Paris Day 3

Whoopsss, I forgot to post this yesterday b/c of all the hectic things happening & then I passed out at night. Also warning for the long wall of text coming up... this Paris trip has just been unbelievable (not in a good way) & I'm too tired to upload all my pictures now

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. 

PARIS Day 2

Sooooo.... we both hoped today would be better but unfortunately it wasn't :(

No call from British Airways about luggage and even when we called them tonight, Alia was on hold for 12 minutes before she got a message saying that they were off work for the day. Neither of us have working phones to call international numbers in France, so she had to buy Skype credit and call them that way.

The apartment that we're staying in is nice, very quaint, but lacks AC and is in an almost-shady area. The lacking AC isn't a HUGE problem because it still gets pretty chilly at night so we open all the windows at night & close them during the day so it doesn't get too hot. I don't get hot that easily but since Alia doesn't have her luggage, she only has a pair of long jeans & a shirt and feels the heat way more than I do.

The apartment being in a semi-shady area is more of a problem because it's supposed to be in a "trendy" area and I mean it is, if you consider hipster, art-loving, dirty, and tons of raucous drunk people at all these pubs trendy. I could see why it's called trendy, but it's not an area I would ever want to visit or really explore. The one good thing is that it's right between Gare du Nord and Gare de l'Est, which are two big train stations & makes it pretty easy to take the metro. Both of the gare's are absolute NIGHTMARES though so we've been trying to stay away from them and we've been taking the metro from smaller stations down the street.

What's also nice about the area is that it's convenient in terms of small stores, boulangeries & patisseries so it's pretty easy to buy food. There's also a lot of little restaurants on the street below, but they are all sooo expensive. We both thought London was expensive but eating there doesn't hold a torch to eating out in Paris. So today we went grocery shopping at a store right below the apartment & plan on eating breakfast and dinners at home:)

Anyways, today! Starting from yesterday because of carrying my carry-on bag, I've been getting severe pains in my right forearm/hand & have these weird red marks that come up & feel really hot to the touch and makes it so hard to move my hand. Feel's kind of like a prolonged charlie's horse. So last night I manned up and went to bed but then woke up around 5 AM with the most excruciating pain in my arm. I took an ibuprofen & went back to sleep but didn't sleep very well since it hurt so badly... so I didn't sleep well & it took Alia forever to wake me up in the morning.

Once we were ready, our first stop was the LongChamp store since she wanted to buy a couple cheap longchamps :) The metro ride there was sooo terrible and it was super overcrowded. I know it's a Saturday and tubes also get crowded in London, but Parisians are just so..... rude! People are trying to get on without letting people get off first, no one ever fills into the car so there's people pushing you while you're trying to push other people while also simultaneously clutching your bag (Alia's mom told us some horror stories of getting purses stolen on the tube so we are now extra cautious..).

We ended up at a department store on Rue de Rivoli, which is apparently Paris's main shopping street and Alia bought all 3 of her longchamps. By now, it's around 1 PM and we decide to go get lunch at a tapas place. We didn't really want to shell out a ton of $$ again for food so we found a deal at this restaurant and it was by far the worst meal ever. The tapas were all really disgusting, the calamari looked like poop, the "bread" was literally cut up toast & the sangria was just okay. Around this time, my arm started to really hurt again so I took another ibuprofen (whoops, ibuprofen+alcohol do not mix) and then I started to feel incredibly nauseous. The restaurant, like almost every single one here, doesn't have AC, so we were both burning up the entire time. The service was also quite slow so there I was, ready to throw everything up, and we're there waiting 30 minutes for dessert. I was seriously ready to pay for a taxi back to our apartment at that point. Eventually, we get the heck out of that place & take the metro back to our apartment. We stopped to buy food & carted it all back together.

Once we got back, Alia wanted to check the status of her bags but we had absolutely no way of calling the company. My phone only can receive international calls & can't make international calls so she was unable to call from my phone. The pay phones here (or at least the ones we found), only take credit card & neither of us were about to stick our card into some grimy, random telephone booth. Eventually, we decide to make the most of our day and head to Marche aux Puces, which is some famous flea market in Paris.

