Showgirl Story Time: Paris Trip 2019 Day 3

Hello and welcome to another show girl storytime! Day three of my Paris trip 2019. So we spent the night at the little town outside of Paris where Paris Disney is, and in the tiny little room. The next day, my feet were so swollen and blistered beyond belief. Because of wearing the wrong shoes and walking with those shoes, through the Denver International Airport, Washington DC airport Heathrow, and then all the way to the train station and all the walking. We were walking like 10 miles a day, and I was wearing those really not great walking shoes, so (whispered) lesson learned. I sent my love to find a pharmacy to find some epson salts. And he, I couldn’t find him. And then the scariest part was I could not get ahold of him because, again, we did not have phone service or WiFi. It was actually really scary to be somewhere where we were very unfamiliar with where we were and then we made the choice to separate. And I sent him out. I stayed in the room but it was getting close to checkout time so I was like, “Okay, I’m just gonna pack everything, and hopefully he’ll get back.” He was gone for maybe an hour and a half. And he said he went to six stores and he tried his hardest to find Epsom salts and I was like, clearly, he was not communicating or something. Like everyone knows what Epsom salts are! Apparently not! Before we went, we had a lovely breakfast of more like brunch. And of course, with every meal you can order wine or champagne or beer, if you’d like. So I was like, fuck it, I’m just gonna go have a little. And they’re the tiny little splits bottles. Basically like two glasses of wine, or one and a half I think. And so I had that, and this lovely avocado thing. I don’t even know what it was called, but I just, I just kept trying to read French, and that was fun. That was that was an experience for me to try to figure out what the heck I’m seeing. And it was inside this mega mall that was unreal. After, after brunch we we walked a little bit around that Mega Mall, got to see some really weird things. A line, to get into Gucci, with a security guard. It was, it was very interesting. My favorite was passing by the Repetto store, Repetto, is a brand of pointe shoe I used to wear. They actually are, you know, designers, they make dance wear and I believe they started making fashion wear. So they had a beautiful little shop with a tutu. That was just fun to see because it brought me back to being a little girl wearing Repetto pointe shoes And then we made the trek to the train station, which seemed shorter this time even though my feet were dying, and I was wearing those awesome Disney flip flops. We finally got to the train station. So we got on the right train there, it was literally 20 or 30 minutes. One thing that I was told was pickpockets they’re the best in the world in Paris, and I saw a lot of them it was really interesting. And there was, you know, just, they were, they would work together, and you would see them try to split people apart, but it was really interesting to watch them and Phelyx, you know he, in his work has to do some certain things that are related to pickpocketing. And so it was, he kind of, he kind of knew what to look for. And I just, I just basically just, you know, I would look people in the eye. I was told “ya gotta look people in the eye.” But then I would just, you know, avoid them. Avoid their, their gaze. So it was a really interesting 20 minute train ride to the center of Paris, where our stop was for the Airbnb. I started to get smart and plan, plan the whole trip, before we left. Basically plan the whole day like, “where are we walking?,” and “how do we get there and what’s the next step if we’re taking a train?,” “which trains do we take?,” “which direction is the train going?” And so it was like it was funny for me because I, I haven’t done that, ever in my life. And so I’m like, you know, 40 years old, and “where am I?,” “where am I going?,” and I had to plan it out every day. And so what I did, because I didn’t have the WiFi, I took screenshots of every single step of the maps. So once we got to the stop we were supposed to get off at, for the, off of the metro. Which was really cool that I got to see the art nouveau sign the Metropolitan that was just really freaking cool. Once we got off on the stop and we got through the web of craziness. I cannot believe how intricate those there’s, there’s ramps and there’s stairs to go different trains. I was blown away. It’s literally like a web, under ground. I was blown away by the intricacy of the Paris Metro. So once we got above ground, and saw the streets, literally are like points, so like you have a street and the building is like a triangle. And then there’s the street on the other side or it was a one way, there was roundabouts everywhere, it was pretty freakin cool and I wish I had more pictures. We went to the address that they told us to pick up the key for the new Airbnb. Which was about a 15 minute walk maybe? It was basically across a park. We just had to cross through this beautiful, huge park. And so we went and we open up the lockbox! Empty! there’s no key in there. And that was the only instruction. We didn’t even know where we were. And so I immediately tried to get on my phone, see if I could find WiFi, see if I could contact the host. And it turned out it was a business, that literally was right there. So they heard me freaking out and talking to Phelyx in English. And someone came in poke their head out, they’re like, “do you need help?” And that was a cool thing about Paris! Everyone was always like, “do you need help?” Whether it was English or French, if we looked like deer in headlights, someone would stop and say, “Can I help you?” It was beautiful, like I, everyone said “Bonjour!” It was it was just, just, everyone was so, like there was connection there was like you’re a person and I’m a person and let’s have a chat. So it was really freaking cool. Someone just poked their head out the door and they’re like, “do you need help?” And I said, “we’re supposed to check into this dreamy flat on Airbnb, the key is not here.” And they’re like, “oh, oh, okay.” And they said “come in here.” So I go into this, it’s a business, so there’s like this it’s a very small narrow room. Because they were like all, it was very close together. But it looked like there was a big, you know, retail window and it looked like a business. There was, you