My First Time in Paris
I wish I could tell you that all travel is glamorous! That you step off the plane feeling like a million bucks and get to walk around with beautiful music playing in the background like some sort of montage that you see in a cheesy chick flick. But that's not always the case. There is such a thing as a bad trip and boy do I have a story for you. I was originally going to call this blog 24 hours in Paris but I decided that instead of just sharing the one good day that we had in the city of love, I wanted to be super honest with you all and share the whole story… all of it. So let's start from the beginning.
Two years ago I went backpacking through Europe. I had just started dating Austin and we decided to be spontaneous and travel all around Europe for a month. We had no plan whatsoever, two giant backpacks, and an app that would show us the cheapest train, bus, and plane tickets that day. For the most part, it was amazing! I mean what girl wouldn't want to be traveling through Europe, falling in love and eating yummy food. Then Paris happened…
We arrived around noon at the Paris train station. Having just spent a few days camping and drinking our body weight in beer at Oktoberfest, I decided to do something a little special and I surprised Austin with a really fancy hotel. I wanted one night of pure Paris luxury and that is what we got. It must have been a really funny site for the hotel staff to see two young, hungover-looking backpackers checking in to one of the fanciest suites. But it being my first time in Paris, I wanted to go all out and most importantly, I neeeeeded a room with a view of the Eiffel Tower. It was totally worth it!!
We spent the rest of the stay enjoying all of the luxuries, from the spa to the room service! We ate our first real Parisian croissants while wearing comfy robes and staring at the Eiffel Tower… I don't think I could have been any happier in that moment.
After we checked out, we headed to our Airbnb that we would be staying in for the next two nights while we explored Paris. I wish I could have stayed in the hotel but ya know, backpacking for a month means budgeting! The Airbnb was sort of like a studio apartment. It was one room with a small attached bathroom and a loft style bed. To call it tiny would be generous, haha but we didn't care, all we wanted to do was get out an explore. We spent the entire first day walking to every corner of Paris.
A little secret, Paris has really great public transportation but we didn't know about any of that so we legitimately walked for hours but it was such a fun way to really see everything. Not to mention, we found some of the most amazing bakeries and restaurants just by accidentally walking down the wrong street. We even found, what can only be described as, the holy grail of croissants. It was a little bakery and the baker spoke no english so Austin busted out his french to get this bad boy! 10 out of 10 would recommend just wandering around if you have some spare time in Paris.
Everything seemed to be going amazing. I mean we had had a fairytale first night in that hotel and now we were eating some of the most delicious goodies while standing next to the Eiffel Tower. Could things get any better? No… but boy could they get worse. That afternoon snack was our last good memory of Paris because apparently, we had picked up a NASTY travel bug from Oktoberfest and it was determined to destroy us.
Austin was the first victim to fall and I crumbled soon after. The way this bug worked was that it was like having an insane hunger mixed with the worst case of food poisoning I had ever experienced in my life. I will spare you all the details but just picture Austin and me, both fighting over the toilet in that super teeny tiny apartment. Have you ever had to use the restroom in front of someone you had just started dating? Yeah, it's awkward, isn't it? Neither of us wanted to admit what was really going on, but those thin walls didn't leave much to the imagination. Let's just say it was truly a crappy experience.
Instead of having a romantic picnic under the Eiffel Tower, Austin and I spent the rest of our Paris trip held up in that apartment REALLY getting to know one another! At least we got to have one last cup of coffee before we had to catch our flight the next day. Now I have had many bad experiences throughout the years but this one will forever go down in history!
