I managed to easily leave the Turkish soil and enter Paris with a breeze. I must say though, Paris had the coolest airport facilities ever. It was like being in the Jetsons. You leave the plane and then obviously follow the signs ( this whole airport thing just became a regular routine for me at this point.. they're all the same) to the baggage claim and passport control. With Paris' airport system each terminal had its own sphere like building that was hollow in the center and worked in a clockwise manner (this was my experience, some may have had others depending where they arrived? ) Anyways, in the center of this building were these crazy trippy tubes with people in them... haha. They were like Jetson conveyor belt tubes for people? I have no idea how else to describe it but thats how you got from one side to the other and from one level to the next.. and you were outside but inside a tube.. It was really cool.
In Paris, London and Turkey they rely heavily on Metro. People.. this is legit metro not this joke bus system we rock in Halifax. In London they call the Metro underground system the Tube and in Paris it's just called the Metro. Now I found using the Metro in Paris extremely easy but more so difficult in London.
When I arrived in Paris I needed to take the Metro into Paris center and then change subs once or twice to enter my district of the city that my hostel was in. I did all this mind you with a 18 kilo pack on my back and a 8 kilo pack on my chest which was awesome (off balance say whaa) during this interesting attempt to enter Paris I found about four other packers. One from Turkey ( which rocked because I had just come from there and missed Turkish a lot so that was nice), one snazzy fellow from Chili and another chick from the US that was departing from Brazil and Portugal after being there for six months! We navigated the Metro system like four foreign ninjas.
(I'm just going to put in there that have seriously lost my english speaking abilities and am having a serious bitch of a time typing up this blog because of language confusion and spelling ugh.. but wait these were always a problem for me :P )
I arrived at my hostel in perfect timing and passed the hell out asap. By the way I highly suggest the hostel I stayed in for a few nights, it's extremely clean doesn't have internet access though, is very close to the metro and has very comfy beds. Only downside is you have to be up out and outty for about eleven am and can return back about five o clock depending.
My first day in Paris, ( I have some hilarious stories but they're definitely the kind not everyone needs to know and are much better heard in person) I'm roaming the streets definitely looking look a foolish tourist and see this golden monument statuesque thing in the distance and just walked towards it. I mean if its gold and shiny it must be famous right? Exactly. So I'm pretty chilled out walking along its not an intimidating city just an extremely overcrowded dirty one with identical buildings towering over you. I reached my destination this huge ass circus with a big tower with a gold angel on the top of it and was just like "where the hell am I" not "pretty tower" just what the hell. So I see this girl with a map sitting on a bench she looked pretty legit so I walked over and made her become friends with me for the day.. basically. And told her where we should go. Funny thing is, she spoke little to no english and was from Spain wuddup amazing communication skills with both had via photo taking and sign pointing. So Carmen and I went to all the big touristy spots that day, went up in the little tower everyone raves about, saw Notre Dame thought of Bengi because she's like Elsmerelda(sp), saw everything you can imagine so I walked about 34-40 km that day. This 30km walking thing became a regular occurrence in Paris. Taxi's cost way too much and don't respond to you basically, metro is easy and kick ass but not so much when its 35 degrees because its basically double when you're packed in like sardines. Walking is much better in Paris because it gives you a chance to check out all those small little holes in the walls and side streets so you can get away from the shitty touristy stuff and find the best cafe's and meet the most interesting characters along the way. If you walk alone, you generally have a small group by the end of the day which is pretty cool considering I only met two Canadians my entire trip.
One more thing, for you art historians out there. In Paris you can literally see the Haussmannization its terrifying and you feel like the buildings all the look identical and they're going to cave in on you. This might be from the lack of tree's that aren't cut like squares and lack there of a mass of water anywhere. The canal doesn't count.. thats sewage.
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