3 days in Paris

Arriving in Paris, I met up with a friend and her daughter from Stuttgart. The two of them took a spontaneous day trip to Paris. Very funny, sometimes things happen that you don't expect. After a coffee and a quick update, we continued to the hostel.

By now it started raining, I haven't experienced that in a long time.

A demonstration that had passed us earlier ended at Place Nation, right in front of the hostel. Place de Nation is a huge roundabout with a small park in the middle. All entrances to the roundabout were blocked off with a lot of police. I was led to the hostel through the police lanes, which was a bit intimidating. The presence was huge, but there were only a handful of demonstrators left and they were extremely peaceful. A very confusing picture.

When I arrived at the hostel, I wanted to eat something small, but I was kindly chased away from the seating area on the 6th floor. I had unpacked my typical Swabian snack, well, there was only one restaurant in the hostel and everyone knows the rules of behavior.

Since the room was so tiny and there was no table in it (it wouldn't have fit anyway), we had a romantic dinner on the floor. As it started raining heavily, a picnic was out of the question. After that, it was off to bed, my eyes were still square-shaped, as I didn't have much to do with the weather and the facilities.

Once again, the percentage of hairy legs was higher, a challenge for a sawing competition, as I've been sniffing for a few days, there's something going on 😂.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, in my biggest challenge, I doubled my effort to Sète. I'm talking about the number of beds in hostels. I started in a 4-bed room, a slight increase: 6-bed room, and Sète was the final: 8-bed room. It was time to downsize again, a 6-bed room is enough (there was no more space left in the 4-bed room 😉).

But even here it doesn't go without challenges. This time the challenge was: what kind of sleeper are you? The room was dominated to a very high degree by: I barricade everything type of sleepers, much to my chagrin. Everything that could be closed was closed, window curtain, which was even double. As I mentioned before, the room was very small, so it was also very dark, painted dark blue, and each bed had a curtain for darkening 🙈. Every vampire would have survived in it and felt very comfortable. But since I'm not a vampire and I like a bit of fresh air (which doesn't seem to be normal here), I spent a long time fighting for a piece of it. In the first night, you are still a bit reserved, the fight with the window and curtain usually begins on the second night. Of course, I couldn't fall asleep at all, as I was wondering if there would be enough oxygen for everyone for the whole night 🤔. I should have paid better attention at school, it could save my life or at least I would have good arguments against my roommates. Hoping that a little bit of air might come in through the poorly sealed window, I fell asleep.

Sunday: unfortunately, it didn't stop raining. I actually wanted to explore Paris a bit and walk to the train station to pick up my travel companion. Chiara is coming to Paris to explore Paris with me.

It's not really fun like this, it's pouring rain. But I have to get through it. I sat at the train station soaking wet, luckily I managed to get a seat (it's not easy in big train stations in France). My seat was right next to a piano, anyone can play as they please to pass the time. Of course, pour Elise was played. With a pain au chocolat in my bag, I picked up Chiara on time. And just as promptly, it stopped raining, perfect for the tourist round, we still had to quickly go to the Arc de Triomphe, which was only wrapped up for today. Here's a funny story: there was an Italian guy in my hostel room, he asked me in the morning what I was going to see today. I told him about the Arc de Triomphe and that it was only wrapped up for today. He laughed and said he was there yesterday but didn't take a photo because he thought it was being renovated since it was wrapped in foil 😂 he laughed even more when I said it was art. Yes, once again a case of: is it art or can it be thrown away.

Chiara and I took a good tour through Paris and then went in search of food, cooking wasn't an option 😭. It may sound easy now, but those who know me when I'm hungry know what's going on, but this time times two 🙈. But everything's fine, we found something, quickly ordered, quickly served, and consumed even faster. For 7.50 euros we treated ourselves to a nightcap in the hostel restaurant, where we had a great view of the flashing Eiffel Tower.

Monday and Tuesday: the full tourist program, starting with following in the footsteps of Amélie, Louvre, Galerie Lafayette, la rue cremieux, Galerie Vivien, a bit of shopping in the stores.

Finally, we went out to eat and watch a movie, and then off to bed, because the journey continues tomorrow.

Wednesday morning there was the usual breakfast in the park, luckily it was dry this time. Off to the train station to Arcachon, sun and sea here we come.