AMEX Relations

London, England and Paris, France
The plan was to wake early and leave London for Paris aboard the Eurostar. Instead we woke late, around 9:00, and packed our lives back into our bags. The continental breakfast consisted of croissants and orange juice. Satisfied with our meal we meandered the undergrounds of London, navigating our way to the Waterloo Station where this bullet train would travel beneath the English Channel and on to Paris. I slipped in and out of consciousness as we sped in excess of 150 miles per hour. The time and countryside flew by until we entered France.

We had many decisions to make as far as where to stay the night and then how to get there. With the Lonely Planet in hand, we stood confounded in the Paris Nord train station in front of a map of the sprawling city. Noticing our confusion and accent, two American travelers asked, “Wassup?” They were gregarious and wanted to band together to combine knowledge and increase numbers. They would become Stuart and Nick. To me, they were Zeph and Sammy from The Beach. The similarities were striking, both loud, from California, and liked their weed and women. Our adventure could only be enhanced by the addition of these cats.

The assorted hostels we called all were full. A dodgy character handed us a pamphlet to an even dodgier hostel, Med Hostel. It was our only lead, so we took it. After a metro, a bus, and a walk, we finally arrived. Along the way we managed to pick up a young straggler named Daniel from Virginia. The five of us negotiated a room together for 99 francs apiece from a guy dubbed Toofless, for obvious reasons.

After a quick change of clothes and removal of backpacks, we set out to do Paris. But we had to keep in mind the doors to the hostel closed at midnight and it was currently 8:00pm. The metro took us to the legendary Eiffel Tower. We ogled at its magnificence. The lines to climb it were long so we opted to do that another day. Grass parks extend for blocks off the base of the tower. This is where people relax, sleep, play football, and generally just hang out. We walked along far enough so we could fit the whole tower in a picture.

In search of sustenance, we moved on. The cafés and bistros were all full, but we managed to find one and instead of butchering the French language (not that we knew any) we gesticulated what we wanted. It was the Le Pierrot and we ordered off the menu not knowing exactly what we were going to get. We drank the mandatory wine that one must while in Paris. With fresh grins and ruddy cheeks we partook of our meals, which turned out to be quite nice. I had the salmon with lentils and was pleased.

Stuart and Nick wanted to check their email because they had a friend that they were going to meet, so they parted ways after dinner. Brad, Daniel and I clumsily navigated the metro again. We were getting concerned because midnight was rapidly approaching and we didn’t want to sleep in the park because the doors of the hostel were locked. I don’t know if the wine helped our hindered the frantic sprint from train to hostel, but we got back to the Med with about a minute to spare and saturated in sweat.

In time we would learn that our run had been in vain because the doors remained open till nearly 2:00am. We attempted to cool off outside in the courtyard and it took some time for the heart rate to recover. After awhile Stuart and Nick finally arrived and they said they had been all over and on 10 trains trying to find an Internet café and eventually they did. They would have had to scale the wall and that would have been nearly impossible. What they had found out was that they were going to meet their friend the next morning at 10:00 at Notre Dame. While we were all sitting around talking Stuart befriended some fellow travelers that were staying with us. They turned out to be whom we called the Mexicans, mostly due to their having been born and raised in Mexico. The interaction was interrupted when Toofless made us all go to bed. Soon we would learn that going to bed didn’t necessarily mean falling asleep.

The wine, the adrenaline from running, and the warm night were all factors in most of us losing sleep. But the primary factor was the Mexicans who talked hours into the night loud enough to keep us all up.