II | Oui & Wee

Note:

(5/10/22) Before I begin with this post about my time in Paris, I just want to clarify something a bit about my last post. The way I spoke about myself may have made me sound like I’ve been some sort of super depressed, unhappy person my entire life. But this isn’t the case at all. On the whole, I’ve always been a pretty chill, simple living and happy guy that really loves his life for the most part. I have a lot to love and live for. As long as I’ve got nature near me, friends and family, keeping myself fit and playing video games now and then - I’m very easy to please. People who know me well should be able to see that much from the outside. I’ve just always had confidence issues within myself that I never truly acknowledged until I was an adult. That truly stemmed all of this negative will I had towards myself, I was my own biggest enemy. My confidence issues always bothered me a little, sure. When I was younger though, I just used to just accept that that’s just who I was. Then in time I really let it begin to bother me. I let this kind of small dark cloud develop in to this massive storm by the time I was in my mid-twenties and it just started to get the better of me, that’s all. 2021 and the beginning of 2022 were really tough on me mentally, I knew something had to change. I wanted to find something that made me feel as though that I was being thrown in to the wild to see what I can do, to really test my confidence and make grow as a person. I used to think things like “oh I couldn’t possibly travel internationally by myself” even though that’s something I really wanted. So what better way than backing myself in to a corner and impulsively deciding to live on other side of the world with no plan? Best thing I’ve ever done.

Travel talk time! 

23/9/22-25/9/22

Paris!

Can’t say that I’m too eager to do an overnight bus from London to Paris again. Between sitting next to the noisiest, most obnoxious woman on the entire bus, flashing her torch every five seconds and having to go through borders at 12am then a get on a ferry at 2am and off it at 4am. I wasn’t very well rested for Paris when I arrived there at 5am not knowing where the hell I was with my phone about to die thanks to not having a EU adapter! Unprepared dumbass. My original bus was meant to arrive at 7:30am, a much more ideal time, but it cancelled the morning of my trip where I had to rebook for another one, no worries! Anyway, that was an experience. There wasn’t really anything to do in Paris at that time of the morning as everything was shut. So I just walked around the area until I found the earliest opening café around. I had a cappuccino and a croissant, naturally. 

I stayed at the Generator hostel for two nights. It was a nice hostel, but blimey it was expensive. I bought a pint of Birra Moretti from the bar, which isn’t exactly top tier beer, it was equivalent to $15NZD / £8! I didn’t really get to know anyone from my hostel due to language barriers, I was kind of surprised that I didn’t really encounter many people with strong English at this place. It all felt kind of strange with it being my first ever stay in a hostel, I wasn’t quite sure what to think of living like this at this point since I felt like had no one to talk to. 

Like most cities, with Paris you do need to go and find the better parts as there are it’s fair share of shit and dodgy areas too. Where my hostel was based wasn’t that entertaining or appealing so I quite often used the metro underground service to get about, which thankfully there was an underground entrance right next to my hostel. It was pretty cheap and handy! €1.50 could get you to the other side of the city. I enjoyed walking about a lot once I found Paris’ nicer areas. 

I won’t say that I fell in love with Paris, but it was pretty special that I got to go there. I figured it was a good place to start my European tour. Things like listening to the typical French music being played on the streets, like what you’d see in movies. Going through alleyways with those tall old buildings filled with cafes, expensive clothing stores and restaurants. Watching lots of people chill out on the green in parks always gives this nice and wholesome feeling. I walked around and checked out a few ancient buildings, monuments, etc. which is always fascinating. Also, everyone dresses so sharp and nice here! I swear I was only person in France wearing shorts. I actually began to feel insecure about my choices of clothing over here! My personal favourite experience of Paris was looking at the Eiffel Tower and it’s lights glow at night time. Not only because of how beautiful it looked with the clear night sky, but the atmosphere and everything else that was going on while I’d look at the tower. People were sitting on the grass down below the tower having a drink. Or they were up high to get a good view of the tower from afar. It was just awesome to see so many people enjoying this too. People would start jamming guitar and start playing to artists such as Ed Sheeran. Being around the tower is nice during the day too, but there’s just something very magical about looking at the Eiffel Tower at night, I know won’t forget that.

Like most cities in the world though it ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. There’s quite a bit I didn’t like about Paris too. Without going there, you’d picture Paris as this dream of a city to go to, now that I’ve actually been there I feel it’s anything but. 

People are always spitting on the ground and so close to you as well, just why though? There’s a pretty bad homeless problem there, well at least the worst I’ve seen on my travels so far. It’s sad to see. There’s tonnes of them that sit next to ATM’s and hassle you for the cash that you’d just taken out, which feels uncomfortable. You can’t exactly bullshit them and say you have nothing on you this time! People who work for those “charities” on the streets are shocking too, much more persistent and rude compared to back home. I usually ignore them in general anywhere in the world, but one less obvious looking lady who I didn’t realise was a charity worker came up to me and asked if I spoke English so I got sucked in to that one. “This is just a signature, right? No money involved?” “Yes dear, oh god bless you, god bless you!“ as she kisses her fingers and taps my shoulder multiple times. Thank you, I feel very blessed now. So I sign the dotted line with my name and country of origin among all the other list of names thinking it was some kind of simple petition of sort. “So how much would you like to donate dear?” “Eh?! Fine here’s a Euro.” She and her colleague see a 20 peeping slightly from my wallet. “Ohhh you have a 20! We can break it, we break it!” Bloody hell, rookie mistake. I just gave em’ the euro and took off. That was my first lesson about how much more forward these types of people are compared to New Zealand. About 90% of Paris smells like piss too I swear. Sit in a train? Smells like piss. Sit on a park bench? Smells like piss. Put your head under water? Smells like piss. When you think of Rotorua back in New Zealand, you can’t not think about Rotorua without thinking about the smell of farts and eggs due to geothermal vents there, right? I’m now unable to think about Paris without thinking about the smell of piss! Except it’s actual piss I’m smelling, slightly more revolting. 

Overall, my two nights in Paris was an ok time. I will say after staying there for two nights that I was pretty prepared to move on. I notice that my latest phrase I usually say these days is that “it’s all an experience.” Which it is! Even though I’ve talked down on Paris a lot, it doesn’t mean that I didn’t actually enjoy my time there. There’s positives and negatives for sure, but at the end of the day I’m going in to this journey with hardly any expectations. I’m just happy that I’m finally out here doing this. I’m aware that I’m not going to fall in love with everywhere I go. I’ve never been a big fan of cities that are of that scale very much anyway, so it would have done well to blow me away without any flaws. It was the beginning of my European stint and I enjoyed just walking about and getting lost, finding cool things to see. 

I’m shocking at using French greetings by the way. My idiot brain is so used to pulling out the “g’day mate, how’s it going” while ordering a coffee, where I then quickly go “oh shit sorry! bonjour!” The French in general supposedly hate the English, so it’s best to use a bit of French even if you then have to explain how you speak English. I’ve never been anywhere where English has been a second language before as well, which made for quite an experience trying figure out how to use things and where to go! It’s kind of annoying but honestly I enjoy that side of it, trying to figure stuff out and making it through.

I don’t think I’d want to go back to Paris as a solo traveller, but it might be cool to go for a weekend one day with a future partner or friends and just go all out on restaurants and bars. 

Next up is Lyon as I head down to the south of France.