Homesick....
May. 4th, 2011 01:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jebbypalWhich, wow, never thought I'd be posting that so soon. I mean, last year in Barcelona, I was stressed, but overall not homesick.
Paris - well, so far, the redeeming feature of bread I can eat is not making up for ANYTHING else. Although the coffee taste better to me than in Barcelona (slightly less strong).
Let's see if I can manage to do a proper cut...
1) It's been kind of a disaster since I started packing. While packing, I had to unpack no fewer than 3 times when I "lost" an item and couldn't remember where it was. And yet, somehow, I still managed to arrive over here sans lipstick even though I KNOW i put it in my purse.
2) Hired car almost had a wreck when taking me to the airport because he started to take the wrong exit by habit and then switched suddenly. Not cool.
3) My airport gate was directly downwind of the duty free perfume store. All I can say, you better know what fragrance you want before you go in there, because there's no way you'll be able to smell an individual one once you enter. Also, fragrance-sensitive people would be eternally grateful if YOU KEEP A LID ON YOUR FRAGRANCES WHEN YOU SELL THEM. Gaaaah.
4) RUDEST PEOPLE EVER ON THE FLIGHT. I won't generalize as I don't know 100% the nationalities, but I had people trying to push through me when I was clearly stopped while trying to get my suitcase in the overhead and then I had to announce it very loudly that this wasn't my seat as they continued to try to push around me after I was done. Geez - you know we're going to be sitting at the gate for 15 minutes at least since we're the back of the plane, you'd think you could have a little patience waiting to sit down.
5) row-mate in my aisle just decided to climb over us all without even letting us try to stand when she decided she wanted to talk to someone before the flight even left.
6) very cranky 2 year old through entire flight 4 rows up from me. He sounded like he was in pain. I was very glad I didn't give in and switch seat's with a guy's gf that would have put me right next to the child though
7) Paris airport. Nice, not too shabby. I was completely destroyed though as I'd had tea at the airport to combat a migraine (thanks weather and duty free perfume story), and so hadn't really slept much at all and had been up for over 18 hrs at that point. So after getting my bags and starting the trudge in direction of taxi signs, a guy stopped me and asked if I wanted a cab. I figured what the hell. No problems in the cab until we pull up at the hotel and he tells me the price. I figure I must have misheard him from the accent and the ticket looks like it says 75 and so I hand him 80 euros. He corrects me and says, no, it's 120 euros, and its that because it's a sunday.
WTF?? 120 euros is like half the cost of my hotel room for one night. I was just floored, but payed it. Lesson learned - never get in cab without asking the price first. This isn't the first time, but hopefully I've fully learned the lesson enough that I won't let exhaustion make me stupid again.
8) get to the hotel. Drop my bags off. Hotel is okay, but not really a typical chain. Concierge was less than helpful when I asked for recommendation of coffee shop - just shrugged and indicated all around. Found one though. Proceeded to walk around looking at stuff for a couple of hours before migraine plus allergies really kicked in to make me miserable. Attempted to eat somewhere and was ignored for over 10 minutes. Finally found a convenience store and bought a cheese sandwich and a chocolate croissant.
9) Migraine lasted all night and I slept like shit.
10) Went to hotel breakfast in basement - 12 euros for the equivalent of what would be a free continental breakfast in the US. Plus, basement was so moldy/stuffy that I had problems trying to drink my coffee for all my sneezing.
11) I'm in a no smoking room, but I finally figured why my allergies just wouldn't quit without me taking claritin D (thank god I packed some). The floor is not smoke free and so when my neighbor lights up at night, my sinuses start to swell.
12) Rest of Monday went fine, and had lunch/dinner w/ client with no problems.
13) Tuesday morning, I figured I'd get up and go to the hotel where the interviews were being held early in order to have breakfast at the hotel restaurant. Which advertised on its website to offering breakfast/lunch/dinner. Arrive, restaurant is maybe, maybe 15% full. One waitress directs me to another waiter to be seated, and he asks for my room number. Upon hearing that I'm not a guest, he refuses to seat me as "the hotel is full". WTF? I was not caffeneited at all and figured if I tried to fight I would get rather nasty quick and so I just left. Then walked around looking for place to sit and have coffee and maybe a croissant. Which, there were lots of places, but was trying to look to see if it would be a fast place (and reasonably priced since I still have the 120 euro cab fare hanging over my budget). I proceed to get lost for 40 minutes, have mega blister forming on my feet (as apparently, walking around a mall for 6 hours is not the same as walking > 20 blocks in 2 days). Finally get my bearings and manage to find another convenience store that is selling chocolate croissants and water for VERY reasonable price (as in, total was 1/4 of what a bottle of water in my mini bar costs even though the water i got at the store was 2x the size of my minibar water).
