Paris a la Carrie Bradshaw

And by a la Carrie Bradshaw I mean alone. Solo dolo adventure time! 

I walked from the cafe to another cafe to a Starbucks to the hostel. Paris is beautiful wherever you look. I got to the street where the hostel was located and walked up and down about three times looking for it.. I find it eventually though, right across from the Christian Louboutin flagship store 

Neighbors 

I have to wait around a little bit for my room to be ready. The hostel looks ok so far. Not too bad for a last minute booking. I go up to the room and no one is there. I look around and there's no toilet in the room. Hm. The shower looks.. Interesting. Definitely not going in there barefoot. I rest a bit and dry off, it's been raining since I got to Paris. I think to myself that the rain will probably stop soon so I shouldn't buy an umbrella. God laughed and took note. 

I didn't change from what I wore on the train. I wanted to arrive to Paris looking fashionable but I ended up wearing running shoes the whole time and a Tshirt  and leggings. Shameful. I started walking to what I thought was the river. I walked and walked, enjoyed wandering and found myself in what appeared to be a mini china town in Paris. Or at least an area with exclusively Asian restaurants. Paris is great because you can turn one corner and the neighborhood totally changes. One minute Asian town, the next you are in a main square with a Dior store and Cartier. Eventually I start trying to head toward the river. I go the direction I think it's kind of in. Usually I am really good with direction and navigating myself but this time I just couldn't get there! I would walk for five minutes and pull out my iPhone map, orientate myself, walk for five minutes, pull out my iPhone and be walking the opposite direction again! It got to the point where I was laughing to myself in the street so I pulled over for some wifi as food.  This will be a theme in my trip to Paris. 

Being the history buff that I am whenever I saw something that looked big, old or important I pulled out my phone and took a picture. 

I was trying to take a picture of the huge Dior banner but this big dumb statue got in the way

Looked important 

So I'm still trying to get to the blasted river Seine and I find myself on rue de st honoré (I think) and this is the bigwig shopping street. This is where Beyoncé goes to shop. I'm assuming. Chanel, Lanvin, Max Mara, Valentino, Balenciaga, Hermes, Longchamp, Dolce and Gabbana, Givenchy, John Galiano.... Michael Kors is laughable in the mix. Meanwhile I'm walking around looking like a homeless person staring at the fancy men in suits that open doors for rich people. I still have no umbrella. God was like remember when you decided not to buy one? LOL 

I was having a good time nonetheless. People watching and window shopping is fun fun and I was in Paris! No time to be hindered by rain! I still was not at the river.. I am seriously worried about my ability to read a map at this point.

I stopped at a cafe because I was getting very damp and feeling a little run down at this point. I had coffee and a ham and cheese baguette which perked me up a bit. I'm walking and walking, now on a different, larger street and popping in and out of whatever store catches my eye. I kind of glance down the way to my right and there's the arc de triumphe .. Casual. I then deduced that I was on champs de élysées which means I HAD TO BE CLOSE TO THE WATER !! 

I was indeed close and I proceeded to walk down avenue de Montaigne (I later realized as a looked at an actual map) and saw a bridge finally! I look up and I see the EIFFEL TOWER and it is SPARKLING. It lights up every hour and I timed it perfectly accidentally! It was 9pm and still raining. I was looking good 

Really good..

Sparkle sparkle 

Yayyyy! Although, funny, all these pictures were taken at 10pm because I was too slow to whip out my camera at 9. Ha

I waited around at a cafe because I really needed a picture of it sparkling. I ended up having the best tiramisu I've ever had!!

Cafe George lV on rue George lV I think. For those of you that like tiramisu and go to Paris at some point.. 

So I'm dead tired now and want to go to sleep. I was running on one hour of sleep still. I look at the map and I'm like yeah I can walk home easily. 

Well, no. Actually it was quite a long walk home in the rain. I still refused to buy an umbrella. Smart Maren laughs at stupid Maren. Why wouldn't you get an umbrella Maren?? It rained all day! I don't know Maren! I truly thought it would stop raining and the later and later it got the less value I would get out of said umbrella! Ugh. Internal monologue. 

Anyways. My phone died on the walk home. And it's interesting how quickly not knowing where you are changes how comfortable you are. I was walking along the water back to the Louvre. I passed some more important things. Might have been a palace? I was walking really fast because it was late and raining. 

I had to use a paper map (Stone Age) to get back to the hostel. Paris is even more confusing at night as you can imagine. I walked mainly in areas with lots of people so I wasn't too worried. I found my way to the hostel! Yes! Good job Maren! You're still an idiot for not buying an umbrella but we can just let that go now. I wanted a shower. But I forgot to buy shower shoes. So I washed my face and went to bed, using my towel I brought with me as a blanket. Hostel life. I passed out instantly and that brings me to day two of Paris. 

