Our first flight was late leaving. We flew for an hour and a half. We only had an hour and a half stop over which was diminished because of our delayed flight. When we had been transferred to the international airport and got through customs we came out into the place where all the shops are like at the Auckland International Airport. There was a man standing there saying “Hong Kong?” We said “Yes” and showed him our boarding passes and he said “Good. Run!” So we ran flat out and just made it on the plane in time. That plane was a good one. The seats were comfy and we were just the two of us by a window. We slept a bit but not much as it was still day time in Australia. The flight was nine hours long.
The next flight was not so good. I still had a cold and by the time we got to Hong Kong I was feeling quite ill with a headache etc. I bought some Panadol but we had no water and had to get straight on the plane after that cause we only had an hour stop over. The plane was horribly uncomfortable. When your seat was in the upright position it felt as if you were sitting up so straight you were almost leaning forward. When it was reclined you were hardly leaning back at all. The worst thing was is that we weren't sitting next to each other. We were one on either side of an isle. I was not feeling very happy. My mouth was so dry and my head was all blocked up with a cold. When the plane started to take off my head was killing me from the change in altitude. Tears were pouring down my face but I couldn't help it cause I was so tired and my head hurt so much. I think the flight attendant thought I was scared of flying. I asked her for some water in a voice that could hardly be heard because it was so croaky. After I got the water and was able to take some Panadol I slowly began to feel better at the medicine took effect. I managed to sleep for about an hour at a time for about 5 or 6 hours of the 12 hour flight. Steve slept badly too. The plane really dried me out. My nose felt so dry I wanted to give myself a wet-willy up the nostril! We finally arrived in Paris at around 5:30 in the morning after traveling for about 25 hours. We were so tired and stiff from the horrible Air France flight. The Qantas Airbus was much better.
We got out of the plane and found our way to the information booth and got a map of the Paris Metro (underground train) and found out which stop to get off to get to our hotel. We made our way to the train station and Steve immediately got told off by a grouchy man in french because he wasn't standing to the right of the escalator. We hopped on the train and claimed some seats for ourselves and our boards and packs. To get to our hotel we had to go into Paris center then get off the train and onto another one. The train filled up with more and more people with each stop until we were packed in like sardines. Steve and I were getting more and more anxious that we wouldn't be able to get off the train at our station because of all the people. I was thinking we would have to barge them over with our bulky board bag! Luckily some people got off at out station so we were able to make it out without bashing into too many innocent bystanders. People were staring at us hard out because of our weird clothing. It was rush hour and they were all going to work. A nice lady helped us get the right train at the next station and thankfully it was a double decker train so it wasn't so packed. We finally made it to out station and disembarked. I spoke to the lady at the ticket office and she directed us to our hotel. We arrived at quarter past nine. We were not allowed in. We had to wait until 12 O' clock! We wandered further along the road and found a patisserie (really yummy French bakery.) We bought a bunch of stuff (with my little French and some sign language). We wandered along a little further until we came to a university and commandeered one of their benches. Everyone who came by gawked at us. We did look pretty funny with our big packs and boards bag. We gobbled up our delicious French pastries and killed time by watching some men prune a tree from a harness and discussing our observations on France thus far. It seem nearly everyone smokes in France. And it smells like wee in quite a lot of places. (This may be caused by the lack of enough public toilets for humans and grassy areas for doggies.) We were surprised at the amount of French people of African descent, there are heaps. We were most buzzed out by the traffic on the other side of the road. When it was nearly 12 O'clock we made our way back to our hotel. It was skanky. Inside it reeked of cigarettes. Yucky! When we arrived there were all these other people signing in too and they were taking ages! We couldn't understand what they were doing either cause of course they were all speaking French. Finally we got the code to our room (For those of you who have been to one – we were staying in a Formula 1 Hotel – but the skankiest one I have ever been in by far!) When we got into the room we discovered the bed unmade and rubbish from the last inhabitants still in the bin. We were so wary we were nearly asleep on our feet. We trudged back down stairs and tried to explain that our room hadn't been cleaned to the French guy at the desk. We had to wait a bit and stood swaying on our feet in the entranceway. In came a middle aged man and lady who were obviously up to an illicit liaison. It added a nice sleazy touch to our manky hotel before we were finally given another, thankfully clean room. It was 1pm. We fell into an exhausted sleep and awoke at 6am the next morning to a view of Paris' hazy air and the plastic bags stuck in the tree outside our window!
Bye, love Amy.
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