Second Day

Travelling Friday September 28, 2012

So my second day wasn’t nearly as exciting as my first, but it was only 23 hours long. I got up for about 6:15am to prepare to depart the hotel and head off to catch a flight to Paris. It was an unfortunate turn for me. When I had booked my flight, I booked with one bag at 20kg. After rereading my original flight info from Toronto, I realized I got TWO checked bags, so I bought a second bag for my second flight. Stupid move.  Easyjet apparently sells per bag, but doesn’t include weight, which would be an entire second purchase. So when I got to the airport, trying to check in, I am 15kg over my baggage limit. At 12€ a kilogram. So 180€ later, I am able to board my flight, feeling tired and frustrated. THEN it occurs to me, why didn’t I just buy a second seat?! The first one was 60€, how much could the second one have been. I didn’t get to find out, the flight info had been removed two hours before the flight. Ah well. Forward. 

So, I board my flight, have an empty seat beside me (more frustration there) and we fly to Paris. I try to doze off, but nothing really comes of that, so mostly I read and stew. We land in Paris, and wow. Their airport is crazy. Like huge, busy, bustling, so many people, and almost all of them rude. And strangely, no customs to clear. So my concerns about missing my train because of delays going through customs are unfounded. Perhaps we were supposed to do them in Porto, but the customs station there was unattended, and I just had to walk past it. So, I wait for my train in the middle of the airport (between 2d and 2f, for anyone flying into Paris and needing the TGV) and try to figure out how to print my ticket. See, while I am fluent in French (self-professed), there are a lot of words I don’t know. Or didn’t know. Like retraiter. I thought that would mean exchange. “re-“ to do again, “trait” trade… see, makes sense to me. Actually means withdraw. After I figured that out, getting my ticket was EASY! So I waited, and sure enough, with an appointment at 5pm that I have to get to, well, my train is 30 minutes late. So the 20 minutes I had to find the place, after storing my bags becomes 20 minutes late while dragging my bags. And I didn’t have the landlord’s phone number on me. 

So I get to the right address, and wait. But only 5 minutes, cause I am already 20 minutes late. Since I don’t get approached by anyone, I consider it a bust, and start down the street to the tramway (looking at google maps a hundred times at work did teach me some basic knowledge of the layout of this town). As I am about half the block down, some guy comes up to me and asks if I had an appointment, to which I reply yes. He then introduces himself, and we wander back to the apartment. Turns out it is through this security door (with a buzzer, apt. 6) and then down an alley between two building. Crazy, an alley behind a security door. Completely open to the elements (looking forward to snow in my “entrance hallway”). So we walk to the back, which is good, on the left, which is fine, and I leave my bags outside while I am invited in to meet the departing tenant and am given the 5₵ tour. I would say 50₵, but it is a pretty small place. Looks cute, not sharing an actual entrance door, so I am not wandering past someone’s kitchen on my way in and out. It can work. And it is 50€ cheaper than the previous place I looked at, and still has included unlimited internet. After the landlord freaks out a little about WHEN I wanted to have the place, I assure him I have a hotel and will take the evening to think it over. I still have 800€ that may or may not exist in that other apartment, and I would like to try to resolve whether the apartment itself exists. 

So I head off, dragging my luggage with me, and take the tram to my hotel. Nice enough hotel, seen bigger bathrooms on shuttles to outer space, but it does the trick. Doesn’t have an elevator, so my stuff has all been bounced around. I debate and decide to head back downtown after verifying the address of the second apartment against what I was told in my email, and I tram it back. After a bit of a walk around, I find the door, and sure enough, it is a door to the rectory or the offices of a nearby church. Not really an apartment at all. So I head back to the hotel, tell my landlord I want the apartment and then email the scam artist and tell her that there is no apartment where she said. From there, I bemoan the miserable hours rural France keeps (grocery store closed by 8pm on a weekday?!) and wind down to crash.