Bonjour Paris!

Our travel day.

Today we are leaving London and traveling to our next destination, Paris. Unchartered territory. A foreign language. Mean, nasty people. What were we thinking?

We were taking the Eurostar train to Paris. It wasn't leaving until 2:31pm. So we took one last walk down the Thames River and said goodbye to London.

We had 2 options to get to the train station. Take a taxi, which would run about 20 euros plus tip. Or take the underground for about 2 euros. We opted for the underground. We got our luggage into position and started lugging it to the station. Which isn't an odd sight. Over the last 5 days we saw numerous people lugging luggage somewhere, now we were part of the crowd.

I will say I was a little hesitant about doing this. My suitcase weighed in at 41 lbs., plus a carry on, plus a purse, but we scoped it out ahead of time as far as the number of stairs we would encounter. I have to say, it was VERY easy to take the underground to the train station. Once again, everything was well marked and we had no problems getting there.

Of course we were early so we had lunch before boarding at about 2pm.

The train ride went off with no problems. Two and a half hours later we were in Paris.

We headed to the taxi stand and waited in line to get a taxi to our hotel. I had the address neatly written on a piece of paper so no speaking would be necessary. The line was long, but moving and we were soon in a taxi with a nice young man who was somewhat familiar with English.

Off we went. Traffic was worse than here. They have these circles where all roads converge and you go into the circle, no lanes, nothing and just close your eyes and pray you make it to the other side without getting hit.  

We made it to the hotel. The Best Western Cambronne. It was a storefront hotel. Very European, 30 rooms, the elevator was 24” by 48” inches, and there were 5 flights of stairs up to our room. They were all spiral. The room was small, but immaculate and the bathroom very modern.

My first impressions of Paris. It was like a little New York. It was dirty like New York. Traffic was horrendous like New York. The buildings were really old and short, no skyscrapers here. And the street our hotel was on was, well, sketchy. I was out of my comfort zone at this point.

We lost an hour traveling. It was dinnertime. We headed out for nourishment. We picked one of the 3 cafes that were at the end of our street. The waiter was friendly and able to interpret our English. Pointing at the menu goes a long way in France.

We ordered a pizza, a salad and 2 diet cokes. The pizza was 11 euros, the salad 8 euros and the total was 35 euros. Hmmm…..the diet cokes were 8 euros, EACH! There was nothing we could do at that point, we ordered them and we drank them. I was going back to the hotel and googling “the cost of diet coke in Paris”.

Back at the hotel we quizzed the desk clerk about “the cost of diet coke in Paris”. He was clueless, he was from Los Angeles.

After googling, this is what I found out. 

Drink Wine, Not Soda - Unlike the US, where ordering a soda at a restaurant will save you $5 over ordering a glass of house wine, in Paris, Coca-Cola is priced like an expensive import. Expect to pay around 5 euros (or 8 euros in our case) for a Coke and 4 euros for a glass of wine.

Also.

To save 4-7 euros during meals, order "une carafe de l’eau, s’il vous plait". The waiter will bring you a carafe of tap water. Look around, this is what the Parisians do. Unless you specify a carafe of water, you will be given and charged for bottled water at most restaurants.

Lesson learned. Wine is cheaper than soda and tap water is free. 

It was a long day. We climbed our 5 flights of spiral stairs to the room to watch Grey’s Anatomy (in French!) and prepare for our adventures tomorrow.