My First Trip Report Ever: Paris!!
 

Ok....before I start, because I know this will be a VERY long post, I just want to say THANK you to all of you who helped with my questions and preparation for this trip! I used so many of the tips and so much information that I found on this board while I was away, it made things so much easier! So a big thank you to everyone!

Ok, so let me give you some details about who I am and who my travelling partner was...My name is Layla, I am 23, student, my travelling partner is my boyfriend's sister Cristina, she is 19 and a student as well. We had about 1200 Euro for the 8 days that we were there, and that was to cover the balance of our hotel, meals, attractions and entertainment/souvenirs. We stayed at Hotel du Commerce for the first 7 nights (14 Rue de la Montagne St Genevieve in the 5th) and Hotel Trois Couronnes for the last night (30 Rue De L'Arc Du Triomphe in the 17th), I'll explain why we switched later on.
Here we Go..........

Day 1) May 21

We flew Zoom Airlines from Montreal-CDG. Our flight left on time and was pretty smooth, a little bit of a rocky landing, but pretty uneventful. We managed to sleep for MAYBE 45mins on the plane. The plane was an older Boeing 767, and I know that coach=sardines but this was the worst ever! LOL we could barely move and I'm only 5'2 and Cristina is only about 5'1!!
The fare was only 400$ for our flight, and the staff and crew were excellent. The food was a chicken sandwhich w/ cheese and chocolate bar, and then for breakfast (it was an overnight flight) we had and omelet with hashbrowns. It was not bad at all.

After landing we made our way to the RER station and took RER B from CDG to St. Michel/ Notre-Dame, the cost of the ticket was 8 euro. Once we arrived at our stop we walked for about 5mins to our hotel (Hotel Du Commerce).
After we checked in, and got out key we asked what floor we were on. I had heard from tripadvisor.com reviews that this hotel has quite the narrow, winding staircase so I was curious to see what we'd have to deal with. The lady at the desk answered us by telling us we were "Avec les oiseaux" which means "with the birds"........she wasn't kidding!!!!!! We were on the top floor (there are 5). The staircase was a real adventure!! First of all, we totally overpacked and our luggage was way bigger than it should have been, and 2nd of all we were running on no sleep, so making our way up the stairs (and there are LOTS of them!) was not fun, to put it nicely. But hey....we better get used to it, were were there for another 7 nights!
After plunked our bags and ourselves down for a second.....adventure #2 began LOL! Before we left we had booked tickets to Michael Buble's concert at Le Zenith for the night we arrived.....the thing is we checked in at 3pm, the concert started at 8pm and we had to get ready, find the pick up location for our tickets, have something to eat, and make our way there....if we were at home and rested this would not have seemed like such a daunting task but on another continent, exhausted, and disoriented it didn't seem so simple. Nevertheless we made it through without any hiccups...We pulled ourselves together, headed out, grabbed a baguette and hopped on the metro (Maubert Mutualite stop is only 50 meters from our hotel, we headed to the Virgin Store in Gare De Lyon, picked up our tickets and walked around the little shops in the train station to kill time and then we hopped back onto the metro and took it to our stop on line 5, Porte De Pantin.
Once we were there, we had about an hour before our show so we walked around the area, took some pics, and then headed to the concert hall. The hall is called Le Zenith, it's a relatively small venue, with about 6000 seats.
As we were in line to get in, we saw that they were checking everybody's bags for cameras....OH NO lol! We are tourists, of course we are going to have our cameras with us! When it was our turn we told them about it right away and then they directed us to a booth where we could drop them off and then pick them up after the show. We got to the booth, and the man working there simply told us not to worry, and let us take our cameras in with us! Good thing because we used it like crazy in the concert, hehehe!
The show was AMAZING!! Michael Buble is one of my favorites and before we left I had been talking about how amazing it would be if we would be able to see him perform in Paris......and guess what? A few days before we were to leave Cristina saw them announce on Entertainment Tonight that he was kicking off the European leg of his tour in PARIS, on the 22nd.....It was meant to be!
The opening act was another popular Canadian artist, Jann Arden. We were happy to see her as well, but I don't think many of the people in the audience knew who she was.
The crowd at the concert was very quiet...not like concert crowds in my home town! We were so excited, and were yelling and clapping as he was coming out onto stage, and the woman in front of us turned around and gave me the nastiest look....so we quieted down a bit, just a bit! LOL
Our seats were great, they were Categorie 1, and cost 69 euro, worth every penny!
One thing that I found so interesting was that the vendors that sell snacks and drinks in the concert hall were selling baguettes!! yes baguettes! Back home we have the usual popcorn, hot dogs, chips and junk so this was pretty fun for us to see!
Ok enough about the concert....lol, after it was finished we took the metro back to our stop (Maubert Mutualite) and we were starving but there was nothing open within walking distance except......I know I am gonna get razed for this........I'm scared to say it.....ready??......ok, McDonalds....yes yes I know, we were in France, but it was late, we were tired and hungry and it was there....Ok so now everyone knows....that wasn't so bad! Haha!
After we ate we headed back to our hotel where we thought we would be able to have a peaceful nights sleep....HAHAHA....time for adventure # 3!
As we turned down the sheets and bedding, we began to notice that there was an abundance of hairs peppering our bed....human hairs....the yucky kind! LOL....thankfully we had brought our own fitted sheet and pillow cases, we figured it would be a good idea since we were staying in a Budget Hotel and didn't know what to expect. We put our sheets and pillow cases on and got ready to get comfy, but, yes you guessed, our comforter was "hairy" as well so we used our towels as blankets. Well, at least we tried to. Needless to say that night was not so fun, on top of the fact that we were freezing, Cristina was homesick and actually sick with a stomach ache so we only ended up going to bed by about 5am. I didn't set the alarm for the next morning cuz I thought it would be a good idea for us to sleep in a bit.
When I opened my eyes in the morning I felt as though I had only been asleep for like 20 mins, so I figured I would check to see what time it was, thinking it was around 9 or 10am......boy was I wrong....It was 2 in the AFTERNOON!!!

