Since our flight to Paris Beauvais was from Dublin, we slept over at Mimi and Hiki's place that night. I invited Lala for a sleepover catch up session (haha suka hati je. rumah, pakaian dan makanan disediakan oleh Mimi dan Hiki), and naturally that night was spent gossiping and facebook stalking secara berjemaah. It felt so good to catch up with everyone. The friends I made in KMB are the best friends I ever made in my life so far.
The next morning I had to take a cab at 4am, and I woke up with a slightly biol head because I stayed up late lying on the bed with the three girls, talking about random things and worrying about my BB which had dropped in the bathroom and went swooshing dead on me. I took everything out (cover, battery, sim, memory card) and put them in front of the fan heater to dry, and it turned back on alright that morning. Phew, alhamdulillah.
Our first destination as we got off the airport shuttle was obviously our hostel, to drop the heavy luggages at and check in. It was a good thing that Mas have been to Paris before, and therefore was a pro at manouvering herself around the Paris underground. Despite the admirable frequency and punctuality of the trains, we could not help noticing that the stations we were at smell like piss (we later realize that this is the case for ALL metro stations throughout Paris). I'm not talking a vague smell like the one you'd get from a filthy toilet in the distance, I'm talking drunken-liters-of-pee-under-your-feet sort of smell. Yeah.
Anyway we got to Barbes Rochechouart station, and realized our hostel is right beside it, which was super convenient.
teknik lilitan tudung futuristik. also known as asal-lekat-atas-kepalaEven though we weren't pleased when we realized our 'en-suite' rooms include a bathroom that has a sink and a shower sans toilet, we were pumped for Paris and headed right out after freshening up and praying.
First destination: Montmartre Basilique du Sacre-Coeur
To be honest we don't know and don't really care about the history of this church, we climbed up the pretty narrow roads of Montmartre simply for the view (my first Eiffel Tower sighting!). I'm not normally a bimboistic tourist who takes pictures with things I know nothing of, I promise. I just don't care much about Europian churches' histories (with a few exceptions).Montmartre was the town in which we all bought our first macaroons, after hearing people talk about it endlessly. So this picture happened:
wajah minta penamparWe got back home pretty late that night after going shopping for food in Carrefour (things are bloody expensive in Paris!), having dinner at a Kebab place and fetching the rest of the group who arrived from Sheffield in Gare du Nord, the KL-Sentral of Paris. In what I'd like to call a true Cork spirit (bukan kami-pelajar-miskin-spirit...bukan bukan), we walked around the city trying to figure out if we could just walk to our hostel from Gare du Nord instead of taking the metro. It turned out that indeed we could, and it's just a 10minute walk away!
That, was the night we all realized our hostel was located in a very rough area, with (many) black men lining the streets shouting at each other and checking us out as we walk past them. I was scared, obviously, but I put on a brave face, clutched my handbag in a grasp that was way too strong, and walked in a speed fast enough to get me to the hostel asap, but not too fast that I would appear as though I was running.
Either I am just a racist person who is inexplicably scared of black men, or Paris is just generally a terrifying place at night.
I'm thinking both.
xoxo
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