passing through paris

the day started out with a twist that i hadn't expected (well i mean, by that morning, i knew it was coming. but i had learned of the twist the night before while i was packing). what is this twist you might ask? well. turns out that on may 1 tcl wasn't working at all (apparently it was a workers holiday or something). thats right. no buses. no trams. no metros. essentially no taxis. and as luck would have it, my host parents were out of town still. so this meant i got to walk all the way to the gare with my heavy backpack. luckily my train wasnt rediculously early. and luckily chloe and i were leaving from the gare that is closer to me so it only took me about half an hour to get there. but it was pretty hot out and i felt kind of gross by the time i got there. but hey, at least i made it on time!
we made it onto our train just fine and ate the lunch we had packed. a tasty baguette and some brie cheese. mm mm good. and before we knew it, we had arrived in paris.

since we had two hours to kill in paris before we needed to get to the airport to catch our flight to edinburgh, we decided it made the most sense to make our way to the seine. we chose to walk along the quai because we couldn't tell if we could walk by the road - turns out the quai became about three feet wide for most of the time we were walking on it. when we saw a wider part ahead of us finally we got all excited but were caught a little off guard when we realized there was a canal between us and the wider quai and we were forced to turn.
eventually we found some stairs to bring us up to street level again, at which point we saw hundreds (and i swear to you i am not exaggerating on this point) of people pass by on roller blades

chloe and i decided we didnt think we knew that many people in one city even owned roller blades. maybe we should have guessed though since it is a pretty popular way to get around in france.

after a little break to rest our poor backs (and oggle at the ridiculous number of roller bladers), we continued on our way back to the main part of the seine. our plan had been to find a pastry and chill out. but then chloe remembered this really good ice cream place nearby (bertillon) and decided we should do that instead. i mean it was hot enough out. i was sure she was right about it being good because when we found it there was a long line of customers out the door (luckily the service was fast though). we got chocolate, strawberry, and red peach and then went back to sit on the quai again. it was quite delicious.

next we walked to notre dame and sat in the shade of a little park behind the church. we were having a perfectly lovely time when suddenly a strange old man decided to come up to us and have a little chat. i thought he was going to ask us for money or something, but i guess he's deeper than that. he wanted to tell us we were so pretty we looked like angels. eventually (after a good few minutes i might add) he was ready to go, but decided he needed to bises us first. we were a little grossed out to have his face so close to ours and as soon as he was out of sight we wiped our faces.
before finally heading to the metro to get the bus to the airport, we each made sure we got a picture of notre dame. we are still tourists afterall.

so basically we had simply sent all this time in paris because that's where we were catching our first flight. you would think because of this we would get to the airport with no stress about being late. but what fun would that be? later for the metro than we had planned, we found ourselves running for the airport shuttle bus. we bought our tickets and asked the guy in charge to make sure we were in fact in front of the correct bus. he looked at us and told us this particular bus was going to the beach. we paused. mostly certain he was messing with us, but a little caught of guard and a tiny bit stressed out.
it turned out there wasn't enough space on that bus for us, but luckily there was another a few minutes later. he had to tell one man to grab his stuff off the bus and wait for the next one as well. when the man didn't understand, i translated and the bus guy said i should get a free ticket. woulda been nice to get my 15 euros back.. oh well.
we made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare. we were hungry but decided to wait until we got through security before we actually got food. turned out this was a bad idea since all of the good options were before security.
so we went through security and i was special enough to have the privilege of getting a full pat down. like a dream come true.. but not really.
so we got through that and quickly saw we had made a mistake about our food decision. we went to ask if we could go back through security to get something to eat and then come back again. apparently that is interdit. how unfortunate. but he did tell us the water in the bathroom was potable so we didn't have to buy a ridiculously expensive water bottle. i responded with my usual sweeeeet at which point the guy mimicked me. it was pretty funny.

when we were finally in line to board our flight, there was a very cute, very friendly baby behind us. he kept trying to say hello :)
thenn. i got another stamp! which of course i was excited about. except that they overlapped it with my original stamp from entering lyon, which made me a little sad.

and finally, we were on our flight and in there air. although i really hate ryanair. if you are planning on sleeping on your flight, this is the wrong airline to take, because they will spend the entire time in the air trying to sell you stuff. how obnoxious. but onto the rest of an amazing week and a half long trip...!