Paris - Day 1, Arrival

Salam..

It is early and both of us are excited.. It is our second day of our stay in Paris.. 'Bienvenue' is what the Parisian will offer the greetings of to excited faces of tourists.. I may just summarise the first day of our stay here in this short entry..

Departure

We left our warm and cozy home and had Mate to drive us to Shannon Airport and arrived just before 12.30pm.. We had checked-in online (to spare our €40 per head charge) and had to wait just about 10 minutes before the baggage drop counter opened to drop our bags.. We then had lunch at the cafeteria upstairs.. Maybe we had planned it just nicely that after lunch we made our way to the departure gate and did not have to wait long at any stop..

Interestingly, just when we were about to board the plane (literally!), an airport groundsman asked us if the bag he was holding was one of ours.. It did look like Ina's bag, with the same padlock! We claimed that it was ours, thinking that the chances of somebody else having the same bag with the exact same lock was very unlikely.. Looking back, had we not claimed the bag, somebody might well be spending the vacation in Paris with no changing clothes! Or it would even be that way had the airport staff not taken the initiative to ask whose bag it was because there was no bag tag - it could well be left in the airport waiting for somebody to claim it! Phew..

The flight was direct and took one and a half hours and we arrived at Paris-Beauvais Airport around 5pm French time (GMT +1).. We took the prepared bus to the centre of Paris (well, not exactly) and the drive took about another hour and a half.. Myself and Ina actually did manage to catch a snooze on the bus.. As we approached Paris city centre, we saw the traffic - dense and horrible! But we had planned not to drive here (plus the fact that the French are left-hand drive) so it was less of our worries.. We arrived at Port Maillot bus terminal around 7pm..

Hotel

We tried our best to orientate ourselves in the middle of this new place but had failed so badly - mainly because the bus terminal was not even in the map of our tour book.. Port Maillot was further Northwest from the centre of Paris.. So, we took a cab and headed towards our hotel.. By the time we arrived, it was just turning 8pm.. In fairness, it was still summery bright, so we were not bothered by the lateness of the time.. We checked-in in our little 3-star hotel, Grand Hotel de Champagne.. It was close to the Louvre Museum which we will be spending our time in today.. The hotel is not as grand as we had initially thought, but I think it will be enough for resting as we are not planning to laze in the room but to wander around Paris..

Dinner

We were excruciatingly starving at this stage, so we headed out to find some decent dinner.. We walked North-bound Boulevard de Sebastopol as we were looking for the halal fried-chicken shop up this road, only to stop halfway when we saw a very busy restaurant with some Arabs there running the show.. We saw the Halal Certificate at the door and decided not to go down further to find the fried-chicken shop .. I had a whopping 'grillades mixtes' and Ina had something else (I don't even remember the name!).. They were both basically grilled meat with chips and rice and salad.. We were then entertained by two cups of Arabian tea on the house to finish.. That settled the grumbling tummy!

Strolling down Les Halles

As we made our way home, we realised two things; one - how did people say they manage to finish Paris in two days? It is big and very lively; and two - finding halal food is actually much easier than we thought.. We treated ourselves to some crepes with Nutella chocolate and walked back to our hotel.. At that stage, we were all ready to call it a day..

Lively Paris - street performers

Looking Forward To Louvre

We hope to visit the Louvre Museum today and some other places, maybe spending the sunset watching the busy Paris traffic from the top of Arc de Triomphe.. Maybe we will be able to catch a glimpse of the wrought-iron Eiffel with the lights on when the sun settles for the day, bearing in mind we are approaching the longest day of the year in two days' time..

I will keep you updated..

Salam..