14) return to interview hotel to sit and lobby and wait with 15 minutes to spare. Am begrudgingly offered a coffee by the staff and I'm very happy as I'd like to avoid another migraine from coffee withdrawal that day. Upon receiving it am told the coffee costs 6.50 euro. Which is more than my freaking bottle of water and croissant. And it was just plain coffee - not espresso or anything else.
15) Interview goes fine, head over to conference to finally register with plan to stop at Louvre food court to grab lunch. Of course, the place I decide on in the food court turns out to not be open yet but the staff makes me wait around 10 minutes as they chat before deigning to inform me. I'm beyond pissed off (caffeine + carbs = bad glycemic mood swings) and so just head back to hotel. Promptly drown my sorrows in reading instead of doing some work and as all I eat is more carbs end up with another migraine oh joy.
16) did meet my boss for dinner where we both proceed to bitch about how much we hate paris. the aleve I took before dinner, some meat, plus 2 cups of coffee mean that my midnight my migraine has died to a headach. Finish my work by 2 am.
17) sleep in this morning in order to try to avoid another migraine.
18) finally get out of hotel by 11:30 in search of food in order to also see if I can actually find noncarbs to eat in order to avoid migraine. Most of local places had stopped breakfast already and had very heavy french food on the menu which was not what I wanted. 4 blocks away I stopped at another place that had food. they were out of croissants but still had fresh bread so I had that and scrambled eggs with coffee and hallelujah it tasted and felt good. Body is 100% happier, and I've found a place that will at least serve me, even if it still lacks service with a smile. That alone actually got them a good tip!!!
19) Cannot wait to go home. This continues my experience of european hotels not having washcloths, but at least I brought my own this time (and they haven't stolen it! I think it would have disappeared in Barcelona as they seemed to have a specific vendetta with me and washcloths). While bathtub does have flexible shower wand thingie, the fixed attachement in which to place it when not using it is located at knee level in the bathtub meaning that I get to freeze my ass off when showering. I still haven't figured out how I'm going to approach leg shaving as the idea of a bath in a hotel tub is very disquieting to me (I've not been a bath person in a very long time, and have had too many friends get infections from shared tubs before).
On the other hand, I will be very happy to return home on Saturday to an apartment that I desperately need to clean. And more ecstatic to do my food shopping and cook something "light".
Here's hoping that scotland and london are immensely better just for the fact of having mostly the same language and not having French waiters.....
Paris - well, so far, the redeeming feature of bread I can eat is not making up for ANYTHING else. Although the coffee taste better to me than in Barcelona (slightly less strong).
Let's see if I can manage to do a proper cut...
1) It's been kind of a disaster since I started packing. While packing, I had to unpack no fewer than 3 times when I "lost" an item and couldn't remember where it was. And yet, somehow, I still managed to arrive over here sans lipstick even though I KNOW i put it in my purse.
2) Hired car almost had a wreck when taking me to the airport because he started to take the wrong exit by habit and then switched suddenly. Not cool.
3) My airport gate was directly downwind of the duty free perfume store. All I can say, you better know what fragrance you want before you go in there, because there's no way you'll be able to smell an individual one once you enter. Also, fragrance-sensitive people would be eternally grateful if YOU KEEP A LID ON YOUR FRAGRANCES WHEN YOU SELL THEM. Gaaaah.
4) RUDEST PEOPLE EVER ON THE FLIGHT. I won't generalize as I don't know 100% the nationalities, but I had people trying to push through me when I was clearly stopped while trying to get my suitcase in the overhead and then I had to announce it very loudly that this wasn't my seat as they continued to try to push around me after I was done. Geez - you know we're going to be sitting at the gate for 15 minutes at least since we're the back of the plane, you'd think you could have a little patience waiting to sit down.
5) row-mate in my aisle just decided to climb over us all without even letting us try to stand when she decided she wanted to talk to someone before the flight even left.
6) very cranky 2 year old through entire flight 4 rows up from me. He sounded like he was in pain. I was very glad I didn't give in and switch seat's with a guy's gf that would have put me right next to the child though
7) Paris airport. Nice, not too shabby. I was completely destroyed though as I'd had tea at the airport to combat a migraine (thanks weather and duty free perfume story), and so hadn't really slept much at all and had been up for over 18 hrs at that point. So after getting my bags and starting the trudge in direction of taxi signs, a guy stopped me and asked if I wanted a cab. I figured what the hell. No problems in the cab until we pull up at the hotel and he tells me the price. I figure I must have misheard him from the accent and the ticket looks like it says 75 and so I hand him 80 euros. He corrects me and says, no, it's 120 euros, and its that because it's a sunday.
WTF?? 120 euros is like half the cost of my hotel room for one night. I was just floored, but payed it. Lesson learned - never get in cab without asking the price first. This isn't the first time, but hopefully I've fully learned the lesson enough that I won't let exhaustion make me stupid again.
