::catatan kota paris::

Episode 1

31st may 2008

after i had lunch with housemates, i rushed to get myself ready. after a very long wait, finally it's here...self-rewarding time ngee~. after a very stressful exams week, i think it's time to get off to somewhere scenic and have my mind relaxed :)

i'll be heading to paris today! the city of LOVE as people said. how far the truth is? me myself not sure... but the question will be answered after i got there and have it in front of my very own eyes, cornea and retina and may my cortex agrees with the claim made by the majority :p

i boarded 16a bus and it took me about 1 hour to reach dublin airport. and i was almost got burned in the bus. the scorching heat of the sun was enuf to burn my readily tanned skin *sigh*. me and hafsah that were in the same bus got off eagerly as the bus stopped in front of the arrival hall.

i met wada, my travel mate for the next 4 days. we checked in while waiting for hana, the last person to join this trip. then we had some food at McD just in case we dun get a chance to have our dinner tonite. in traveling, we could not expect what will happen aite? so having ur stomach full is always a good idea lol

we took off by ryanair FR24 at 1800 heading to beauvis airport, paris. i chose to sit at the front part of the plane and a family next to my seat greeted me with smiles. and the baby is so cute! but, i think it's not only me who think that hez cute. he thought of the same too towards me lol. i could not sleep when the baby started to cry and attracted everyones' attention. i was so sleepy and tired... thnx to my last minute packing! i din get any chance to get a good rest after the xms and everyday went by with so many things to settle. and now im in a plane, hoping to have a short nap but this baby just din allow me. so i woke up and whenever i got the baby's attention, i tried to amuse him and he will chuckle. so both parties were happy huh? :D

after 3 hours of flying and crossing geographic borders, we landed safely. we bought our ticket to paris city centre from the counter. the one hour journey cost us 13 euro. i paid 2 euro for the same duration of journey in dublin! 

and the bus slowly left the airport heading to paer-ghih (paris). while sitting in the bus and having a short session of gossiping, we flipped over a french dictionary to find essential words to survive in paris for the next few days. we laughed at each other at the moment we were trying to pronounce the words. it's tongue twisting language lol. the way it's spelled is different from the way we pronounce it. like spanish (aka catalan, a slang) and italian languages, we can directly guess the pronunciation from the spelling but not french! 

frustrated of the fact that our malay tongue failed to pronounce it well, we decided to take 40 wink. but my failure reminded me of my english teacher's saying back to standard 5:

"lidah belacan would not be able to say english words as well as lidah keju" if u get what she meant?

so called belacan. imagine ur tongue is lidah belacan lol

now, imagine lidah keju haha

i always have this kinda funny things stucked in my mind. maybe u r right teacher! i let myself strolling over my past before i took off to the land of wonderland. hopefully when i woke up, i will be arriving in the city and paris will greet us with its enormous charming iconic landmarks and stunningly vibrant lights :). something like this:

 

we arrived at our destination at 10 pm and the bus driver showed us the way to the nearest metro station. dragging our big baggage (looking at the bags, seems like we'll be having one month vacation!), we walked behind a group of tourists assuming that they will take us to the right place lol

the "M" (means metro, the main transportation in this city) sign was enuf to leave us feel relieved. from our research on the net, the last train to our hotel is at 11 pm so we have an ample time to catch the train. but life's not that easy! 

standing at the counter to purchase tickets, we were puzzled with what the ticketing guy was talking about. so wada showed him the map that she printed at home, circling our destination: les gresillons. so not only us got puzzled huh? he was trying to explain to us how we can get there...one person was speaking in french and another in english. can u imagine how did it look like? like a chicken and a cat were trying to communicate lol

"other side"

"cross"

"walk"

that were what we got from his explanation. o merci!

i appreciate his effort to make us understood. and he was recalling his english vocab to ensure that we got what he said. so that was not the right station to get the genevilliers. we need to get to the other side of the road and off we go...

dragging the bags in d middle of the night, in a very unfamiliar city was an experience. it's not easy to get lost in this city i guess. as long as u r aware of the sign boards, u'll b ok. first, we allowed our instinct to lead the way and it din let us down. we arrived at porte mallot station where we could catch the train to les gresillons via M1.

i shud say that all 4 us, even look small and cute in size, but we r super girls! imagine we had to carry our big heavy bags up and down a long flight of stairs and none of us complained! bravo gurls!!! so funny that when we got in front of the machine where we shud introduce our tickets, we realized that we din have any! lol. we thought that there will be a machine near the entrance but we were totally wrong.

so me and hana went downstairs where we were first got into the station and tried to find any machine to buy tickets. again, fail. looking at my watch, i was afraid that we could not catch the last train. and sadly, there were no one to ask around. we checked every possible places that they could put the machine but to no avail.

one couple was our saviour. they showed us the vending machine and thank god, the machine has english version lol. so we bought 4 single journey tickets. we ran to the place where wada and hafsah were waiting 4 us. so we got ourselves into the waiting area and guess what else this time? hana's ticket was rejected and she couldnt enter! 

this is when evil thought is needed. first was hana's luggage to illegally cross the machine. then hana...we asked her to go in thru a small gap between the gate. and she did it! this is an advantage of being cute lol

it was quarter past 11 pm when the train arrived and we boarded it, with the hope that everything will be fine after this. 4 stations had been passed, and there we go. we arrived at the small station with only 4 of us in the scene. the cold atmosphere din break our determination to find our way to the hotel. we asked 3 men who were passing by to ensure that we were on the right track. again, it was a cat and chicken scene! lol

we were happy when we saw formulae 1 hotel sign on the building. we walked into the hotel and a man in his late 20s greeted us. i showed him the reservation email and that made things smoother.

he was trying to explain that the room is not en-suite. i looked my frenz wondering what he was just saying. we laughed and he was laughing too.

he  was scratching all over his body acting like he is showering.

"o towel u mean?" i gave a wild guess

so i flipped the dictionary and tried to find the word for towel in french. 

another fren gave a suggestion.."shower?"

and he nodded happily. his acting finally was recognized! we laughed out loud. from there we could create the story line that he was trying to say that the rooms are not ensuite. it's okay because we knew it b4 we got here :)

i chose to be in room 328 with hafsah and to get access into the room, we were provided with codes. no more keys, no more key-misplacing cases :p. 642437 was d code hehe

and that nite we were sleeping tightly due to tiring journey...tomorrow, we'll be waking up in the very early in the morning to explore this city of 3 million visitors per year

and luckily, we had our dinner at 5pm today. eventho my stomach was actively secreting acids, nothing beat my tiredness. i slept, ignoring my tummy which aggressively asked for something to digest that night. no worries tummy, i'll give u yummy  heavy bfast tomorrow :)

and we spent our first night in paris with "sound" sleep zzzZZZ