rusty French. Thankfully, he got us to the right train station, after driving through the adjacent cinema and bowling alley carpark, which appeared to be the same entrance into the station.

Another queue, but this time it was only 3 people deep. I was able to help translate for an American man who got rather confused, and indeed scared, when a French woman shouted at him to “go, go ahead”. This led the ticket seller to communicate in French, leaving me to only reply in nods and smiles. Following our transaction, we were on board the train and sitting in 2nd class, or at least what we thought was 2nd class. As usual, I have panic attacks when we aren’t in the right seats and I was looking for constant reassurance that we were in the correct cabin. We were right but as usual, no train conductor passed through to check anyway. Again, Anna was in deep sleep before she realised that the train had actual been delayed for 30mins due to a freight train crashing up the track. Just our luck – it still beats standing in that line for the bus though.

Following our train ride to Pairs du Nord (the same station we visited on our interrailling adventure a few years previously), we swiftly left and started on to our hotel for the night. It was only a 15-minute walk but the sun was already out and the temperature soaring as it got later in the day. We arrived at the hotel hot and bothered, engaging in an awkward exchange with the receptionist. The fundamentals of the conversation were sound, but when it came to the small talk whilst the card transaction went through, the awkward and tense silence lasted longer than that bloody line at the airport. An age on, we were able to leave our bags and come back at 3pm to check in officially.

The first thing we did was to find food (obviously), sometimes I fell I would be a good travelling food connoisseur rather than a travel blogger, as our days are mostly spent eating food, or finding an establishment to eat said food. As is tradition though, we strived to find a nice French restaurant – one of those classic stereotypical restaurants you see in the movies – and to our surprise, we actually came across a couple of them, and in a relatively short time period of looking too. From the décor and the tablecloths, to the stench of cigarettes and coffee, we couldn’t have found anywhere more French than this.

After eating and enjoying a nice iced drink, we decided to have a stroll around the area of Rebublique. There was a canal nearby and with Anna’s love for anything to do with water, I thought that it would be the best place to start. Despite keeping her best interests at heart, she was on the lookout for a patisserie café instead, but we couldn’t find one (we did all that night but when we actually wanted to go to one we couldn’t – Murphy’s Law). Despite her annoyance at this, we wandered back to the hotel, checked in and instantly took a nap – it had been a couple of stressful weeks for both of us and we could finally relax. We managed to sleep for close to 2 hrs, closing our eyes to the sound of a French ‘Come Dine with Me’ knock off.

After our refreshing nap, we got ready in our best clothes and following my new ‘Paris Metro’ app, we got the metro to the Notre Dame area, because apparently that is where all the best restaurants are in Paris – well according to Anna. As usual though, we walked for ages to find our ideal restaurant – we were on the lookout for a restaurant that was not too busy, nor too empty, had seating outside, had green shrubbery or some sort of appealing vegetation, didn’t have pictures of their food on their menu and of course had something on the menu we would eat. This demanding list was quite a challenge to find and eventually we gave in and picked the ‘best of the rest’.

My GCSE French was some help to me as I was able to understand some foodstuffs such as beef, chicken and salmon, but the rest of the non-English menu baffled me. This was because we had stumbled into a seafood restaurant, and I don’t know much about seafood in English, yet alone in another language. Nonetheless, the waiter was ridiculously nice and translated every word on the menu for us. Feeling bad for wanting to get chicken or beef, we decided to live a little and opt for a fish option for a change, with me getting the stingray. After a pleasant battered chicken spring roll type thing for starter and two baskets of bread, accompanied by homemade seaweed butter, we were presented with our fish for main course. Anna accidentally squirted lemon over her next-door neighbour, who was sitting quite close to us due to the table layout. He was oblivious to the fact his trouser leg was doused in citrus juice, so when Anna politely rubbed his leg to say sorry, as you do, he was a taken back a bit. Without wanting to cause a scene, he asked us if we knew the Wi-Fi password (a bit stereotypical to ask the two young people if they know the Wi-Fi, from the stereotypical French man in a V-neck jumper and scarf) and continued on his way to order some mussels.

The stingray was pleasantly enjoyable, falling off the bone so easily and tasting, well tasting just like any other fish (maybe I couldn’t be a food connoisseur after all), and the waiter was delighted that we enjoyed his recommendation. Before leaving, he also told us he was visiting Ireland in July and that he couldn’t wait, as the Irish company has always been fantastic (including us).

Despite napping during the day, we were still tired and so we decided to retire back to the hotel after dinner. On the way back to the metro, we looked like proper tourists, making sure we made the quota of night time pictures cute French streets. This tourist image continued as Anna thought she would use her old metro ticket to see if it still worked. It didn’t, and she caused a pile up at the turnstiles as a result. Of course, a night in Paris wouldn’t be complete without having more wine after dinner and so we popped into our nearest Carrefour, buying some cheese and crackers (for Anna), chocolate and wine – we could only get the small bottles as they were the only ones that had screw tops (N.B. remember again to bring a corkscrew on trips).

Whilst I sipped on my wine and watched Jason Statham act in a movie, ruined by the horrible French dubbing, Anna was busy making a mess of her cheese (N.B. remember again to bring cutlery – especially knives). It was getting late and time to have our first night in Paris. It was like interrailling all over again, and it felt like ages that we were able to finally relax and not worry about anything else.