Ahh, Paris…
This city was on my must-see list for a while, which is interesting since it has no beach, and the language is killing me (French readers… no offense, and sorry) I learned French for 3 years in high school, I had zero interest because Ricky Martin already poisoned my heart with Spanish. I always cheated my ass off during tests, I got the ‘okay’ grades, I passed. Thank you for your co-operation, Miss Ildiko. She clearly got my ´not bothered´ vibes, so she tried to ask me a question 2 times in 3 years and then she gave up.
Storytime: The first attempt went well because she thought I gave the correct answer, but it was actually just a sound effect of me being annoyed. So… she asked me something and the answer to that was: où ( which means, where – I just googled it) and my response was: uuuhhh. As in ´why, fuck, why? Why me?´… She thought that she reached the top of her career with me saying finally something and it happened to be the correct answer… Tres Bien!!! Tres Bien…
The whole class was dying of laughter, obviously, they knew that I was just given a sigh and moan.

… with all this knowledge that we built in 3 years and put so much effort into doing nothing during French classes, we thought we should totally go to France…

The second attempt was a total failure, long story short I said: I don’t know.
And this is it… Of course, with my grown-up(ish) mind I think if I could go back I would probably learn that goddamn language… but nope… definitely not when I was 16…
Needless to say, Bestie was there, and we both just chilled in French classes so …  with all this knowledge that we built in 3 years and put so much effort into doing nothing during French classes, we thought we should totally go to France…

Yes, let’s go to Paris…they said… it will be fun they said.

Our flight was maybe an hour long from Manchester and we landed on Charles De Gaulle Airport, late night around 11 pm. Fuck it was an experience. We planned to go to the center by train, oh it was such a great idea. It was our first time in De Gaulle and we had no idea that it is a medium sized city too, with subway and buses connecting the terminals. It took us probably one and a half hour to find our way out, and then manage to find the train station. At one point I just sat down, and told to Bestie ´let me know when you figured this shit out´

…We literally felt like Jesus opened the heavens´ door for us…

I’m not gonna lie the train ride around midnight, in Paris, wasn’t too pleasant… But we arrived at the city center. The next challenge was to find our hotel, with barely any battery and internet data with print screened map bits. We made it an hour later, frozen to death… and the hotel door was closed. We were late, they gave up on us. So after a desperate phone call with a proper french man who speaks 0 English, a receptionist arrived and let us in. We literally felt like Jesus opened the heavens´ door for us. We passed out immediately and started the next day where every tourist would do:

Huuuge. So was the queue to go all the way up to the top. So, unfortunately, we had to skip that this time…
One thing you should keep in mind when you are wandering around the Eiffel Tower… Let’s call them … hmmm… Sales people.
Okay, they were distracting us with some Hakuna Matata bullshit, and as soon as we stopped walking they – I’m not gonna lie – grabbed our hands and put like a handmade bracelet on our wrists and started to finish the braid. Even though we said we don’t want it, we don’t have any change and leave us alone they just kept going and going about Hakuna Matata. We raised our tone but they still carried on like they were deaf. It was pretty hard to escape… We gave them some money, but obviously, it wasn’t enough for them, cuz they were looking at us like they will follow and stab us in the back with a knife. I’m telling you, I’m not exaggerating here… It was a very unpleasant first expression, very aggressive and at the end, it became a bit scary too.
After this, we decided to search for the mini Statue of Liberty, yea this is something you might not expect in Paris but it is there, a replica of the American one. It’s on a small island in the Seine, close to Tour Eiffel. Surrounded by a nice area, worth to walk around a little bit. By the way, you can use the RER and/or the Métro de Paris to make your way around the city, we were just scared as fuck to sneak into the subway after our London Oyster Disaster… Plus if you wander around you will see way more of the city. Anyway. We carried on walking all the way up to Arc de Triomphe. It took us like an hour, but it was worth it. All the buildings, the street arts… everything. I started to slowly fell in love with the city. In one of the corner, we noticed a board saying Champs Elysees.

…we decided to have a coffee break in the middle of Champs Elysees, cuz well you can´t do such a thing every day…

We had to take a tiny technical pause cuz Bestie was freezing and needed a scarf. So we had a little shopping break – since we were in Paris it was a must anyway… – and then we came up with an idea to walk through Champs Elysees all the way to the Louvre. It was another amazing idea, in like 0 degrees, but yet again everything was so wintery beautiful. Around halfway somewhere we decided to have a coffee in the middle of Champs Elysees, cuz well… you can’t do such a thing every day… How cool. It was pretty cool yea for 8 € we got a shot of espresso, and for 12 € a hotchoc,  BUT we are in one of the world’s most expensive city, so shut up, stop complaining.
Louvre – yusss. I wanted to see this building since The Da Vinci Code. Of course, my luck, it was closed. But now, I have to share a quick thought. The reason why I enjoyed this trip was the fact that it was hardly any tourist around. We could make amazing pictures without 100 other people photobombing them. Actually, it’s not the worst idea ever to travel while it´s offseason…
I will just leave here some pictures now:

We carried on all the way to Notre Dame, another 20 minutes of walking next to river Seine and by the time we arrived the sun went down, and it was the perfect place to satisfy my crazy night-light obsession:

Eventful first-day for sure. On our way back to the hotel we found a tiny crepe place selling huuuge portions with Nutella – of course.
Dinner Served. Thank you, and good night.

Next day it was time to re-live our childhood… at least this was our wish. Not quite sure if I was completely happy with the Disney Land experience…
Probably my expectations were a bit higher. I wanted to see the classic Disney characters running around, from Baloo to Simba and Goofy but all we got were rainbow Fairies and the Frozen shit… And I know… Let it go… but I just couldn’t. I was disappointed. Well, it wasn’t crowded for sure but… But many parts were closed too, or under refurbishment (… hint: don’t go to Disney Land in the off-season.) Maybe I will try again in the summer…

On our last day, literally like 10 hours before our flight back to Manchester, we were sitting in Starbucks when we got the news: it was a bomb in Brussels Airport.
Things got a bit hectic and ultra safe in Paris. Military on the streets with guns and dogs and everything, it was a very weird atmosphere, but we decided, it’s not gonna stop us, the sun was out finally and it wasn’t that cold so we went to check out the Notre Dame in daylight and wander around the city  a little bit more before we headed to the airport…

…. it took us a while to find the correct terminal and the gate, where we realized we had to wait another 6 hours before boarding the plane. Yay. So for the first time, it happened: I was sleeping on the floor, in an airport.  Hashtagdigitalnomad, for real.

So to sum up… I love Paris – minus the sales people – and I will go back for sure when it’s less freezing and more green.  This city is amazing. Even when it’s a bit grey, dark and cloudy… I can’t even imagine how beautiful it is during summertime. *

Last but not least – drumroll –  … a full face reveal. (cuz I love this picture, obviously.)

*update: I booked my ticket and I will spend a week in Paris in May. Fingers crossed the weather will be muuuch better that time of the year – especially because it will be my birthday, so… Bitch, please!

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