I wake up at 1030 ish and I really need to bathe. I get up and investigate the shower situation. There appears to be a button that you push to start the water. There doesn't appear to be any way to adjust the temperature. Already this is lookin good. I assess my resources and make a plan. With surgical precision I put yesterday's dirty socks in the shower, shoulder width apart. The paper used to hold my train ticket is placed outside the shower. My face wash is put on the side of the shower. My dirty shirt is taken off first and laid on the ground. My clean towel goes on top of the shirt. Everything else goes into a separate dirty pile. At this point I have only my socks on. I step on top of the dirty socks in the shower, they will be my buffer between the grimy shower floor and my feet. I take one sock off and throw it onto the pike of clothes, then the next, all while staying perfectly on my marks. Now.. The button. I prepare myself for any temperature of water. Ice cold. That was nice. I also realize that that water is spraying half into the shower and half out of the shower. This is affecting the dryness of my "after shower socks". I also was in the wrong place because my shower socks were not set up for this sideways water flow. I had to adjust by leaning heavily to the left. The water kind of warmed up. The button had to be continuously pushed for water to come out so I showered with one hand, which was difficult. As I step out of the shower onto my makeshift mat of paper, I realize that the water has flooded the rest of the bathroom and some of my carefully placed piles of clothes. The towel was dry mostly so I begin to towel off. Now I have no shoes to walk back to the main room. My socks I had planned to put back on were soaked. I needed a plan. And quick. The Indians were closing in behind me and if they caught up with me I was toast. I've got it! I pick up the dirty shirt and place it in front of me a ways. I then grab the dirty pants and throw them in front of the shirt. I hop onto the shirt and then the pants. I grab the shirt and throw it ahead of the pants. I did this until I arrived safely at my bunk bed and bag of clothes. I put on new socks and then climbed Down to my shoes to then go to the bathroom and get the rest of my crap. Climbing and hopping around with only a towel on mind you. 

I'm sure you are all wondering why I described in such detail my monumental struggle against the evil hostel shower.. NEVER FORGET SHOWER SHOES. Never again. 

Back to Paris.. I leave the hostel (only slightly cleaner than I arrived mind you) around 1130 and walk to the 3rd arrondissement, le Marais. I heard it was a great place to walk around on a Sunday, it used to be the Jewish neighborhood and most things would be open. It was also the closest to my hostel. It is a great place to walk around. 

Here's a random church I found. I felt guilty going inside because I was committing the ultimate sin.. Jeans and tennis shoes.. Forgive me Jesus

I'm not sure what this is but it looked nice 

This is me trying on some shades. I always have to include some selfies. 

I had a delicious and probably the best club sandwich somewhere and this is the toilet at the restaurant. I'm really curious about what it says. 

It was sunny out and beautiful. I shopped and walked until 4 ish. There are bookstores and boutiques as well as crazy nice restaurants and stores like Diesel and Levi's. There was a neat store that sold statues and notebooks exclusively. Those of you that know me know that I was in heaven! I had to exercise great restraint because I wanted to buy all of them ! I dropped by a bookstore and bought Vogue Paris and caved and bought a notebook as well. There is a certain street in this neighborhood called rue de soemthing with an R that is totally cool and I think is the highlight. It's all Jewish. I turned left off of a regular street and all of a sudden I was in falafel heaven and there were stars of David everywhere and even bearded men in yarmulkes. The whole shebang. It was really interesting and fun to walk through. I went to a bakery for a pain au raisins, and went back to rue de rivoli to find a bench or something. I noticed on my map I was close to water and decided to head that way. 

This is how I ended up on Ilé Saint Louis. I crossed a bridge and all of a sudden there were tons of people with ice cream. I was confused. Apparently this is the place to get ice cream in Paris. I don't know. I walked through a street of jewelry shops and ice cream shops and then crossed another bridge and saw soemthing that looked old and important and pulled out my map. It was Notre Dame! I love finding everything on accident. I think it makes it more exciting that way. 

I found a secluded park on te side/back of notre dame and stopped there to rest. It was a beautiful spot. 

I walked back the way I came and stopped for sorbet and then stopped again and had cappuccinos and read my vogue. 

The river at night 

I walked back along rue de rivoli and stopped at Starbucks for wifi. 

I also stopped later for dinner. 

I just stop for food.  I feel like I ate my way through Paris. I'm like really done with food now though. I regret nothing!!

So I'm back at the hostel now and not bothering with showering. Honestly it's easier just to be dirty for 12 more hours until I get back to the ship. 

I'll be taking the train to Le Havre to meet it. Then I go to Dublin. 

I'm really glad I went to Paris. It's beautiful. It's definitely not the same as Amsterdam or Antwerp, you can't just walk across in a day. It's huge. Massive. 

It was much too short of a trip and I will be back!! I'm sorry that I'm not very good at recommending places to go and eat and things like that. I'm a bad tourist I just walk around aimlessly. I do have fun though. 

Deuces