Saturday, July 28, 2012

Europe Series - Bonjour Paris! Part 1

In the plane on the way to Paris, i got fed a lot by Malaysia Airlines. About an hour after taking off, the flight attendants went around with salty peanuts, followed by drinks, from water, juices, coke, beer and wine, open tap :). Then dinner, then snacks, slept a while, drinks again, coffee or tea. Slept for a liitle while, and woke up because breakfast was served :). Man, i ate a lot!

Arriving at Charles De Gaulle (CDG), Paris at 6.40 am, 12 hours flight which i didn't really feel, i didn't have phone signals, both Indosat and Telkomsel. Oohh, i was so confused how i can contact my host. I tried the public phone, all in French :(. Rather than spending time on figuring out, i decided to go to his place asap. So, i went straight to the metro tickets seller and bought my one day pass for 21 euros. There was a couple of oma and opa from Australia who were in the same flight and going to same direction, Gare du Nord . So, i went with them.

Here is a website for CDG to Paris: http://parisbytrain.com/

My host's apartment is around 10 to 15 minutes walk from Gare du Nord, supposedly. I have had the map i printed at home, and the direction. I still got lost. I had to ask around, and the people were trying to help, even their English was not good, some even didn't speak English.

I met Antoine and he's very welcome me to his place, explain some things about his apt, and called Thierry so that we could meet easily. Then he went to work (he was actualy waiting for me!) I went with him to another closer metro station - Gare de L'est. 

At about 11 am the phone was ringing, and Ros and Thierry were in front of the apt. So, off we go to the first destinantion, Palais de Versailles. I used the one day pass metro ticket. The entrance fee for the palace was 25 euros.

Ros, me and Theirry in front of  The Grande Palace of Versailles.

The musical fountain at the palace.
We had lunch at this area. Thierry made us some French sandwiches, i had the ham :) Yummyyy..

I was still eating, while Ros is taking the photo and Thierry had finished his, was preparing his dessert. 

After more than 4 hours at the palace, we went to see The Eiffel Tower.

The tower was too high that it could fit in the photo from close distance.
The three of us in front of Eiffel Tower.

I didn't get to go up because we were in hurry, we had to come back to Antoine's for dinner, he was going to cook for us :).

So, after took some more pictures of the tower, we went to see Arc de Triomphe and the famous street Champs-Elysees. But i could only take photo of the arc. It was raining and we didn't bring umbrella or rain coat. But we saw many tourists were around the arc. Ros and Thierry said most of them would be Asians.



The rain was getting harder (but still nothing compares to the rain in Bogor), so we decided to come back to Antoine's apt earlier.

Antoine also invited maud, his friend who had visited Indonesia before. So, we were sharing stories about Indonesia. Antoine cooked Salmon, he said it was a simple dish, but for me it tasted very delicious. I had to try French wine and beer as well.




At about 11, Maud said good bye, then Ros and Thierry left after we made plans for the next day. That day was amazing. I met wonderful people and had an amazing new experience.