Ok so this is where I am going to end it for now, I'm sure you are all getting a little tired of reading my novel LOL...I will continue with Day 2 later on!!
Talk to you soon!

Oh My God..Hairy sheets and blankets...yuck...

Couldn't you just get them to give you clean ones? I realize it's budget and usually you give up some amenities for budget but you shouldn't have to give up cleanliness.

At least you had a good attitude about it and you did have a nice evening out. Me I would have moved to another hotel as soon as possible. So I give you a lot of credit for enduring that.

Looking forward to more on your trip..

Hurry please! I have to find out what you did about the HAIRS. ewwwww!

Well, you have the "attitude is everything" down really well but NO ONE should have to deal with hairy bedding! (shiver) I hope to read that you dealt with it the next morning.

Enjoying your report and looking forward to more.

Well, there's not a LOT good about getting old..eh..well olDER, but one of the blessing is thankfully I don't have to stay in "budget" hotels. The hairs..OMG. BUT, on the other hand, thats one of the GOOD things about being young..you can roll with the punches better. Bless your little hearts..will be looking forward to further adventures.

Bless your hearts!!! Can't wait for next installment.
Totally understand about concert...I got to see Springsteen too in May...

Hi guys....I'm back!! Haha, can you handle more of my rambling??

TheVagabondLady: You know what, when we got home everybody said the same things as you did. I suppose we could have asked I don't really know why we didn't but I guess I can always just look back on this and laugh about it later on!

Ok JMO754 here's more for ya!! lol

Day 2) May 23 (we left montreal on the 21st but it was an overnight flight so we arrived on the 22nd which makes day 2 the 23rd in case u guys thought I was skipping a day!)

