Day 0 - Traveling Bobbleheads
The Friday before I left for my second Europe trip of 2009 was a right damn shitshow. I don't know what the hell is the matter with me, but I always wait until the last minute to do things. Needless to say, 6am before work, I was still flailing through my apartment packing.
Work was alright. Typical day of insurance agents in a blind rage because they need something in the next 30 seconds you are never going to be able to provide. Good news was I actually managed to get almost everything done, save for an umbrella quote for a guy with a dog kennel who needs to up his limits because he decided to sell his homemade dog food at SaveMart. Seriously, how much damage could dog food really cause? (Don't answer that).
Dwayne picked me up at work and hauled Alisa and I off to LAX. I promptly passed out in the back seat and didn't wake up until we got to the airport.
Here is the thing with the airport. The people who tell you that you need to be there friggin' 9 hours before your flight are the same people that tell you cracking your knuckles gives you arthritis and that staring at the TV will make you go blind. Those people are what lazy procrastinators like me call hardasses. We got to the airport 2 hours early, checked our luggage, cleared security and were halfway into a big, tall Sam Adams within 20 minutes. Then we had another one.
And then we had another.
Alisa and I didn't really eat lunch, so we had an extremely healthy buzz tied on by the time we were about to board. Alisa circled the area for about 5 full minutes before I asked, "hey, what the hell are you doing?" She replied that she was looking for me. Apparently she didn't know that I was shuffling silently behind her. I don't know which is weirder: the fact that she didn't know I was behind her or the fact that I followed her aimless wandering for so long. I firmly believe that my ADD will someday cause me to be led off a cliff.
Shortly after takeoff I offended the flight attendant. She asked me what I wanted to drink and I laughed in her face. In my defense, she had the most insane British accent I had ever heard. I didn't even have time to think. Alisa and I pounded vodka cocktails and two little-but-not-too-little bottles of wine. Then we split a Xanax.
I sweat to god I am not a drug addict, I just hate to fly. Getting shithoused turned out to be a good life decision because I woke up and we were almost there. I bobbled in and out of sleep, drooling, for the last hour or so.
Welcome to Heathrow!
Okay kids, gather around. Danielle's adventure in Europe has begun. First, I was greeted with the nastiest smell of my life. Heathrow smells like armpits, spicy food, and death. Due to a small delay, we missed our connecting flight to Paris. We were rebooked 2 hours later, so Alisa and I were left to wander the terminal both hungover and profoundly jet lagged. I am truly surprised that we did not fall asleep in our next round of beer. At some point, we got on the plane and (finally) made it to Paris. It was about 5pm local time, but 8am to our bodies.
Paris is beautiful. It looks a little like Florence and a little like San Francisco. This, of course, is only a broad reference as Paris really is its own thing. Rows of apartments line the streets, there are 4 cafes on every block, and people drink wine on the street. There are cobblestones, but it is much easier to walk around here than in Rome. The metro system is alarmingly efficient.
Eventually, we made it to our Hostel. I shit you not, this place is called "OOPS!" It is apparently one of the top 10 hostels in the world, and deservingly so. It looks like a trendy downtown Los Angeles loft, except there are 2 sets of bunkbeds in a room. (I totally called the top by the way).
Being in the insurance business and having been raised with Dateline NBC, I am often shocked at the things Europeans get away with. Gaps between the platform and the train are significant, there are often no escalators or handicap accommodations, you can smoke and drink anywhere outside, and there aren't really gates anywhere. If they pulled that kind of crap in America, we would constantly be falling, and suing eachother as a result. Our hostel is completely co-ed. They seriously don't give a shit. They'll just toss two random dudes in a room with you, sharing a tiny bathroom. Southern Republicans' heads would explode.
You know, I really need to figure out this flat iron thing. Apparently if you plug them in here, they melt. This was not so bad in Italy, when a ponytail worked, but my hair is really short now. As a result, I look like a member of the Beatles who just walked through a windtunnel. This is not good for my ego.
Nonetheless, Alisa and I put on our going out clothes and, you guessed it, went out. FIrst stop was food. We ate at McDonalds because we are stupid Americans (actually, it was late and the only thing open. Alisa minus food equals crankypants).
Alisa got a happy meal and I got a soft serve. The soft serve here in 900 times better than the soft serve in the US. I mean, it is basically the same, but creamier and, um, better. I was going to leave this pit stop out of my written record of this trip, but then, of course, something insane happened.
Alisa was just biting into her cheeseburger when two drunk North African dudes scoot right into our table with us and start shooting the shit. They only spoke enough English to ask for our phone numbers. The one next to Alisa kept putting his hand on her leg. I, as a result, went into bitch-mode and proceeded to insult and berate them in English. They were too drunk to care. They stayed right there until we finished and got up, and then they went and scooted into another booth with 2 other chicks. Yes indeedy, our creepy stalkers traded us in right before my eyes.
Next stop was a wine bar in our neighborhood, The Latin Quarter. The waiter shook our hands and kissed us on the cheek. Alisa's French is actually pretty good, while I look like an idiot most of the time. The Latin Quarter is a student-y area, so there is less tourists and less people that speak English. At first I thought these people were fucking with me, which I am sure some of them were, but I noticed that the creepy guys were having a hard time hitting on us (wind-tunnel hair must be in fashion here).
After the wine bar, in which the waiter gave us his number and planted one right on Alisa's lips, we wandered around the neighborhood. France doesn't have piazzas the way Italy does, but Napoleon, quite the little city planner he was, created a system where everything is in circles. We are staying on The Gobelin Street (Avenue de Gobelins), right up from Place d'Italia. All roads lead to this pretty building with a clock on it (we thing it is a courthouse for the 13th district) and a shopping mall. There aren't really any late night bars in walking distance, and the French certainly weren't going to point us to any, so we headed to a store, bought wine, and sat in the hostel drinking it out of the bottle like the classy bitches we are. This scene was really given some color when two British guys walked into our room. Alisa was yapping the ear off of one, while I asked the other the same question a few times. He pointed this out to me. That bottle of wine was just not necessary.
At some point (read: when the Brits made it clear that they were going to bed), I hopped on my top bunk, cranked out another episode of The West Wing, and headed to sleep.
A great, and very long, first day.
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