French Connection

Day 2 part 2 Well France lived up to all the stories that we heard from the “English”. Our first introduction to the people of Paris was a French African Gypsy, who tried to convince us to pay him for making us walk from one end of Gare de Nord to the other in search of a taxi. We were in the taxi and ready to go when he tried to pull a fast one on us for 40 Euros for a taxi that should have cost us 10 Euros. Thankfully I have a rather intimidating husband and younger brother when I need them to be! The Gypsy finally gave up on us so we stormed back into the safety and protection of the Train Station and stood in the long queue with plenty of foreign people in the rain and waited for the next taxi that came our way.

The language certainly hindered us at first whereby the taxi driver couldn’t speak a word of Englais and somehow had to get us to our destination. Sitting crammed in the back of his taxi and unsure if he understood us and how the taxi’s meter reader worked was slightly stressful. Watching that meter tick over while we were stuck at robot after robot and not sure if it was every km or every minute that the Euros increased was not good for my heart or my bank balance. Once our non English speaking taxi driver stopped in the middle of the street and got out his black car and opened the boot we assumed that we were here. Setting foot on French soil with cars whizzing past you and looking around for our hotel and not seeing anything that resembled one was daunting at first. He had to direct us and point to a little white door squashed in between some plastic wrapped Christmas trees for us to finally realize that we were at Hotel des Bagingnolles, our first stop on our holiday and thankfully it existed. Nobody warned me about having to lug my 17,8kg bag up 3 flights of stairs with bilsters already on my hands thanks to the London underground. So guess what my wonderful darling husband did? He offered to do a little bit of P90 X in Paris, carrying his and my bags up the flights of stairs. By the look of his face and the sweat pouring off his body, it was a challenge. Walking down the narrow corridor that had no wall paper or paint on them ended at another flight of stairs that Brian had to carry 37 kg up. The joys of having a husband as amazing as mine!

Thank goodness the rooms we stunning compared to the corridor, warm cozy an en-suit bathroom and a flat screen tv. The view was slightly different compared to the internet pics and this is not the first time that this has happened to me. Doesn’t say much for the truth of certain hotel owners.