And then the wedding was over and we were leaving

Time to head onwards to London!  The morning of, we bid everyone goodbye, and Pokin promptly forgot half her suitcase worth of stuff behind.  We failed at finding a gas station but succeeded in getting on a train from Avignon to Paris en route to London.  Not that we actually made it to London though.  Unfortunately our flights were cancelled for missing the original outbound and we were met with an error message when we tried to check in to our Air France flight.

One unfortunately drawback of the villa was that it was without internet, so Pokin and Nicholas were unable to find alternate arrangements before this moment.

So it was that we found ourselves in Paris at 5pm trying to find a way to London.  The two cities look so close on the map!  You figure that would be easy!

Well unfortunately flights were now $500+ a person.  At least there’s the train!

Somehow nobody told the trains that they were actually an inferior method of travel and thus ought to be priced more affordably.  Because it turns out tickets for travel by train the day of were also about $500 a person.  Well at least we could take the bus!

We looked up information about the bus and found out there was a station about a  20 minute walk away.  So we hauled suitcases towards the bus station only to find out that it would be a 9-hour bus ride.  Oh and also they were sold out for that day.

Well great.

Lucky for us there was still a midnight bus available.  So we had the pleasure of paying more and sitting in Paris until midnight to catch this bus.

But a midnight bus meant we missed our check in time for the London hotel.  I see a trend.

Why bonjour, tourist capital!

Well I made it to Paris.  Two missed flights, one missed shuttle and a missed hotel later.  Some time around 5:00am, my bear bud rolled me into a bag for our morning flight.  By the time we actually got to our hotel though it was more like 3:00pm.   I thought we were going to a nice hotel but instead we arrived at a tiny hotel that required hauling our suitcases one at a time up a tiny elevator fit for one and then into a the tiny room.  Whatever, I’m not carrying the luggage.

Time to see Paris!  Nicholas has a thing against taking the metro.  So we started by taking the metro.

First stop, Tour Eiffel.

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I wanted to see if this was the type of monument I wanted built in my honour.  One look at the lineup and I decided my time was too valuable for lineups.  So I made my bud walk us to the Arc de Triomphe.

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Ah better.  I could use an arc engraved with my name and all my victories.  From there, we walked past some future house ideas —

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— and to the Louvre — because I must have blown up the Louvre in some game.

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Before ending at the Notre Dame.  I wanted to see the hunchback.  We didn’t find him.

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And that’s how you do a walking tour of Paris in 4 hours hours.  Good ideas for monuments for me.  Good ideas, mind is churning.  Nicholas I hope you took notes!

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