paris, je te'aime

the reason i love paris is because it feels like a familiar place, and after the ordeal that sarah and i went through to get here, it feels good to be in a place that isn't too foreign.

the beginning of the longest story starts the morning after we arrived in london. upon checking the eurostar website to book tickets for the channel tunnel (fondly referred to as the 'chunnel'), when we heard that there was a fire in the chunnel, and all services were stopped (rightfully so). plan b: flying. went to the easyjet website, and, because so many people were booking flights, there were none available until sunday, and they were 150 pounds (thats 300 dollars, pretty much). ouch. plan c (who ever needs a plan c??): ferry. the way that works is you (excuse the royal 'you' here) take a 2 hour train to dover, which is the port of england. from there you take the ferry, another 2 hours, across the channel to calais, france. from there you take another train, and 3 hours later, you get to paris.

this process was further complicated by the fact that we didn't know exactly when sarah's luggage would arrive, as united called and said it would be dropped at the hostel between 3 and 4 (poor sarah had been in the same clothes for 3 days at this point), so we had to spend an entire extra day in london waiting for the luggage to arrive. i was also due to meet my friend forrest at 11 on friday in paris(the ferry left at 2 on friday) and had no way to get ahold of him to tell him that we wouldn't be there. thankfully, he checked his email and figured it out.

getting to france wasn't difficult, just time consuming and expensive. there were a lot of lines and masses of people to deal with, since everyone was, literally and figuratively, in the same boat as we were. the most annoying things were that once we got to paris, when we had to take the local train to the city's centre...but the ticket machines only took local credit cards (which we clealy don't have) or euro coins (we only had bills). no one around had change, and all the shops were closed, as it was pretty late on a saturday night. while sarah watched the bags, i ran up a long staircase that reeked like a port a potty and knocked on bus drivers windows asking for change, using as many 'merci' s as i could. as soon as we got to paris, in an attempt to find a local metro, we randomly wound up on the street that the hostel we were booked into was on. wow, how convenient, we thought. something finally working out in our favour, we said. no no no no no. this street was loooooong. and one way, so hailing a cab wasn't going to work either. we probably walked about 2 miles with big backpacks and 2 small bags each...which doesn't sound too bad, but we were so tired at this point, and very irritable.

staying an extra day in london wasn't a tragedy, though. we went to the usual sights- the london eye, big ben, the palace, and got epically lost trying to find abbey road. we got there eventually, but it was quite the effort. no one in london gives very good directions, apparently. we had a very nice dinner with theresa, and then wound up at a bar/club called 'the zoo', where we somehow avoided the 7 pound cover, probably by being pretty and not 18 years old.

i have to say, though, that everyone we encountered on the pilgrimmage to paris were very helpful, thus making it a little less painful. of course, while making this plan c, we met two other guys who were in the same predicament, and where were they from? long beach. long beach alum, no less.

so now we are at sarah's friend amélie's flat, and thank goodness she has internet...the french keyboard is a bit different though, so it took me a really long time to type this whole thing out. the whole travel predicament process was really stressful... i need a vacation from my vacation!

it'll be hilarious a week from now.