París! (part one: arriving)

Trying to plan for Christmas planning was somewhat of a pain. I already knew that I was going to be visiting Uncle Jim and Aunt Dawna for the week of Christmas, but this meant that my travel plans weren't quite jiving with other people's. Either they wanted to travel when I already had plans, or they didn't want to travel the same way I did, or they didn't have the same budget, or they were just plain wishy-washy, or they were going back to the States. Thus, I ended up going on only four different trips with four different groups of people. But it was still fun and amazing, and I'm glad I got to see the places I did. The first of these four trips was to Paris. Yay! And this is the story of getting there:

I was going to be touring the city with a new friend from ESDES, Allyson. The first weekend free that we had of break, I stayed at the school to recuperate from exams and get a breather. She went via train to Geneva/Colognes to visit at good friend studying French there. We decided to meet up the 10th at our hostel in Paris. She would be taking the train in, I would be flying via Ryanair.

One of the things that really bothers me about Ryanair, is how they monopolize your travel, making trips that seem really cheap at first, not quite-as-cheap in the end. For example, to get to Paris, they actually fly you into Beauvais, an airport an hour and half outside Paris. And of course they fly you in so late you miss the last commuter train of the day. And taxis are around 100€ to get to Paris. Which leaves you with no choice but the take the 13€ one-way shuttle. If you're doing your math correctly, a round-trip ticket that was originally 15€, is now 41€. Which is still infinitely better than normal airlines, but the hidden extra costs are still a little annoying. But whatever.

Thankfully, the flight from Valencia to Paris went fine, no delays, no luggage issues, nada. I was even able to find the shuttle bus easily and had no problems getting on with my printed internet ticket. Once I got into Paris, it was another story. It was 10pm and I was supposed to be meeting Ally at 10:30 at the hostel. But I had no clue which metro to take, how much a ticket cost, or even how to buy a ticket. Thankfully, I had looked on a map and written down street directions to get to the hostel. And thankfully, the metro had a good map showing street names and metro names and all that jazz. So I managed to communicate to the man behind the ticket window (who thankfully spoke English, but only a little) the first line that I wanted to take. I bought my ticket, found the correct tunnel, and got on the metro. All the while realizing that I was by myself, I looked very much like an American tourist, and it was 10pm. No worries, Mom and Dad, I'm still alive and healthy and this story has a good ending.

I managed to switch lines successfully and then was deposited outside in the cold night air, being at the right crossroads near the hostel, but not knowing which direction to take for the hostel. So it being dark and late and a relatively sketchy side of town, I decided to take the logical course of action and use a taxi to go the rest of the way. The problem with this was that I had no clue how to go about calling a taxi since I didn't have a cell phone and even if I did, where was I going to find the number of a taxi company? So instead I looked for a friendly looking shop on the dark street and decided on a internet café. The guy there showed me where the taxi stand was and even demonstrated how, if you push a certain button on the post, the light at the top comes on to signal taxi drivers that there's someone at the stand waiting for a ride. The problem with this was that the light didn't work. But the guy assured me (with his broken english and hand motions) that there should be taxis coming by at a regular basis and all I had to do was just flag one down. Well, that would be fine and dandy if I lived in a big city and did this sort of thing on a regular basis, but I don't. So the first three or four taxis passed me by with no recognition of my need at all. And then, even when one finally did stop, he had no clue where the street was where the hostal was located. So he drove off, wishing me luck with the next driver. At this point I was really getting worried. It was really late now, I hadn't arrived at the hostal at the time I'd told Ally, and apparently the hostal was some random unknown place.

After sending a quick prayer up to God, I waved down another taxi and showed him the address of the hostal. This guy didn't know where it was either but he happened to have a GPS navigation system. Unfortunately, he didn't understand the 2% rule and couldn't figure out that the "t" in "atlas" was a "t." He thought it was an "x" and kept trying to enter "rue de axlas" in GPS. Which obviously wasn't a street (thank goodness for that, who knows where I could have ended up at), and in the time it took him to struggle with this and then finally ask me what letter it was (and honestly, I don't have bad handwriting), the meter had gone up two euros. And THEN, even after he had the right address and we were on our way, he managed to miss a turn and had to make a huge circle to get me to the hostel. Which I'm sure cost me other extra two euros. And then he had the gall to not have change for a 20€ so I had to go into the hostal, ask the desk worker for change, and then go back out and pay the guy. By that point, I just wanted to throw a five in his face and tell him to go away, but considering I was in a foreign country, and couldn't really argue him down to a cheaper price and who knows what would have happened if I hadn't paid the "required" price, I paid him what he asked and went on my tired, not-so-merry way. In reality, I was just glad (and a little proud as well) to know that I had navigated myself to Paris via plane, bus, metro, and taxi and had arrived without major incident. I honestly think that as long as the taxi fair hadn't exceeded the 20€ I had in cash, I would still have been happy to make it safe and sound.

Of course my problems still weren't over. Once I was back in the hostal lobby, I realized that I had forgotten to bring my copy of the hostal reservation. But I told myself it wouldn't be a problem and proceeded to explain to the nice Chinese man that I was meeting friend there who had probably already arrived and her name was Allyson Cronk. Well, he understood me but then couldn't find the name in the handwritten guest register. So I told him the name again, and he looked again. And still couldn't find it. So he asked me again for a registration paper, I told him again that I didn't have one, and that I was POSITIVE that my friend had already arrived and her name HAD to be on that list. Either that or I was screwed. Well, apparently the third time is the charm, and this time the man was able to find "Mme. Allyson" on the list. So he called her room, she came down, we hugged, and life was happy.

The End.