Welcome to Paris - First Time

Today was our last morning in Bordeaux, I explained the game plan of how we were getting to our hotel in Paris to my mom in the morning over breakfast at the hotel. We both agreed it would be best to go to the hotel before picking up my cousin at the airport in Paris (since he was flying in today). We ate breakfast, went back up to our room to pack and checked out of the hotel. Good thing the tram station was right next to the hotel, because we were able to take that to the train station. After waiting for a little while for them to post the train dock number, then following a huge crowd of people towards the train, we got on our train to Paris and were on our way. For lunch I had picked up two sandwiches at Paul (a delicious chain of sandwich and pastry shops). We ate on the train and admired the French countryside as we passed by. My mom slept for most of the train ride and at the Paris station we joined everyone getting off and found our metro station to start trying to get to our hotel. We had to transfer metros, and by this point in the trip we’ve started to get use to lugging our luggage around town, up and down stairs and everything! We finally got to the ride station and looking at a map in the metro station I thought I had it figured out of where to go to get to the hotel. But as soon as we were top side I got turned around. We started going up one street, couldn’t find it. Looked at another map and chose another street, couldn’t find it. Finally we stopped into a bakery in the area and the woman brought out a huge map and showed me exactly how to get to the hotel. It was so easy! So when we got there, it was actually a very cute street and a very nice neighborhood, so we went into the hotel very cheerful.
Unfortunately as soon as I saw the help I knew things were going to be trouble. I go up to the front desk and a guy who was hanging out with his buddies comes over to check us in. First he didn’t know what to do with me because he couldn’t figure out that we had reserved a triple when there were only two of us (at this point). Finally though he gave us our room keys and my mom and I went up in the tiny elevator to our room. The tiny elevator should have been an indication for the TINY room. Now, French hotels are notoriously small. This is ridiculous small though. There was barely enough room for the three twin beds and our luggage, let alone the one table and chair they tried to squeeze into the room. The bathroom was small and badly kept, and above all? It smelled! So, then after dropping off our things, my mom and I left for the airport to go pick up Brian. When the sleazy guy who was smoking out a window in the lobby asked for our keys when we left, my mom and I knew – we needed to check out of this hotel. We managed though to go get Brian and pick him up from the airport though. Because he was a last minute addition to the group, he knew that he would have to wait in the airport for a little while. We didn’t think it would be this long though! His plane landed early and our train came in late! Just before he was about to call us to ask where we were, we found him and whisked him back to the hotel. We all agreed at that point that we needed to move hotels. Thank goodness that I had stayed in Paris earlier that month because I knew of a nice hotel, a little further away, but it ended up being a lot cheaper for two separate rooms! So that evening before dinner, we all went out to the other hotel, got a reservation and then set off for dinner.
We ate in the Latin Quarter that night because I knew there was tons of restaurants right next to each other, all different types of cuisine too. We ate at a Greek restaurant; I had the moussakka, which was really good for being in Paris. Also the salad was very fresh. Unfortunately the dessert of crème caramel was too sweet and did not live up to its expectations. The décor in this restaurant was fantastic though! Think T.G.I. Friday’s, with the “flair” but Greek style. It was pretty fantastic.
Finally after staying out late by walking around the Notre Dame and other famous monuments at night, we all went back to the sleazy hotel, got our key from the desk clerk who was now drinking with his buddies in the lobby and watching a soccer game. We fell asleep – after sanitizing the pillows and everything else in the room and setting a door alarm (Thanks Grandpa!). All packed up and ready to move into the next hotel.