know you could see pillows and bins of toiletries and, you know, pillows and linens and all that. They were like, you know, cleaned and laundered and ready to go or in bags ready to go to laundry. So it was a business they were running, and there was, let’s see. I didn’t meet the actual guy who is the host, but I met two of his workers. And they were, they spoke English just fine. And it turned out that our, our apartment, or the flat that we were supposed to stay in wasn’t ready yet. So I don’t know exactly what happened, but they said, “Please come back in an hour.” I was just like “I told you what time I was coming,” and I was tired, again, I was exhausted. So we went to the park and had a cute little carousel. You know, with music and ponies and there was a there was a submarine that was really cool, just really cool little merry go round. And just got, we just sat on a park bench, and watched people. And we watched them enjoy their day in the park and it was so lovely, there was, there was mothers with their children, there were grandparents with their children. There were lovers. You could just see the fabric of Paris was just like coming alive and it was just like, we were sitting there and just taking it in. It was so amazing. So during that hour, we stopped at a pharmacy to try to find or find some Epsom salts, for me. So I finally found a worker that spoke English, and of course everyone tried to help me but I couldn’t understand what they were saying they couldn’t understand me. So finally found one who spoke English. It is tiny little corner building, again like the corner of a building where two streets connected three streets, and they had the sign the green plus sign. And I was like, “Is this?” and it said pharmacy in French like it’s pretty much very close to English. So I was like “okay that’s interesting, because that has a whole different meaning.” In, in the, the green states, I should say like Denver. So every time you see a green plus sign in Denver, it means you, it’s a dispensary. So, in Paris, it’s a pharmacy. So we went in and I looked and couldn’t find anything. I looked in the footcare, and there was nothing really that looked like it was the thing that I needed. So I talked to someone and I said “you put,” I said “you put your feet and it, it, it helps relieve pain.” And she didn’t understand that she said “effervescent?” And I said, “Oh yes, like an effervescent!” You know I said “my feet hurt.” And so she said “okay, we have, it’s not here, it’s coming later today we’re having an order, delivered.” And so I said, “Okay, I’ll be back later.” So then we went back, We got our, we got our keys and then we went to the flat. And here’s a little video clip of going in the building which was also unreal. And then there’s this huge, I don’t know what you would call it to solarium? atrium? It was an atrium, full of like live trees really old live trees. It was it was magical! And was really quite interesting because this building was partially a business, partially a living, living spaces. And it had been converted from whatever it used to be, I can’t remember they had said what it was. But it’s a very, very old French building, and we were on the very very top floor, and it was just an odd experience. It always, it felt a little bit like the Shining. Just empty and scary. We never saw another person enter or exit from there so that was really, really weird. I didn’t know that anyone else was in the whole building and it was a huge building. Basically in the shape of a triangle. And then that the atrium was open to the elements. So, once we get settled and unpacked in this cute little flat that is like a studio it has a room and then it’s open, you see the kitchen, tiny tiny tiny kitchen, and then the shower. Which is literally like a postage stamp. So no sex in the shower that’s not an option. I thought that was really funny though I was like oh my god I can barely like open the door, squeeze in, and then like close it behind me. It was, it was really tiny. So just FYI, the, the bathrooms and in water closets in Europe are pretty tiny. Not used to that another culture shock thing. And so then we had WiFi again and we planned our first romantic Paris dinner. We went to a place called Vaudeville, Cafe du Vaudeville. And we, we took a metro there, and then walked the rest of the way. And that, of course, you know, was an interesting experience just seeing more people, people walking down the streets with baguettes, literally just like walking home from work, you know. And this place, just looked beautiful. And we sat, because we were like, “Let’s have the French patio experience.” We decided to sit on the patio, which is where everyone else wanted to sit. So they stuffed us by this couple. The woman was chained smoking the entire time and I don’t smoke, I can’t stand the smell of smoke. And she was right next to me and I was just like, like literally like I would say a foot from me. And the tables were so close together it was hysterical. It was comical trying to get, watching them bring out the big trays of like seafood platters and the buckets of lobster and things that they were bringing out. Buckets of champagne, and all these people were like crammed in. It just was funny. But it was it was a beautiful dinner I wish I would have sat inside to enjoy the Art Deco. I think it was art deco style? Yeah it was art deco, the whole inside this, it was stunning! And the reason I chose it was because I was like I want to see that place it looks beautiful. There were so many restaurants I wanted to eat at just because I wanted to just sit inside the building and the history and just take it all in. But we chose this one for our first first mea. Of course we had snails, escargot. And then a whole giant seafood platter with like shrimp, a lot of shrimp, mussels, clams, what else do we have, crab. I think there was some crab legs, but everything was cold and that was weird to me. I’ve only ever had hot seafood except for like oysters. Oh! We had oysters too. So it was a it was an interesting experience. And then we got to see a couple just dancing, just to dance. It was just beautiful. Then we made our way back on the metro to our little Airbnb and got ready for the next day, which was the first day of the reunion. So thanks for listening to day three, traveling to the center of Paris, and hope you tune in for day four, which is, first day at the Bluebell reunion. See ya!