So Sunday, Paris Day 3.
Alia & I get up relatively early, she calls British Airways, is put on hold for 30 minutes and after 30 minutes, the person on the other side just hung up. The two of us were about to go crazy after hearing the automated voice over and over and over again for 30 mins.
After that, Alia was understandably upset since we wasted time & she wasted Skype credit, but we were still determined to get out of the door:) So we headed out to the famous Marche aux Puces and..... we thought we found it and we just DID not understand what the hype was all about because it was 5 rows of tents & people selling cds, cell phones, African clothing, and touristy items. While writing this post, I wanted to double check the Marche to see if that really was it (and it was really quite shitty) and apparently IT WAS NOT IT. Damn. It's only open on the weekend so we missed it :(
Anyways, so we THOUGHT we found the Marche aux Puces because we kind of walked in the general direction that a sign pointed us in and found the rows of tents. It was kind of run down and there wasn't much being sold. I can guarantee that we weren't the only people being duped into thinking that was the Marche aux Puces since we heard a LOT of Americans & Chinese people around there... and I'm pretty sure they weren't looking around a local market just to look around.
After leaving the "Marche," we rode the metro to the Montmarche area, which was supposed to be a very pretty & nice area of Paris. The Basilica of the Sacre Coeur was also there, so we first headed to the basilica. It's located on the top of a hill, aka lots of hill walking/stairs but no worries, Alia made it!!!! She wanted to take some like tram thing up the hill to the Sacre Coeur, but I sure as heck wasn't going to pay a couple of euros that went up maybe 20 feet up a slightly inclined hill. So we took the stairs:) Apparently you can climb to the top of the basilica too, butttt in the interest of time & Alia's knee, we didn't. From the top of the hill, we had a good view of some part of Paris...probably more north since we couldn't see the Eiffel Tower... And then we headed back down and walked around the streets for a little to see the area.
By mid afternoon, we had to head back to Gare de l'Est to meet Alia's friend Elina who just flew into Paris on Sunday. Due to not having Wifi & some miscommunications, it took us over an hour to find her and we took her back to our apartment. Apparently she was doing couchsurfing in Paris (which is sketchy as heck) and so instead she's staying with us now. Anyways, so our day went from kind of bad in the morning to better around the Sacre Coeur, and then kinda bad around the time we had to meet Elina because of how long we had to wait and how frustrated we were getting with having no working phones & the miscommunications.
Anyways, so we take Elina back to the apartment that we're staying at in Paris and make lunch (yay, not spending money on food) and an hour later, when she's unpacking, she realizes that she can't find her nice, DSLR camera bag. We weren't worried because she probably just misplaced it as she was unpacking and I thought I saw her with it at the train station but after thoroughly searching the little apartment, we couldn't find it. So we headed back to the train station to look for it and no surprises, her camera bag was gone. So the bad day just got reallllly bad.
Unfortunately, Alia & I couldn't even help her look more or console her because we had to get back to the airport to check for her luggage. So we sent Elina back to our apartment to look for her camera more and me & Alia headed down to the train station to go back to Charles de Gaulle. We tried to buy tickets at one of those ticket machines, but for some reason in Paris, these machines don't accept bills! Only credit cards & coins and neither of us had 10 euro in coins. After literally walking around the giant Gare de l'Est for 10+ minutes, we found the one person working information and the line was GIGANTIC. In this line, we befriended some older Americans that were in line in front and behind us & they were all pissed about the one person working and the gigantic line. The family waiting behind us was actually from Maryland and the father actually went to Whitman HS:) Small worldddd. I ended up being able to buy the tickets on my credit card, so we skipped the line and headed out.
When we headed to the train platform for the airport, we saw a little girl (maybe 3-5 years old) literally pull down her underwear, squat, and begin to poop. Her mom looked at her and told her to do it in that corner!!! Absolutely unbelievable, I don't think I've seen anything that gross in a large city before...
Once we got to the airport, we had to walk down a GINORMOUS terminal to get to the British Airways desk. Once at the information desk, the lady waiting behind us was also there to get her luggage from a similar flight from Heathrow. She wasn't on our flight but also flew from London and didn't have her luggage. She told us that BA had actually texted her and told her that her luggage was there but Alia hadn't gotten any information yet. After they went in to check their bags, Alia's wasn't there but that other lady's bag was & the BA rep had no idea where Alia's bag was.
So around 8 PM, we took the train back to Paris from the airport. After we get back, (& also because we don't have wifi), we found out that her bag was on a flight from London to Paris and would arrive at the airport at 11 PM our time...aka too late to go back. Also getting to and from the airport is expensive so we weren't trying to go again. They said they would deliver her suitcase, but they needed to first contact her before they could deliver it. And since we didn't have any working phones, she would have to contact them first by Skype calling. BUT AT LEAST THE SUITCASE WAS FOUND. HALLELUJAH
Our original plan was to go to the Eiffel Tower Sunday night, so after we got back from the Airport, a sleepy Elina told us she 100% lost her camera :( We decided to go to the Eiffel Tower anyways though and we got there right around dusk. We saw it all lit up in lights & saw it sparkle on the hour... our pics are so pretty :)
When we tried to go up it, we were in line at around 10:45 PM and there was intense lightening in the sky, so we didn't want to pay for the ticket and not be able to go to the very top. So we skipped out and headed to a veryyyy late dinner. After dinner, we went home around 1 AM and hit the sack.
Welp,
Alia finally got some notification of her luggage after 3 days, 3 days of worrying, 1 day of shopping & 1 trip back to CDG airport
Elina lost her expensive AF camera & her dreams of Paris are slightly (aka entirely) crushed,
& I got several huge mosquito bites and the Paris metro hates me. I think I'm the luckiest of this trio so I'll just count my blessings.
Conclusion: Paris is a cursed city.
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