Bonjour! Yesterday I took a 7.5 hour flight to Paris De Gaulle Airport and arrived around 9:30 am (which is 2:30 am my time...). My first croissant was the airplane breakfast--let's just say that the bar has been set very low.
I traveled to my hostel (word to the wise: taxis from the airport to anywhere are 50 Euro period. Cheaper to Uber) which is called St Christopher's Canal Inn. I'm in the city of Paris, on the outskirts but this town isn't that big, right next to the canal. I arrived around 11 am and couldn't check in until 2 so I took a walk and got some lunch. I ended up in a cafe called L'Avenue only three blocks from my hostel and had the plate of the day, which was duck--and boy was it amazing!
I took a walk around the canal for an hour or so... here were some of the views!
I came back to the hostel and finally was able to check in. I am in a dorm room with 6 bunk beds, and under each bunk is a roll out locker for each person to put your luggage in. The room is exactly what I need--a place to sleep and a place to leave my things--and it was super cheap!
I wandered back to the lobby and met one of the bar tenders at the hostel (it's also a bar/restaurant, as many hostels are) named Patrick, who is from Canada but has been traveling and working for quite some time now. He is also a writer, and took me to see the Shakespeare and Co bookstore--near Notre Dam, it's a place where hundreds of volumes of books are kept, young and old, and supposedly writers who can prove they are producing work every day can actually sleep there for free! The original Shakespeare and Co was closed during WWII so this is the second.
We wandered around Paris for a bit, and he tried to teach me how to use the Metro (it is definitely more confusing than the L in Chicago) until we ended up at one of his favorite places to write--a little coffee shop off the Bastille stop on the 4 bus. From there I went back to the hostel (I hadn't slept in 24 hours by that point) so I could rest, but never ended up falling asleep. I woke around 8 pm and went downstairs to find that the hostel turned into quite the hotspot! I met some friends and we played beer pong for a while (I learned that everyone's perception of Americans is that because we are good at basketball we are also good at beer pong...?) until we got bored and decided to hit the town. I was with someone from Germany, Brazil, Morocco, Los Angeles, and France--the only place you can do that is in a hostel in the most travelled to city in the world! We went to La Balajo, but it was closed because they were giving salsa lessons, so we walked further down the Rue de Lappel to a small pub called Treplay, and danced for the rest of the night! It was great fun, and as soon as I got back to the hostel I passed out.
This morning I woke around nine and went down for breakfast--only 7 Euros, the best deal I've gotten yet considering how much food it was!
I will soon be joining the hostel's free Paris tour, starting at Notre Dam, and then see where that takes me!
I traveled to my hostel (word to the wise: taxis from the airport to anywhere are 50 Euro period. Cheaper to Uber) which is called St Christopher's Canal Inn. I'm in the city of Paris, on the outskirts but this town isn't that big, right next to the canal. I arrived around 11 am and couldn't check in until 2 so I took a walk and got some lunch. I ended up in a cafe called L'Avenue only three blocks from my hostel and had the plate of the day, which was duck--and boy was it amazing!
I took a walk around the canal for an hour or so... here were some of the views!
I came back to the hostel and finally was able to check in. I am in a dorm room with 6 bunk beds, and under each bunk is a roll out locker for each person to put your luggage in. The room is exactly what I need--a place to sleep and a place to leave my things--and it was super cheap!
I wandered back to the lobby and met one of the bar tenders at the hostel (it's also a bar/restaurant, as many hostels are) named Patrick, who is from Canada but has been traveling and working for quite some time now. He is also a writer, and took me to see the Shakespeare and Co bookstore--near Notre Dam, it's a place where hundreds of volumes of books are kept, young and old, and supposedly writers who can prove they are producing work every day can actually sleep there for free! The original Shakespeare and Co was closed during WWII so this is the second.
We wandered around Paris for a bit, and he tried to teach me how to use the Metro (it is definitely more confusing than the L in Chicago) until we ended up at one of his favorite places to write--a little coffee shop off the Bastille stop on the 4 bus. From there I went back to the hostel (I hadn't slept in 24 hours by that point) so I could rest, but never ended up falling asleep. I woke around 8 pm and went downstairs to find that the hostel turned into quite the hotspot! I met some friends and we played beer pong for a while (I learned that everyone's perception of Americans is that because we are good at basketball we are also good at beer pong...?) until we got bored and decided to hit the town. I was with someone from Germany, Brazil, Morocco, Los Angeles, and France--the only place you can do that is in a hostel in the most travelled to city in the world! We went to La Balajo, but it was closed because they were giving salsa lessons, so we walked further down the Rue de Lappel to a small pub called Treplay, and danced for the rest of the night! It was great fun, and as soon as I got back to the hostel I passed out.
This morning I woke around nine and went down for breakfast--only 7 Euros, the best deal I've gotten yet considering how much food it was!
I will soon be joining the hostel's free Paris tour, starting at Notre Dam, and then see where that takes me!
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