Arrivederci Cinque Terre, Bonjour Paris

This morning I got up at 7:30 and started the hot water for coffee while I took down my laundry from the line outside. Mira, Hannah, and Emerson were all up as well and we finished packing our things and making sure that everything was cleaned up before we left. Again we got a breakfast of yogurt and a croissant at the grocery store so that we could eat on the way instead of risking missing our bus down the hill to the train station. We were all a little paranoid about missing our flight to Paris because the trains in Cinque Terre never seem to run on time, so we made sure to have plenty of buffer time for the train to be late and in case there weren’t frequent trains for our connection from La Spezia train station to Pisa Centrale. We shouldn’t have worried quite so much because everything worked out just as it should and we arrived at the airport three hours before our flight and one hour before we could even get in line to check in. I spent that time reading my book and using my one hour of free Wi-Fi to check my email and Facebook when we weren’t waiting in line to check, go through security, or find lunch to eat before our flight.

We boarded our flight to Paris on time, though we had to wait on the plane while they finished putting fuel in the tank. I didn’t really mind waiting for the plane to fill up considering I would much rather the plane have enough fuel than not. The flight was an hour and twenty minutes, which I again spent reading. The flight went smoothly and we landed at the Orly Airport in Paris right on time. The first thing we all did once we had gotten in the airport was connect to the Wi-Fi, which was gloriously fast, and we sent messages to everyone who wanted to know that we had landed safely in Paris. Since we didn’t have internet in Italy we weren’t able to come up with a very comprehensive map of how to get to our apartment in Paris, so we went to the tourist information desk and had the nice man behind the desk tell us how to get there. He even gave us three maps of Paris and wrote on one which stops we had to get off and transfer at. We then got on the first bus that would take us to a metro station where we could take a train to the stop that we wanted.

After we made our way out of the metro station, which is below ground, we came out to meet the glorious sun and right before us was a huge gate and a four way intersection. We looked at the address we had for the apartment and then turned around to see what the nearest building number was, and to our pleasant surprise the door to our apartment was literally right behind us. It took us a few minutes to contact our host and figure out how to get in to the place and then how to get the keys, but we did eventually make it up to the very top floor to where our apartment was located. Our host’s husband greeted us at the top floor and walked us through the amenities that are in the apartment and where things are located and informed us that he and his wife would actually be gone until Sunday night in southern France. We thanked him and assured him we would be fine and he left us to sort out sleeping arrangements and plans for the next day.

Of course the first thing that we did, and as we always do when we have the opportunity, was to connect to the Wi-Fi. It was so nice to have a secure and reliable internet connection, and we spent way more time perusing the internet on social media and other things than doing useful planning. Eventually we realized we should probably eat dinner, so we went on a search of the restaurants nearby and ended up going to a French cuisine restaurant right across the street. I got a sphaghetti carbonara, which was a first for me, but I thought the egg yolk as a part of the spaghetti sauce was a brilliant substitute for a creamy texture and I plan to incorporate the dish into my dinner menu back in the U.S. The dinner ended up being 12 euro, which was about twice what we were used to spending, but we were hungry and would have paid more if we had to. Once we finished dinner we walked around the surrounding area and stopped in a grocery store to buy some laundry soap so we could do all of our laundry over the course of our time in Paris. Once we were back we started the most important load of laundry: underwear. In the meantime, Mira and I made a map on google maps of all of the things that we wanted to see in Paris, and few places to eat, so that we could figure out a plan for the next two days in Paris. It just so happens that Hannah’s best friend from high school is studying abroad in Paris, so Hannah left to meet up with her friend for a few hours while they were both in the same city for the first time in quite a while. Since we had internet I stayed up late talking with Hunter a bit before I finally couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore and it was time to go to sleep.