Day 7: Madrid to Paris

Let us just open by pointing out that yesterday morning we were in London. We have since come and gone from Madrid, and are now in Paris! Whew!

We stopped in Madrid for a night just so that Allyson could drop off some luggage that she needs for Granada later. We stayed in a hostel, sharing a room with 7 other travelers- our first un-pampered living situation. We were there for less than 24 hours so we didn’t get a chance to make new friends. But we DID get to catch up with one of Andrew’s best friends from Argentina, Greg, and his amazing girlfriend, Sophie. Had a great night out- it was nice to have someone to show us around.

When we got off the plane in Paris this morning we stopped at an airport Info desk to ask directions to our hotel. The guy we talked to gave us confusing directions and informed us that we were staying in “a bad part of town”. Neither of us liked the sound of that, but there was no turning back. We prepared for the worst and got on the train into the city along with several interesting characters. We psyched ourselves out on the train ride and were not reassured when we arrived at the Gare de Nord train station. There were guards walking around with huge guns, few kind faces, and even fewer signs and directions to help us find our way. We left through the first exit we found and were in a pretty dingy part of town. As Allyson (not so silently) cursed our travel agent, Andrew scoured the map and just tried to keep us moving. As we neared the hotel, things got a little nicer but we still had our doubts. We found the hotel, got up to our room, and collapsed on the bed and wanted to cry. People love this city, we just couldn’t figure out why!



After resting a few minutes we realized that our one chore for the day was to buy train tickets to get to Brussels and then Laussane. Guess where you buy train tickets… Yup, we had to go back to our worst nightmare. We asked the concierge at the hotel how to get to the train station and she pointed us in the opposite direction from where we had come, then laughed when Andrew asked if it was a safe walk. She said, “Of course! You can walk anywhere around here!” We walked the right way to the train station and were surprised to find a beautiful, busy, happy station. Bought tickets with no trouble and decided to look around for some dinner on our way back to the hotel. We stumbled upon a bustling touristy pedestrian street with vendors and street performers all over. At the end of the street was a hill leading up to the Basilique du Sacer-Coeur, a beautiful white-marble church overlooking the entire city. We had a delicious ham and cheese crepe for dinner and happily made our way home. The day turned out to be quite a success!



Travel Blunder: Paris panic. See above.



Culture Shock: On budget airlines, a plane ticket is not the same thing as a baggage ticket. They are purchased separately.. not a very practical flying solution.



Gourmet Moment: Greg introduced us to our new favorite drink- beer mixed with lemonade! It’s called “claro” in Spanish and “panache” in French… we’ll let you know when we learn the name in Swiss-German, and Italian! In honor of Andrew’s best Argentina memories, we went to dinner in Madrid at a restaurant favorite called Sushi Club. Andrew and Greg were used to the all-you-can-eat version in Buenos Aires but reluctantly settled to order a bit less this time. It cost a little more than usual but was so worth it. Thank you Uncle Roo, Aunt Nance, Meg, and Ellie- your grad present to Andrew made it a very special night