8) get to the hotel. Drop my bags off. Hotel is okay, but not really a typical chain. Concierge was less than helpful when I asked for recommendation of coffee shop - just shrugged and indicated all around. Found one though. Proceeded to walk around looking at stuff for a couple of hours before migraine plus allergies really kicked in to make me miserable. Attempted to eat somewhere and was ignored for over 10 minutes. Finally found a convenience store and bought a cheese sandwich and a chocolate croissant.
9) Migraine lasted all night and I slept like shit.
10) Went to hotel breakfast in basement - 12 euros for the equivalent of what would be a free continental breakfast in the US. Plus, basement was so moldy/stuffy that I had problems trying to drink my coffee for all my sneezing.
11) I'm in a no smoking room, but I finally figured why my allergies just wouldn't quit without me taking claritin D (thank god I packed some). The floor is not smoke free and so when my neighbor lights up at night, my sinuses start to swell.
12) Rest of Monday went fine, and had lunch/dinner w/ client with no problems.
13) Tuesday morning, I figured I'd get up and go to the hotel where the interviews were being held early in order to have breakfast at the hotel restaurant. Which advertised on its website to offering breakfast/lunch/dinner. Arrive, restaurant is maybe, maybe 15% full. One waitress directs me to another waiter to be seated, and he asks for my room number. Upon hearing that I'm not a guest, he refuses to seat me as "the hotel is full". WTF? I was not caffeneited at all and figured if I tried to fight I would get rather nasty quick and so I just left. Then walked around looking for place to sit and have coffee and maybe a croissant. Which, there were lots of places, but was trying to look to see if it would be a fast place (and reasonably priced since I still have the 120 euro cab fare hanging over my budget). I proceed to get lost for 40 minutes, have mega blister forming on my feet (as apparently, walking around a mall for 6 hours is not the same as walking > 20 blocks in 2 days). Finally get my bearings and manage to find another convenience store that is selling chocolate croissants and water for VERY reasonable price (as in, total was 1/4 of what a bottle of water in my mini bar costs even though the water i got at the store was 2x the size of my minibar water).
14) return to interview hotel to sit and lobby and wait with 15 minutes to spare. Am begrudgingly offered a coffee by the staff and I'm very happy as I'd like to avoid another migraine from coffee withdrawal that day. Upon receiving it am told the coffee costs 6.50 euro. Which is more than my freaking bottle of water and croissant. And it was just plain coffee - not espresso or anything else.
15) Interview goes fine, head over to conference to finally register with plan to stop at Louvre food court to grab lunch. Of course, the place I decide on in the food court turns out to not be open yet but the staff makes me wait around 10 minutes as they chat before deigning to inform me. I'm beyond pissed off (caffeine + carbs = bad glycemic mood swings) and so just head back to hotel. Promptly drown my sorrows in reading instead of doing some work and as all I eat is more carbs end up with another migraine oh joy.
16) did meet my boss for dinner where we both proceed to bitch about how much we hate paris. the aleve I took before dinner, some meat, plus 2 cups of coffee mean that my midnight my migraine has died to a headach. Finish my work by 2 am.
17) sleep in this morning in order to try to avoid another migraine.
18) finally get out of hotel by 11:30 in search of food in order to also see if I can actually find noncarbs to eat in order to avoid migraine. Most of local places had stopped breakfast already and had very heavy french food on the menu which was not what I wanted. 4 blocks away I stopped at another place that had food. they were out of croissants but still had fresh bread so I had that and scrambled eggs with coffee and hallelujah it tasted and felt good. Body is 100% happier, and I've found a place that will at least serve me, even if it still lacks service with a smile. That alone actually got them a good tip!!!
19) Cannot wait to go home. This continues my experience of european hotels not having washcloths, but at least I brought my own this time (and they haven't stolen it! I think it would have disappeared in Barcelona as they seemed to have a specific vendetta with me and washcloths). While bathtub does have flexible shower wand thingie, the fixed attachement in which to place it when not using it is located at knee level in the bathtub meaning that I get to freeze my ass off when showering. I still haven't figured out how I'm going to approach leg shaving as the idea of a bath in a hotel tub is very disquieting to me (I've not been a bath person in a very long time, and have had too many friends get infections from shared tubs before).
On the other hand, I will be very happy to return home on Saturday to an apartment that I desperately need to clean. And more ecstatic to do my food shopping and cook something "light".
Here's hoping that scotland and london are immensely better just for the fact of having mostly the same language and not having French waiters.....
(no subject)
Date: 2011-05-04 12:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-05-04 12:46 pm (UTC)It's always sad to be slapped in the face with the reasons that stereotypes exist. :(
On the other hand, I totallllly understand how travelers can get super excited to hear their own language in a foreign country now.