Paris

Before I get into our Parisian tales, I must tell you how we decided on this tour. Our original plan was to do two weeks in Ghana because we had several weddings to attend, then to do Lisbon and Marrakesh. Our plan was set and my tickets were even purchased however with the growing concern of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, we started to become concerned. Keep in mind that there has not been any reported cases of Ebola in Ghana however when watching the news instead of naming the countries affected by the virus, they just name "West Africa", forgetting that there are only 4 countries in West Africa affected by it. For a while almost like a month that is all we heard on the news so of course this scared people including my mom who kept telling me to change my plans. At first I was going to go ahead with my plans but then when I heard about people being quarantined at airport just for the mere fact that they were coming from West Africa, we decided it would be a good idea to change plans. After debating several options we settled on Paris, Amsterdam, Lisbon, Brussels and Marrakesh.

The first leg was Paris. Even though I am not a big fan of Paris, I just agreed to go because Chloe wanted to go. I just think Paris is overrated and was not on my top places to visit but I guess it does not hurt to see what the hype is all about. I used my frequent flier miles with United for this trip and flew with Air Canada. I did a 3 hour transit in Toronto. During the flight to Toronto, the flight attendants handed everyone an immigration/customs card to fill out for Canada but in my experience you only complete this when you are exiting the airport so I did not complete mine. After arriving in Toronto, while looking for the gate for my flight to Paris, I noticed that I needed to go through immigration before getting to the gate. The fool in me just walked up to one of the immigration officers and told them that I was doing a transit and was going to Paris. He gave me attitude and was like where is your card? I told him I am not staying here I am just doing a transit. He rolled his head and said "Well you still need one!". I was very irritated and told him, "Well I did not know that!". He then rolled his eyes and pointed to a kiosk across from him for the cards. Was that necessary? Interesting enough this is what I expect from all immigration officers, I truly believe it is in their job descriptions to be rude and arrogant to people. I filled it out and went to another immigration officer, a nicer one. I was not going back to that A-hole. One of the questions they asked was if I had been to West Africa in the last 21 days. Like they couldn't check the stamps in my passport to figure that out? My layover was not boring at all because not only did they have free wifi but they also had desks that had IPads for use and charging stations. You can browse the internet and order food all on the IPAD while also keeping track of your flight. Very innovative!

The flight to Paris was 8 hours. I slept majority of the time. Upon arrival in Paris, we were taken by a bus from our gate to border control. That line was long but surprisingly, it moved pretty fast. I believe I was in line for less than 30 minutes. Oh another peculiar thing, we were not asked to complete any immigration or customs cards for France. I even asked the flight attendant before I exited the plane and she said, "We are not doing those anymore". I thought it was so odd because how are they supposed to keep track of the people coming into their country? So anyway, when it was my turn at the immigration officer's desk, she took my passport, flipped to a page, stamped it and gave it back to me. She did not ask any questions such as "what is the reason for your trip?", "where are you staying?", you know the usual immigration questions. She just stamped it and I was on my merry way. No wonder why the line was moving so swiftly. I bet they will be checking closely as to who comes in and out after that attack a couple weeks ago.

I was meeting Chloe and my friend Jackson in Paris. Jackson came the night before and Chloe arrived an hour after I did. I had to wait for Chloe at the airport so we could go to our apartment together. I found out the hard way how big that airport is. We both arrived in terminal 2 however they have several terminal 2s, Terminal 2a,b,c,d,e,f,g etc. I arrived in 2a and she arrived in 2 e I believe. It literally took me an hour to walk to her terminal. I later found out I could have taken their train. lol We were staying at an apartment we found on Airbnb in Paris. It was cheaper than the hotels. We wanted to stay in the city center so the apartment was the best option. We took Uber to the apartment, about 30 minutes. Uber was a bit pricy however it was still cheaper than a taxi.

We were now in front of the apartment building but had no idea where to get the key for the apartment or where to find our host. The host told us before arriving to ask the shop across from apartment for the keys but the shop looked closed. Luckily, a woman walked out of the building. A french woman! She did not speak a word of English and when I say she did not speak a lick, she couldn't even say hi. You should have seen Chloe and I trying to recollect all our french lessons from primary school. Chloe later took out her phone and showed her the reservation of the apartment, then she said "ahhh mio!", Finally! We had been trying to communicate this to her the whole time. She then went across the street to the shop and grabbed the key. This woman was still speaking french to us, all we did was nod and smile. We had no clue what she was talking about. The apartment was cute and just as described. Again, she kept yapping at the mouth in French while pointing to things. She gave us her phone number and the wifi information, the most important things to us. We had a plan to just text her about whatever we needed instead of struggling with the verbal communication. That conversation with her was painful. After settling in, we contacted Jackson to join us, who was staying at a hotel across the street. Let the galavanting begin!!

#PARIS #FRANCE