The market closed at 6 PM though so we were like well screw the suitcase for now & headed out around 4:30 PM. We get to the metro station and well, just our luck, the train is having technical difficulties (what is up with this trip & technical difficulties?!) and wasn't moving. We stayed down there for 10 minutes waiting, me picking up random phrases of French & piecing them together & asking someone who turned out to be British oops, and finally decided to leave since it was SO hot down at the metro. Oh yeah, all the trains and metro stations don't have AC either, which is just dandy.

We decide to walk along Canal de Saint-Martin, which our Airbnb host told us was a nice little street for shopping and eating. Alia still doesn't have her suitcase & has no clothes for tomorrow, so we decided to do some shopping so she could wear clean, un-sweat stained clothes. We were either not in the right place or that street was not a shopping street because we walked for quite a while and saw no reputable clothing stores. After a bit we were like screw it, let's go back to Rue de Rivoli. So we walked to the nearest metro station and took it back to Rivoli. Being a saturday, of course that street was crowded and of course a lot of the stores didn't have AC, so we were just walking in and out of stores for a couple hours. She didn't find anything that she wanted for reasonable prices, so she bought a couple necessary items to tide her over & we were literally kicked out of a store around 8 PM because everything was closing. Boo.

We headed to dinner. It was still happy hour, so we both ordered drinks (& again my arm started to hurt so badly it was beginning to give me a headache so I think alcohol is triggering something). After the lunch fiasco we decided to semi splurge and get a better dinner, so that was fairly nice. By the time we got back to our apartment, it was almost 11 PM and Alia's been on FaceTime with her mom figuring out her luggage business.

This post is super long but I really want to be able to remember this in years to come :) It sucks majorly for Alia now but it sounds like her mom will send her another small suitcase with her friend. She's meeting her friend in Barcelona next Thursday, so at least she won't be clothes-less forever!

Worst day of travel ever: Day 1 Paris

Getting from London to Paris today has been probably the worst day I can think of in terms of traveling days. We flew British Airways, which we bought because they were the least sketchy airline, had a generous bag allowance, and also left from Heathrow.

So, our flight left at 1:45 and Alia & I decided to get to Heathrow 2 hours beforehand, a relatively generous amount of time for intra-European flights. We were going to take the Heathrow Express at 11:25 and arrive at 11:45, a perfect two hours & a great plan. Well.... we decided to meet at Paddington Station at 11:10 AM and Alia was nowhere to be found. She eventually showed up on the Heathrow Express platform exactly at 11:25, when the train was just pulling away. Apparently she had been caught up in something and was late taking the tube to Paddington. We weren't worried though since the next train left at 11:40 and we would make it to the airport at 12 PM, an hour and 45 minutes beforehand (which is cutting it slightly close, but still do-able).

We arrive at Heathrow. No big problems with the train, we arrive at departures at 12 PM. I had already checked in and only brought carry on luggage, but Alia had a large suitcase that needed to be checked since she was continuing on her 6 week Eurotrip. She couldn't check in for some reason so we had to seek help to get her checked in...now it's 12:15. I was starting to get a little worried since I know Heathrow security lines can be TERRIBLE but Alia told me to relax and that we had plenty of time.

Welll.... apparently throughout Terminal 5, the luggage conveyer belts stopped working and they couldn't move checked baggage to whatever magical place they did to scan, sort and then transport baggage to the airplane. So there were MASSIVE lines by each bag drop and we had no choice but to get in line and wait. After waiting in line for 30 minutes, it was 12:45 and some lady told us that if our flight was within the next hour, we should get out of line and see some other British Airways person. When we went to see that lady, she was so incredibly rude and unhelpful and said she had no idea why we were sent to her and told us to get back in line. We had no choice so we cut back into our original spot to wait. I went to ask someone if the flight would wait for us since EVERYONE was backed up and the guy said sorry, all flights are leaving on time. Right about now, Alia is freaking out and being super anxious. After another 20 minutes, we finally reached the counter and the man working told us he wasn't sure if Alia's suitcase would make it on to the suitcase. No worries I said, let's just get our bodies into Paris and they can deliver the suitcase if necessary.

