Hey there Member!
Welcome to Day 1! I am so excited to share this journey with you! In September 2019, my love and I made our journey across the pond to enjoy an unforgettable, once-in-a-lifetime experience that will go down in Showgirl history and carry on the Showgirl Legacy. Please comment below with any thoughts or questions you have about this video or any in the series. Enjoy!
Athena
Hello and welcome to another show girl storytime!
Hey there welcome to day one of my trip to Paris 2019. So, day one was our travel day, and I believe. Gosh, it’s been a year so I’m making this video literally a week before I’m going to share this with you. It’s been a year. And I know, I know that I hate flying so I remember that had to get on two planes. And the first was from Denver to DC, which wasn’t that bad actually I was pleasantly surprised. And then we flew all the way from Washington, DC to Heathrow Airport. And then we took the train to Paris.
So, I hate flying, I’ve hated flying since I had a I had an experience a scary experience on a plane when I was 18 years old. I was flying home for Christmas and flying from Vegas to Denver over the Rockies is always turbulent. And I used to be fine with turbulence until one time the plane just literally felt like even (sound effect). And so that was really scary for me and ever since then I’ve been afraid of flying. I mean I flew to Russia and back when I was 16 years old all by myself. No problem. But I went to Paris, the very first time, I flew to Luxembourg, first, All by myself, and it was terrifying, so that and that was only three years later. So it’s amazing like how experiences can change you.
So, I did all of my meditating and breathing and special things to get me through any kind of turbulence I went through. And, luckily, the bigger the plane, the less turbulent, it is. And so, the trip from DC to Heathrow was fairly smooth, except that we were trying to avoid a hurricane. And so we were, we were going really, really far north first and then back down to England. So I always watched the trip on the screen and everything. And the really cool thing about the second leg of the trip, first like, you know, I just had to have a whiskey and that’s fine. Of course it was like seven o’clock in the morning. The trip from DC to Heathrow, we got upgraded. Our accidentally because they switched the plane out to a new plane which was, I think it’s called the Dreamliner. And so, the seats that we had selected had put us into a row that was actually in a special cabin. That was like economy plus or something I can’t remember it was a new, new thing and it was heaven.
Next time I fly to Europe, I would love to go like first class or business class, even. Because just being in that economy plus, and having the extra six inches of space on either side of my leg, and more space between me and the row ahead of me. It was, it was heavenly, and it was just it made it so much better to be flying, even though I hated flying. So it was lovely, and I stayed awake, almost the whole time. Because I was terrified. I tried to sleep.
So anyway, we got to Heathrow and Heathrow is a pretty large airport. And when you’re an international traveler, it was really actually very somber and serious in that place. And I know it’s because there have been many bombings and the security was very onpoint. Holy goodness, like you felt secure. Like everything, like the machine and technology that they have for security was unmatched, I think, in the world. Going through Heathrow was an interesting experience, and it was a lot of walking. Like it took us 20 minutes to get from the gate to just to get to the customs, and so that was an interesting experience. We didn’t have any issues.
And then we were like, Okay, I was told that to get from the airport to the train station to take the train to Paris, that goes underground, under the English Channel. I was told that it was easy to find really wasn’t that easy to find, and it wasn’t attached the train station was not attached to the, the airport. It was, it was an hour away. An hour walk and train ride. So we had to walk out of the airport to the train station that took us to St. St Pancras Cross, which is right across the street from Kings Crossing if your Harry Potter fan. We did actually go there and check it out, but because of security we weren’t actually allowed to go to the platforms. So we did get to go inside and check it out and see, you know, the double decker buses and, and then just a little bit of London.
I really wish that I would have planned an extra day into that trip to go to to to spend a night in London that would have been amazing. Next time. Next time. I do not recommend flying in and then taking the train to Paris. It is, it is exhausting. So I left enough space to get from the airport to the train and then we just literally laid there dying because it was been already the next day we arrived the next morning. So we lost a day basically just in our traveling. We left on the 27th and got to England on the 28th.
And then, it was the train ride. The train ride was only, I believe is our half or two hours from Heath, or not the Heathrow sorry, St Pancras all the way to the outside of Paris. And I can’t remember the name of the whole town but it is basically where Disneyland Paris is which is a little bit east of the center of Paris. So we took the train all the way through, we stopped in all of the little towns. And it was funny, as soon as we went underground, the language on the intercom became French. We no longer knew what we were doing, and we were in the wrong seats, and no one could tell us where we were going or what, and I was just like I just hope this is the right train. Oh we’re going underground now. Okay, I think this is the right train. So when that when we heard the French, and neither of us speak French, which was a whole challenge in itself. We got underground and then up to Paris, and we had literally no idea where we were and how to get to, to our Airbnb that we had booked.
It wasn’t that bad. It was only about a 20 minute walk so about a mile from the station, which is right at Paris Disney, was the station. And so we just, I just tried to find a map and I can’t remember, I think our biggest challenge that we experienced was that we didn’t have Wi Fi, or cell service. So, our phones didn’t work. Our phones couldn’t tell us where to go. And so then I had to get to a place that had free Wi Fi, which wasn’t a thing, as much as it was when my ex husband went to Europe, eight years ago. There was not free Wi Fi everywhere, but he said it was not easy to get around.
So we found our way to the Airbnb, and then finally connected with the people that we were supposed to meet the host, and we got in. And we got into the Airbnb. It was not a good start to my trip. My love and I were like at odds. We were very upset. We were hangry, cranky, tired, like they were all the things that we were experiencing. And I just wanted to be in Paris and be in love and be excited, but we were just so tired. Because we didn’t sleep very well on the plane, and we did sleep a little bit on the train. We felt safer for some reason, I don’t know.
So, once, once we got to the Airbnb, we decided that food would be the best idea, and then sleep, and it was like four or five pm. And then, we knew that there was a mall. A little bit, like a five minute walk from the, the Airbnb. Which had a bunch of different restaurants. And so we chose Spanish tapas as our first French meal. It was a lovely little restaurant, I can’t remember the name of it but it was fun, and we, we were like tired and hungry, and so we had our whiskey and our beers, and our tapas, and then we went straight to bed.
And then I see, I believe that I should have bought my tickets the night prior to Disneyland. I didn’t buy until the next day, there was a discount if I would have bought ’em the night before. I would have saved probably like, $100. You live and you learn! So FYI, if you ever go to Paris Disney, buy your tickets ahead of time. And don’t buy ’em the day off, because it’s a pain in the ass. So, yeah, that’s day one. Are you exhausted yet? Stay tuned for day two of my trip to Paris. See you next time.