Hey guys, I’m so sorry for disappearing, I worked 9 days in a row so I didn’t have much spare time, but I’m back so don’t miss me any more =P.
As I was saying in the last post, after Venice we took an overnight train to Paris.
We were in a 6 bed cabin, I was on the top bed, my aunt was on the middle one and a little Japanese lady was on the bottom one. The rest were empty, until we got to some city and 3 Moroccan guys jumped in. They didn’t speak much English and just spoke between each other, they kept staring at us in a weird way. When we reach the border, we had to show our passports, everything was in order. But that wasn’t the case of our fellow travellers, they argued for a bit, don’t really know what language they were speaking but it seemed they had some problems with their papers. I felt a little scared to be honest, I don’t really know why. May be because of this strange men that kept looking at us like if were meat or because they could be illegals and it was going to cause some trouble. They were loud and argued but at the end they stayed on the train, they fixed the problem somehow. After that, we all went to sleep, it was already late. In the middle of the night my aunt woke up, and she saw this pair of white eyes looking at her in the dark, super creepy. She did the only thing that could be done, turned around and tried to fall asleep again.
Early in the morning we finally arrived to Paris. I didn’t know what to expect, people always talk about French being rude if you don’t speak the language, a stereotype. After we got off the train I had to go and asked for directions. There was man in the information desk, he yelled at an oriental girl that asked him something in English, he replied in French, not so helpful. So I went there with the address of the hostel and spoke to him in Italian, lucky for me he told me where to get the metro, but that was about it.
We got to the station and there was only a machine to buy the tickets from, which was in French, and back then I didn’t know a word of the language. So this guy was standing next to a map explaining to some tourist what lines he had to take. So I asked him for help to buy the tickets, he pulled 2 from his pocket, he said we could use those, so we pay him and got in. But suddenly, this homeless guy appeared and tried to explain to us, in a mix of French and Italian, that the tickets that we’ve got were for “Bambini”, for children, and he kept saying that the guy who sold them to us was “diavolo”, the devil. We didn’t want to get into trouble because if they stop us and ask for the ticket we would get fined. Therefore, we went back out but the guy was gone. Thus, our lovely homeless friend went outside the station, found the guy and brought him back to us. We told him to print the tickets from the machine, and he did, he was caught, he looked ashamed. After that it was finally time to look for the hostel, my back was killing me, I had a 15 kilos backpack on my shoulders.
Finally, we got to the hostel, it had a strange distribution. You’ve got an internal courtyard where you can find all the rooms around, you’ve got the toilets and the showers outside. Basically you have to walk through the courtyard to take a shower, not the best thing when It’s winter and it’s cold enough when you are wearing 4 layers of clothes, LOL. But we were one of the lucky ones and got a room that a shower. After settling in, we were ready to enjoy this amazing capital.
We spent a week in Paris, we went to the Louvre museum, funny thing about it is that if you are under 18 you can get in for free and I went there the day before my 18th birthday, YAAAY for me. It’s an amazing place, impossible to see everything in one day. But I saw the Venus de Milo and the Mona Lisa, of course, just look for the crowd and you are going to find them, that’s what I did.
We went to the Eiffel Tower, it’s impressive, and the view from the top is just breathtaking. The best time to go is before sunset, like that you can appreciate the view during the day and then during the night with all the lights lit up.
The Arc of Triumph was nice too, just that the view wasn’t as good as in the Eiffel Tower. We also went to see the Notre Dame Cathedral, so beautiful, with a Gothic style, I loved it, it’s one of my favourites. We walked along the Siene River, crossed the Pont Alexandre III (I remember the gold in this bridge), walked down Champs-Elysées, shopped in Lafayette Galleries (ok that’s a lie I couldn’t afford buying anything there) and visited the Madeleine Opera (the most beautiful I’ve ever seen, definitely recommend it).
We met some Argentinians in the hostel, so we decided to go sightseeing with them. We ended up going to see the Sacre Coeur Basilica, to reach it you need to walk up some killer steps but it’s worth it. We all went inside, but as in many places in Paris you are not supposed to take pictures or touch ANYTHING. So we were walking around, and we decided to go and sit at the front with some of the guys. One of the boys took out his camera and started going through the pictures he took. Suddenly we heard a voice yelling at us in French. We turned around and we saw the guard just screaming at us, none of us knew what he was saying and everybody was staring at us. We slowly stood up and got off the bench section, but no, that wasn’t enough for him, he kept yelling until we got outside. Yes ladies and gentlemen, I was kicked out of the Sacre Coeur.
After that, we had a laugh outside and went to enjoy the bohemian neighbourhood located at the back of the Basilica, with a square where you can find all this artist painting. We kept walking and magically end up in front of the Moulin Rouge. I was expecting something glamorous with lots of lights, but no it’s just a plain red windmill, I was disappointed.
Because we were in Paris for so long, we thought it was a good idea to go for a day trip to a place that everyone recommended me, Bruges. We just took a train for a couple of hours and we arrived to this amazing city in Belgium. In the train station we went to the information site and we bought a little booklet, which suggested some itineraries to do.
We only had a few hours so we enjoyed every second there. It’s just so beautiful, the canals, the houses, I felt like, all of a sudden, I walked into a fairy tale, such a charming place. I could have spent hours and hours just walking around. After a while, we ended up in the new part of the city, with modern buildings and statues and, of course, a Mc Donald’s. Such a big contrast, is like you leave a story and go back to reality.
Paris will always have a special place in my heart. Here is where I celebrated my 18th birthday. I had a great day, bought a nutella cake and shared it with 11 strangers that sang me happy birthday and received a lava lamp that my Aunt Silvia got me and kept a secret for a week. It was the first of many birthdays I spent abroad.
Paris is a great city, lots of things to see, places to visit and very romantic. It has big buildings, wide avenues and magnificent bridges. It’s a capital that you need to go at least once in your life. It’s not true that all French are rude, I met some really nice, helpful people. Anywhere that you go you are going to find a little bit of everything. While you are here don’t forget to enjoy the food, cheeses, wines, baguettes and tasty pastries.
What to say about this small town? Bruges is just magical, makes you feel like you walk through an enchanted forest. It’s an amazing place to relax and spend a couple of days.
Next week I’m going to tell you about the last part of my first backpacking trip. All the adventures that we had when we arrived to Spain. So enjoy the weekend and see you soon.