A Bad Night

So the start to my Paris trip didn't go so well. My plane arrived ahead of schedule at 10.30pm instead of 11.00pm which was great. I was actually worried it was going to be late because I had sussed out that the metro stopped at 1:15am. I was excited that I might get to bed at a reasonable hour. I went hunting the metro and found the train station instead. Fortunately there was an information person there with pretty good English but when I asked him where the metro was he said it was "very far away". But that couldn't be right because I had checked and there was line that went right from the airport to the stop close to the hostel. He told me where to go to take a bus so I went there. At the bus station I learnt that the metro was out of action due to construction. Instead I had to buy a bus ticket to an over ground station that I would then need to buy ticket for a train to take me to the station I wanted. The bus ride was quite expensive too. Luckily there were heaps of information people around to keep guiding me in the right direction. I got to the train station and waited with a bunch of other people. A train came and I double checked it was the right one with one of the staff. On board there was a map confirming it would take me where I wanted to go. Win. Then a man started yelling stuff in French and everyone started getting off. I asked what the hell was going on and someone told me the train was broken and we had to go to a different platform. I followed everyone there and hoped they all wanted to go to the same place as me. Inside the train there was the same map so that was ok. The train was really slow and I was getting really tired. I finally arrived at the station I wanted at about 12:15. Meow. Now I just had to find my hostel. I had a couple of crap maps and kept getting confused. The streets in Paris were being all crazy and shit with a whole lot of roads meeting at a point, and bugger all of them were on my map. I got very lost. Then it as 12:30 and I seemed to be in a dodgy part of town. A few people asked me for money but one guy got really pushy and started tapping my pockets. It was going downhill quick. But after a few minutes I managed to get away from him. I was getting really tired. I also hadn't eaten anything since about 6pm so I was getting pretty hungry too. Part of me wanted to push on and get myself out of the mess I had got myself into. I was reminded of twalk, where you have to make critical decisions and think logically when your mind is just screaming for sleep. But on twalk you aren't really risking getting mugged. Keep in mind I had everything on me and I had my tablet out because it had the only maps I had on it (I really should have got a paper map but I knew the hostel would have one, and I was expecting this was gonna be easy). Another guy came up to me and said "this is a really messed up place, I help you, I help you". That was it. I would swallow my pride and catch a taxi. Easier said than done. Even taxis with green lights on the roof weren't stopping for me. This sucked really bad. I was trying different places and I was tired and my pack was getting really heavy. Finally a guy stopped and knew the place where I wanted to go. Thank christ. The back of the taxi was so comfy I almost fell asleep in it. I got to the hostel at about 1:30am and crawled into bed. Despite everything I was determined to make the most of Paris the next day and intended to get up early and get to the louvre when it opens to beat the crowds. I checked on the internet and it opened at 9am which wasn't too bad. Then I saw that it was closed on Tuesdays. Part of me was glad I didn't have to race for it and part of me was a little bit more guted at how the night had turned out. I had had enough. I would set my alarm for 8:30am and do a walking tour at 11am. To sleep I went at about 2am (sorry mum for being so short when you said hi on gchat! this is everything that had just happened!).

It was really hard trying to get to sleep as my head wouldn't slow down. Lots of weird thinking that merged with dreaming, then I was awake for some reason and there was some very loud snoring. This was bad, it was 4am and it was so lout I wasn't sure if I could get back to sleep. I thought I might be able to and just tried to relax. Then another guy seemed to try to out-snore him. It was a terrible symphony. They also kept tagging in and out for breaks so there was always someone making a hurr of a racket. I wanted to put my earplugs in but then I was worried I wouldn't wake up to my alarm and waste the only day I had in Paris. About an hour later I gave up and got up and got my earplugs. I think I might have woken everyone else up in the dorm but I was a bit past caring. With the ear plugs in I went straight back to sleep.

Then I heard something ringing really loudly. I thought it was an clock alarm but it kept going for ages. I was drowsy and kinda confused and I worried that my phone had done something wacky and made a different alarm sound I took my earplugs out and it was almost deafening. Then someone turned the light in the room on and my eyes hurt. Bloody hell. Then the ringing stopped. Then the light went out. There was no snoring so I took my earplugs out to be safe. I think it was about 5am. Then there was knocking at the door. It was a guy from reception. There were some expletives and a girl jumped up and ran to the door. I think she had overslept and there was a taxi waiting for her. She smashed around for about 10min while she got her things together and ran out the door. Then there was ringing again. I was awake enough now to realise that it was the phone in the room. The phone stopped. All was quiet. I was drifting off to sleep again and kinda got woken up by a banging sound. Somehow I figured out that it was pissing down with rain and the gutter was broken so it was landing heavily on the tin roof outside the window beside my head. Somehow I went back to sleep again.

At 8am everyone else in the room and started packing their stuff up so the alarm at 8:30am was not really necessary. And so ends one of the worst nights in my life.