Well we made it to Paris :)

It was sad to say goodbye to London and Dawn but I was ready for a new
adventure! Meredith and I are now in hostels from now on, which will be a new
change. Although our hostel right now is not really the "hostel" you would
imagine. We have our own room and bathroom, and it is ran more as a hotel. But
it is a good transition for us into being on our own.

Meredith and I have decided that traveling with our luggage is AWFUL! And we
have TINY luggage. But it is such a pain going in and out of the train
stations, because there is at least 100 stairs in each train station. And then
at least another 100 in the metro or tube station.

We woke up around 5:30am this morning and were packed out and waiting for the
bus by 6am. We caught a bus pretty fast, and headed to the train station. The
trains were finally all running again (the bank holiday is over) ... but it was
busy!

We were hoping to catch a 7am train, but that one got cancelled, but we caught
the next one around 7:20am. However, because the previous train was cancelled,
the second train was twice as packed! Like I am talking Sardines! Meredith and
I were not completely cramped because we had our luggage next to us, but it was
still not very pleasant.

After arriving to Liverpool Station, we hopped on the tube to St. Pancreas. We
arrived at St. Pancreas around 8am, and made sure that our train was still on
time and departing from that station. We had about a half hour before we could
go through security so we decided to get a little breakfast and coffeeeee!

We both had a croissant with cheese (and meredith had ham too) ... And I got
coffee. Although the croissant was good, the best part was that they served my
coffee in a little pot! That is my favorite way :)

We finished breakfast and then headed through security. Which we are getting
pretty good at by now! After security we sat down near our departing station
(which was 6) and I researched our information for Paris, and getting to our
hostel.

We eventually boarded the train, and were in coach 4. Our seats were not next
to each other (mine was one row in front of Meredith) but considering that we
didn't book the tickets together, we got lucky that we were that close to each
other. I tried sitting by her, but the lady whose seat it was had two small
children in the other row, so I had to move :( I spent most of the train ride,
catching up on this blog, and sleeping :) Although a little of it was enjoying
the French countryside.

We came in to Gare de Nord, which is absolutely huge. I knew that our hostel
was in a southern district, but I wasn't too sure how far away it was. Dawn
told us that Paris was pretty small, and fairly walkable. So we decided to go
outside and turn on the the GPS. Hoping that we would not have to spend any
more time or money on the metro. Well, bottom line the GPS wouldn't navigate
us. It kept saying error. Tired, scared, lost & mad at the GPS... Meredith and
I decided to just take the metro.

The only directions the hostel sent us in the confirmation was "near Glaiceire,
metro 6" ... Not a whole lot to go off of. But Meredith and I made the best of
it, and after studying the metro map headed off to buy our metro tickets. Dawn
told us to buy a pack (saves like 2 Euro) so we went to the kiosks and tried to
do so. Turns out the kiosks only accent Euro coins and other people's credit
cards. Although the sign said that it accepted Visa cards, it wouldn't. And
Meredith and I tried, on 4 different cards, 5 different machines and at least 3
times with each card.

I luckily had 4 euros in coins, so we bought single tickets and headed to our
hostel. The metro was a little more jankidy compared to London's tube, not to
mention ALL IN FRENCH. We took the B line to Denefort, and then were supposed
to take that to Glaiceire, however turns our Glaiceire is closed until August.
It then listed the two nearest stations and Meredith and I opted for the first
Saint Jaques. After getting off at Saint Jaques we wandered looking for our
hostel. Our plan was to find Glacieire station and go from there. After we
found the closed station we started looking for the hostel. Well we kinda had
our map turned upside down so we were looking on all the streets south of
Glaciere. However! Remembering that I had GPS, I tried to give it another go!
And it worked!

We quickly got to our hostel (which was north of Glaciere) and got all checked
in. The hostel is very modern with crazy red, orange and pink furniture and all
white and silver everything else. It is really interesting, but not the typical
"hostel" ... it also has like 200 rooms? We checked in, paid and headed to our
room! Which is nice, just two simple twin beds and a desk. But it has a nice
little balcony (that is literally 2 inches wide) that looks over the courtyard.
Meredith and I were COMPLETELY exhausted and hungry and needed to find an ATM
machine/grocery store. So we headed out to our surrounding neighborhood. We
found a tiny convenience store and bought a loaf of bread, jam and pringles :)
Not to mention a bottle of wine that cost of whopping 1.9E (which is about $2,
believe it or not we found something cheaper than Franzia). Oh we also bought
some (what we believed to be) off brand peanut butter. We are very hopeful
about saving money by eating at least one sandwich a day.

It was now about 5:30, and we were HUNGRY! A lot of things were closed (being
only 5:30) and anything that was open was all in French. Which wouldn't have
been a problem, if i knew how to say "I am a vegetarian" in french. But I
couldn't tell if any of the dishes had meat. We finally just settled for one
and boy was it an experience. When we walked in the host said "bonjour" Meredith
and I said "hello" haha, he then responded saying "english menu" ... we nodded.
We then went to order ... I asked him "does the al pesto have meat" ... he said
"okay" and took my menu (luckily it didn't!).

Then it came time to get the bill. I figured we would have to ask for the bill,
so we spent the next 15 minutes typing "bill please" in a french translator on
my phone. And then we spent the next 15 minutes practicing saying it. Meredith
(with a sudden spark of confidence) waved him and then said "hi, bill please"
haha using nothing that we spent the last 30 minutes practicing. He then said
"bill?" and Meredith said "si" haha as in the spanish word for yes! Haha, I
laughed so hard. He then got our bill and Meredith pulled out her Visa and set
it on the bill. He then quickly walked by and said "cash." He didn't stop or
anything and Meredith and I were just so confused and simply just stared at each
other. And then he brought over the credit card machine? It was simply an
experience.

We walked back to our hostel and tried out the internet. There was free wifi in
the room or you could pay 20 euro to get it in your room. Cheaply, Meredith and
I went to the lobby. We could NOT connect. We sat in about 9 different spots
around the lounge, with no luck. And finally had to ask. We then found the
correct wifi connection and got logged in. We knew that we were going to stay
in, and having no tv in our room, we wanted to download a tv series to watch in
the room and on our 13 hour train ride to Italy on Sunday. Well the internet
connection latest just long enough for me to buy a season of Chuck, and then
quit. Not disconnected but quit all together. We tried for the next hour with
no luck. Frustrated we decided to buy the internet in our room. We went to pay
and (although once again said it accepted Visa) it would not accept our credit
cards. So we had nothing to do, and no internet. I had a few episodes of old
Pushing Daisy's on my iPad so we whipped out the bottle of $2 wine, can of
Pringles and called it a night.

Tomorrow is our first real day in Paris and bike tour!
-brooke.