Alejandro.V: I fell in Love!

Well, not directly — although the French women were very tempting — but one thing at a time.

Wow, our exchange has already finished, so my college friend Adem and I decided to top things off with a return trip to Paris for the weekend.

As our accommodation was in a town near Paris, we had to take a taxi and instantly lost €20 because the driver took us on a detour due to roadworks on the way to Arpajion, the Town we stayed at. After that, we tried the metro. There was a tremendous amount of people at the station wanting to purchase a ticket, just like us. Our only option was to join the queue for an hour and a half, only to realize just before reaching the counter that you can buy the ticket on the phone. This meant leaving the queue and getting scammed by the app. Bye-bye €12 day pass.

Anyway, later that day, we explored the city, and I have to say that I immediately fell in love with Paris. We hired some bikes and visited the usual tourist attractions, such as Notre Dame, the Louvre, the Avenue des Champs-Élysées and the Arc de Triomphe. In the evening, we went to see the light show on the Eiffel Tower and found a cute little spot from which to enjoy it. We even met a German student there, and ended up spending the next two hours talking to her, just to realize that we would miss the last train to Arpajion, the little village where we were staying, remember? It was one o'clock in the morning, we were stranded in Paris, and to top it all off, both of our phones had 0% battery. Our only option was the night bus. The catch was that there was a transfer, which I was worried about because I was afraid it wouldn't come. I spent the next half hour sitting in a McDonald's with my phone charging, thanks to a couple who lent me their charger, calling everyone I knew to ask if they knew anyone in Paris, but nobody did. We could either stay the night in Paris like homeless people until the next connection at 5am, or risk it. We took our chances, and of course, as I had feared, the bus didn't show up. After all the bad timing and bad luck, the universe decided to have mercy on us, and the bus arrived 15 minutes later.

After arriving at 4am with only seven hours' sleep, we started the day with a croissant and a pain au chocolat. Today's plan was to visit Cédric Grolet's pâtisserie and watch the Tour de France finale. Because of the finale, we didn’t have to queue for long and got our hands on his mango and blueberry trompe l'œil. They tasted outstanding, but at 34 euros, it was a once-in-a-lifetime treat and I'll never do it again. After that, we walked all the way to the Champs-Élysées. After a few attempts, we found a spot from which we could see the riders pass. After waiting for an hour, we finally saw them: Pogacar and Lipowitz at the front of the pack, with the crowd going absolutely mental. After watching them pass five times, a storm started to build up and it began to rain heavily. The crowd didn't even notice, though. After 132.3 km and being absolutely soaked, it was time to grab one last overpriced snack and say goodbye to four great weeks in France.