I think I´m allergic to the French...

So, I have mixed feelings about Paris...there were good times and bad times this weekend. Taxi drivers on drugs and getting kicked off trains: very bad. However, everything else was good. And, I think I´m allergic to the French. Standing by them makes me sneeze. Or maybe it was just the padded walls in our hotel room. But I like the first option better.

So, after Friday night, Prissy and I wanted nothing else except to go back to Düsseldorf where Heidi would protect us from the big bad taxi drivers, confusing Metros, and long lines on Bastille day. We got into Paris sometime around 10pm. We wanted to take the Metro, but neither of us speaks French, and their signs are incredibly confusing! We couldn´t even figure out what ticket to buy. So we took a cab. But apparently we picked the wrong driver! About an hour and 65€ later we arrived at the Spanish Embassy, which was not where we were staying! But we wanted to get away from the lunatic in the front seat. He sang, he danced, he took our pictures, he talked to everyone that drove by. He actually was not at all scary and looked completely harmless; he was more funny than anything. But after being in a cab for an hour and being taken to the wrong place it was no longer funny, it was just annoying. So some police officers called our hotel. We proceeded to wait 2 more hours for another cab, and he took us straight there with no problems. Our hotel was not at all sorry that we had trouble. Needless to say, this was not exactly a good first experience in France.

But we stuck it out and stayed the next day. Saturday was awesome. We took a guided tour of the Louvre, which was a good thing because their signs are in French! We both learned alot and wanted to spend more time in there. We ate lunch and drank real Champagne at a cute little outdoor cafe in the gardens in front of the Louvre. It was a really pretty area to eat in and the ice cream was amazing! We took a bus tour later and made it to the Eiffel tower that night. We tried to use Prissy´s leg to get to the front of the line, but apparently the French have no sympathy for hurt or crippled people. They all told us to wait in line. So we definately cut in line, but no one around us spoke english, so no one could say anything about it! I don´t think we could have gone up in it if we hadn´t jumped into the line. We got in line at 10:45 when everyone was looking up at the lights and there was about a 12 foot gap. We didn´t make it down until 12:30 or 1:00.

Sadly to say, Sunday was not nearly as fun as the day before. We woke up late because we were tired, so we went straight to the train station. It´s a good story now, but at the time it wasn´t funny....we got kicked off the train! They checked our Eurail passes after Paris and everything was cool. But then they checked them after Brussels and told us we were on the wrong train! It was incredibly confusing, but what it boils down to is the stupid ticket lady (we seem to have lots of trouble with those) only gave us a reservation to Brussels and not to Cologne. So he tried to make us pay 50€. After lots of crying from me, and Prissy repeating "I´m so confused!" many times, he let us pay 7€ if we would get off at the next town. When we got off with all our stuff, he saw us wandering around with Prissy on her crutches and me still tearing up and I guess he felt sorry for us. The next thing we knew, he was telling us to get back on the train and into our seats! It was so weird, and we asked if he was sure, and he told us to get back on again. So the moral of the story is, if you ever get kicked off a train, cry alot and steal someone´s crutches!

Anyway, I´m glad we went to Paris. I would love to go back, but next time I´m going to need at least a week to see everything I want to. And now I know how to use the Metro so it´s all cool!