Monday, July 20, 2009

Paris!!!














Last week I unexpectedly went to Paris with my best friend Martin. It was my idea as a matter of fact and he went along with it because he also needed a break, just like me!

So I made some arrangements for my son and we left around 4.30 pm on Tuesday. I looked on the web for two cheap hotels, wrote down the addresses and crossed my fingers that in one of them was still a room available. But in case we couldn't find a hotel we also took a tent (a quick up), matrasses and sleeping bags. We arrived rather late in Paris and booked a room in the cheapest hotel of the 2 hotels I had found on the web in the 18th arrondissement just behind the Sacre Coeur. We were lucky because there was just one more room available and the hotel was almost closing down when we arrived!!
It was a nice room with toilet and shower in the room. After we had put our luggage in the room, we went out for something to eat. There were still some small restaurants/bars open.
The first night I slept badly. Martin and I had to sleep in the same bed and I'm not used to that anymore.

On Wednesday we first went to Les Halles in the centre of Paris. We took the wrong direction and discovered a small parc on top of Les Halles. We stayed there for a while and took some photos of the two of us behind a hand and in front of a head.

At 12 o'clock we were supposed to be at Annik's. She is the lady I worked for as an au-pair in 1977 and 1978. I hadn't seen her in 20 years or so. Martin and I stayed at her place for about 2 hours and had lunch with her. It was nice meeting her again!!

After Annik, we went to the Sacre Coeur. We went upstairs with the funiculaire. On the stairs in front of the Sacre Coeur there were several amateur singers and jugglers performing their acts. We loved the jugglers a lot!! I made several videos of them. Loved the act with the crystal ball!! If you go to this link at You Tube you can see it for yourself!

After visiting the Sacre Coeur we went back to the hotel to rest a little bit and then went out again for diner which was nice and not too expensive. We also discovered a summons underneath the windowscreen wiper of the car! We forgot to pay for parking the car during daytime. It was only 11 euros though! In the Netherlands the summons are a lot bigger!!

The second night I slept a lot better (probably because I was exhausted from all the walking earlier that day)!

The next day we decided to take the car and drive to the Eifeltower and afterwards to Les Halles again. We both wanted to buy some nice (French) cd's and in Les Halles there's a large mediastore called FNAC.

We first wanted to buy a seal for the summons at a Tabac, but the lady of the Tabac told us not to bother about paying the summons. There isn't a law yet in France that makes it easier for the French police to get the money for summons from foreigners. So we decided not to pay the 11 euros.

We said goodbye to the hotel and went to the Eifeltower. We found a parking spot not that far away from the tower. We didn't go into the tower (too much people waiting and we weren't really interested in the view). When we were in a small parc near the Eifeltower we both put our red noses on and made some children laugh. I'm not really a clown (and I lost my nose everytime I smiled, which was funny in a way) but Martin is. I also had a good laugh about him and the things he did. We found out that during day time a lot of people weren't in the mood to laugh about his red nose, but at night people got more open and laughed a lot more and made jokes with him.

After visiting the Eifeltower we had to leave for Les Halles. It took us more than an hour to get there. Paris is really getting overcrowded with cars!! We parked the car in a garage underneath Les Halles (it costed us 8,50 euros for just a couple of hours, so you better go for the summons!!! But beware of areas where they can tow away your car!!!). Martin and I both find some nice cd's: 4 for 20 euros which is really cheap.

Before leaving Paris we went to a supermarket to buy something to drink and eat. It took us another hour to leave Paris and it wasn't even during rush hour!
We left Paris around 3 p.m. and arrived home around 1 a.m. We drove slowly (well Martin did, I didn't and therefore missed the turn off to Antwerp so we had to make a detour) and stopped a few times to rest and to eat.

And now I'm getting ready for a 2,5 weeks stay in the Vosges, also in France. I'm going camping near Hennezel and in the first week of August I will be following a workshop Rebalancing, which is a form of massage. Really looking forward to the workshop!

So see you in a couple of weeks!


3 comments:

Marit said...

OH.MY... you become quite a travellor!!! Love your Paris-story and the photo's are awesome... makes me want to got there too again!!! Have a nice stay in France and see you when you get back!

M@risk@ said...

Glad you had such a good time in Paris and hope the camping and workshop were fun too. Good weekend and greetings.

Meri(txell) said...

Hi Anniek! I´m not sure if you´ll read this before sunday but I´ll be meeting you at Stella´s then! Yes, I´ll come with my mum and my little Nil, it´s going to be great to meet you again and catch up a little bit! Hope you enjoy your trip and I´ll see you in a few days! Lots of regards!