I'm sorry to tell you this already, but this is going to be a boring post. Just turn around now.
Our train from Lausanne to Paris left at 6:24 this morning, and I was not prepared to be up before the sun. Of course we got lost on the way to the train, but we didn't have as much trouble this time. We got on the train with 24 minutes to spare and there was finally enough space on the empty train to put our in the luggage area. I was starving after my cup of coffee with two milks and two sugars so I ate a waffle that I bought at the COOP last night. It was delicious!! It's a German waffle called "Be Waffle" that had pockets of uncooked sugar in it. I have another waffle for breakfast tomorrow and I'm totally looking forward to it.
The train was almost completely empty until the Dijon stop which left a mornign stillness for me to admire the Swiss and French countryside. The Swiss countryside is so green and spotted with dying sunflower fields and corn crops with brown and white spotted cows. There were lakes and rivers clothed in a dewy hazy that made the land look like a haunted fairytale. It was too bad that I was too tired to truly appreciate it.
We arrived at Gare de Lyon and hailed a taxi. My broken suitcase handle made getting an appropriately sized taxi slightly difficult, but we managed. On the way to the hotel (the Ibis at Père Lachaise) we passed the metro stop to the ACCENT center where I'll be checking in tomorrow. I was excited, but my nerves are slowly growing. It was only 10:30 so we were way to early to check into the hotel. We stowed our luggage in the luggage room and went for a short walk. My mom's feet were hurting so we turned back after a few minutes.
Then we went to a grocery store just to look around. There was a lot of cheap food (about one euro) which reassures me that I can manage to eat and travel on my ten euro a day budget. We bought more cheese to go with the baguette that we bought yesterday and mom got olives for herself. While we were there the song stolen dance by milky chance came on inside of the store. I had fallen in love with the song while at home for the summer and thought that I wouldn't hear it for a long time. It was so surreal to hear it playing in the grocery store of another country; it also happens to have influenced the title of today's post.
We went back to the hotel and checked into our room. There's no coffee or toiletries in this hotel, and we had trouble figuring out how to turn on the electricity; you have to use your room key in a slot next to the door in order to turn on the power. This is the weirdest room configuration that I've ever seen. The entrance into the room is blocked by the door to the bathroom, and there's a separate door into the bedroom. At least the room is fairly large, but there's only five tv channels none of which are the cartoon network. The walls are also thin; I can hear our neighbors talking while I write this.
We took at six hour nap and then lounged around the room for awhile. I ate one of the brownies that we brought with us from home. Then we went out to find dinner. The neighborhood was a ghost town when we were out this morning, but it was alive by the time we left the room at about 7:30. We walked around for a bit and then decided on a chicken kebab sandwich and some noodles that we have yet to eat. The kebab sandwhich was delicious and came with fries with ketchup and some kind of white sauce for only five euros. It was huge, and I could definitely eat it for two meals and stay under my daily budget.
After dinner we watched The Last Mimzy on youtube because we were tired of watching the news in French. Tomorrow is the big day so we're heading to bed. If I don't have to stay at the center my mom and I might travel to Fontainbleu.
Wish me bonne chance!
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