Ok, so after our first horrible sleep in our "hairy bed" lol, we dragged ourselves out of bed and got ready to go, it was nearly 4pm by the time we left the hotel, so we lost a big chunk of the day, but I guess our bodies needed it.
We started our day off with a stroll around our arrondissement, the 5th. It really is a beautiful area, with so much going on and so many cute things to see. We headed towards the Seine and I made my first purchase, a painting of paris in sepia tones, I love it!
After that we headed to Rue Rivoli where we did some shopping. Shopping was one of our big priorities because its something that we love to do. Needless to say we loved Rivoli. Its full of nicely priced, trendy, pret-a-porter clothes and we bought a few souvenirs and cute things there.
Once we had emptied our money belts on Rivoli (just kidding! lol) we wanted to go take a look at the Eiffel Tower. We were considering going up, but the line was ridiculous so we both agreed that we would do it another day, we still had time.
We walked around the tower, took some pics and then we headed to the 6th where we had some chinese food at a little restaurant called Petit Hong Kong on Rue Francis Gay. It's a cafeteria style restaurant and we had the Menu Welcom for 7 euro which included 4 nem, sweet and sour porc, fried noodles, and fried apple slices. It was pretty good, and the price was excellent.
After dinner we walked down the street and stopped at Creperie Des Arts for a Nutella Crepe. This was the first time I had tried Nutella.....delicious!!!
Since we were just across the river from Notre Dame we took some nice night pictures of it from a distance, it looks beautiful at night time.
Here comes adventure # 4....lol...ok so we were like a 10 minute walk from our hotel, but we sort've got a little disoriented and had to ask someone for directions. He told us to walk down St.Michel and then we would hit St. Germain (from St. Germain we thought we would be ok cuz it takes us right to our hotel.) So off we went...we got to St. Germain, turned right and thought we were almost there. We kept walking and walking and we thought it was really strange that we hadn't seen anything familiar yet, so once again we asked someone for some help....little did we know we had turned right onto St. Germain when we should have turned left so we walked about 30mins in the wrong direction, lol. Thats ok, we got some exercise and saw a bit of the area.
On our way back to our hotel, we decide that since Rue Monge was only 1 street over from us that we would check it out because Maison Kayser is on that street and we wanted to go for breakfast there in the morning. We took a peek, and even at midnight when it was closed you could still smell the amazing aromas from inside. We were so excited to try it the next day. We got back to our hotel at about 12:15-12:20am and tried to get some sleep. By this point we had caved and couldn't bare using the towels as blankets so we shook off one of the thin blankets that was on the bed, removed as many "things" from the blanket as we could, and went to sleep.

Ok, thats all for now! Thanks for reading!! Talk to you guys soon!!

aucho53...please don't say "things" your making it sound more awful by the minute..LOL...

It's just that you paint this picture in my head that if you could see the picture I am envisioning you would be going ewwwww...

One also has to wonder that if the sheets and blankets and probably pillow cases were in this condition what about everything else in the room.

STOP !!! I'm starting to itch..,

LOL, That's awesome. I love your enthusiam in you reporting. I remember when I was 19 my first trip to Europe went to Amsterdam and stayed at a hostel for 5 bucks a night. There was black mold on the walls and ceiling-gross.We slept in our clothes gloves and all. Dad gave me a gold amex card strictly for emergency use ONLY. Snapped some photos of the mold, next day used that card and checked into a swank hotel. My mother agreed it was an emergency.Dad wasn't too happy.

my goodness,brings new meaning to fluffy bed sheets! Can't wait to read more!

Thanks for sharing, Layla.

Hi, enjoying your report very much, more please.

Great report, aucho :) I had a similar experience in a hotel in Nice. I was with my parents on a group tour, so we didn't choose the hotel ouselves. I remember that (17 years later !!) and I laugh a lot but I think I would scream if it happens to me now :)

eeewwe... (scratch, scratch... gives me the heebie-jeebies...)

What fun to read a report of travel in a very different style than I've done for a long time. Good for you, you sound like a couple of troupers.

Great report - but I sure as heck would have been down to the front desk immediately to ask them to find me another hotel right that minute ... no one needs to deal with bedding "things" ugh !!!

Layla,
What a delightful trip report and how great to be young and adventurous :-)How nice that you got to see Michael Buble while you were in Paris!

Sandy

Thanks for an ITCH-ertaining report :)

We're also flying Zoom to Paris (from Toronto). I'm not expecting a lot of legroom, but hey, you can't beat the price! We'll be there in late September, and really looking forward to it.

Love your intrepid spirit, aucho53!

Sitting here in bed reading your first (and very good) trip report, I considered how I would feel if there were leftovers from unknown occupants scattered about the sheets.

Then, I asked myself, "Where would you rather be? In this big, CLEAN, comfortable bed facing Monday morning at the office or in Paris with the Hairs?"

Gotta go with the Hairs. Followed by an immediate change of hotels.