It's around 1:15 now and we rush to security. Luckily for us, they opened up all the security lines and we got through security in about 3 minutes. Wheeeee, except my carry on was flagged and the guy removed everything from my bag! Literally completely emptied it out, took out all my clothes, underwear & apologizing while going through my delicates.. Apparently I accidentally left a small hand cream and they took it out and said I was good. Now it's about 1:25 and me & Alia throw all my stuff back into my bag and make a break for the gate. We get there on time and board the flight....

Alia's almost praying to get her suitcase on the plane but we're happy that at least we still made the flight. The flight was only 45 minutes and we get to Paris a bit before 3 PM. When we got to the baggage claim, only one suitcase came out. Alia's reallllllyyy praying now for her suitcase but after waiting for 30 minutes, NO suitcases come out of the belt. I told her she should ask if her bags actually made it because if not, we could just leave and not wait around. She asked and the lady working said that her bag was probably here. So we decided to wait... and wait.... and wait.. an hour later, still NO bags have come out and the people at baggage are almost rioting. They told us that the belt wasn't working & the people asked why they wouldn't move to another claim and the workers were just on the phone jabbering away in French.

Eventually, after an hour and a half of waiting, we found out that EVERYONE'S checked baggage was still in London and never made it out of Heathrow. Which totally makes sense since we knew Heathrow's baggage system was down... but apparently there must have been some kind of miscommunication and France had no idea what was going on. So, everyone with checked baggage, including Alia, had to fill out a delivery form & we're going to continue with our Paris plans and wait for them to call.. ugh

Now we head off to the train from the airport to the apartment that we're staying at, sans Alia's suitcase. It's about 10 euros for a ticket and the train that we get on is SO HOT, has no AC, and has soooo many people. The 30 minute ride into Paris was absolutely miserable and when we pulled into Gare du Nord, we were almost run over by the herd of people trying to get ON the train. Alia pushed her way through the crowd and I followed. Once at Gare du Nord, there were so many people EVERYWHERE and everyone was just running into us and we were like oh god please don't let us get pickpocketed. 

We make it outside and we are so confused because the lady whose apartment we're renting gave us really sparse directions but eventually, with hand motions, some french and a kind old French man, we found our place. At this point we've been traveling from 11 AM- 6:30 PM and are absolutely pooped... our plans of going on the Seine river tour and the Louvre are just shot & we'll just reschedule to some other night. 

hoping tomorrow's a much much better day :)

The tourist life

Alia's been here for officially a week and I've almost seen more in 7 days with her than my 5 months here... whoops, too much studying :)

So during the day I've been running around London with her & at night I've been working on my medical school application, which is just almostttttt done! So excited for all this stuff to be over with. Just got my MCAT scores back, which I did well on & so after the AMCAS is turned in, I'll have my first semi-break from school/med school/ testing :)

I've taken so many pictures but haven't had time to upload them because of my application, so they'll be coming soon!

Alia!

Ilana and Jess left me on Friday & Saturday, respectively, and now I'm the only Vandy girl left in our apartments. My flat has emptied from 8 girls to 3 and another one of my flatmates leaves this Wednesday

But... ALIA COMES TOMORROW :) I know you sometimes read my blog, so s/o :) I'm so excited! We're going to run around London for 10 days and then head to Paris on June 6th! 

A few good snippets of us...

 in Atlanta...

 in Nashville...

 at date parties with Bradley 3rd wheeling...

 our beloved suite 1005...

outside her apartment...

xoxo It's only been two years but it's felt like foreverrrr :)

Windsor

Emily and I went to Windsor last Thursday and it's so close to London! The train ride was maybe 20 minutes but took longer since we had to transfer trains. We walked around the castle, stayed to watch the changing of the guard for 10 minutes and walked to Eton and around town. 

I'm pretty sure they stood in this formation for about 10 minutes... and then a band of them came strutting through and lined up beside these un-musical guys

 oh hey, the Queen lives there

 view from a ledge, can see Eton in the background

 St. George's Chapel

The flag means the Queen's in! 

 outside of the walls of the palace, soooo many foreign high school students

UCL IS OVER

Today I finished my last 3 hour final exam at 1 PM AND I'M OFFICIALLY DONE WITH UCL FOREVER!!!! I could not be more excited :) now I have a month in London till my parents get here June 13th and we head to Greece! LET THE ADVENTURES BEGIN :) ....and the med school apps