European Adventures: A Nightmarish Travel Story (Part 5)

So we were in Paris now. BS and I took a taxi to our hostel which was called -no joke- Hostel Peace and Love. So, needless to say, we were expecting a pretty peaceful and loving time there. Not so. We go up to the counter, give the lady our names, and an apologetic look crosses her face as she flips through the reservation book.

"I'm so sorry, but we don't have a reservation for you. But there is something we can do- it's our cheapest option- you can stay on a mattress on the floor of someone's room- it's only 10 Euros each!"

Now, at this point, nothing surprised us. Even though we had made our reservation months in advance, paid a deposit, and had our receipt with us. We were beyond the point of arguing.

"We'll take a look at the room and let you know."

So we head up 5 flights of the narrowest, steepest stairs I have ever seen, and find ourselves in a TINY, TINY room. There were bunkbeds against one wall, and there was barely enough room on the floor for them to shove one single bed mattress on the floor. Apparently, my sister and I were supposed to share the miniscule mattress. Just then, two twenty-something guys stumble through the door with wine bottles in hand, taking occasional swigs. They managed to slur:

"Hey! Roomies! Awesome! We'd offer you some wine, but we don't have any glasses- we're just drinking out of the bottle..."

I don't know what BS was thinking, but being molested in the middle of the night by drunken 22-year-olds was kinda what was crossing my mind. We took one look at each other, and BS and I were out of there so fast that those guys probably forgot we ever came.

We managed to get a room at a nearby establishment- I guess you'd say hotel, but crappier. They never changed our sheets, a homeless man lived outside and grabbed my sister's leg, and the elevator could barely fit the two of us in it. It was like an oversized dumbwaiter. Not fun.

The only thing we ended up doing in Paris was seeing the Eiffel Tower. We took the stairs to save a few bucks. Yes, we took the stairs. Up the Eiffel Tower. I don't think we could walk again for days.

By this point, our trip was going so poorly that we decided we needed to do something drastic. We needed some magic to turn this trip around. We needed...DISNEY. So we hopped on a train to Disneyland Paris, checked ourselves into a nice, luxurious, Disney hotel, and we were on our way to happiness.

Was everything happy in Disney? Of course it was! Hot showers+hair dryers+comfy beds+ rides+Mickey Mouse= my personal heaven. I can't remember if we spent one or two days there, but it was bliss.

One day in the parks, however, BS and I decided that we were in need of a giant pretzel. Desperate need. The kind of craving that cannot be ignored and cannot be satisfied by anything else. So we went around the entire Magic Kingdom determined to find giant pretzels. We tried asking all the (French) cast members where we could find pretzels, but they didn't understand what we were saying. We had no idea what the French word for "pretzel" was, and no matter how many people we spoke to, they looked at us like we were crazy. After an entire day of searching for giant pretzels, we decided to go to this German restaurant called King Ludwig's (or something like that) for dinner. And what was on the menu, but giant pretzels! That is when we made this discovery:

The French word for "pretzel" is "bretzel."

We were one letter off! One fucking letter. Why couldn't anyone understand us? We had even been air-tracing the shape of pretzels, but to no avail! If some foreigner came up to me and asked me for a "fapple" or a "porange," I think I would pretty quickly realize that they wanted a piece of fucking fruit. I don't know if they genuinely didn't understand us or if they were just be snobby French people. I'm guessing the latter.

Anyways, we ate our giant pretzels for dinner, and all was (temporarily) right with the world.

(to be continued...there's only one more story, I promise!)