Aug
12
travelling
Posted by: Natasha Chiang | August 12, 2011 | Leave a Comment
Travelling alone is stressful. It feels like I’m constantly on guard, always checking that I’m doing the right thing at the right time…
Almost missed my flight to Paris because the boarding time frame was only 10 minutes. I was lucky too, because I didn’t know what terminal I was supposed to arrive at (it wasn’t on my sheet) and I only found out because my friend also had a flight this morning from the same terminal… The flight passed by quickly because I was exhausted and took several short naps. The plane was really small, so it felt a lot lighter than the British Airway ones that I flew on to Africa.
When I arrived in France, I realized that I knew no French at all… and then I started to panic. It’s really frustrating having this language barrier… I ended up getting out at the wrong exit and then I walked all around the block. The block was a really sketchy/dodgy area, and it was really hard to get my directional bearings on, knowing that I could be attacked or something randomly. I was so close to tears after almost an hour of walking around, going into shops, travel agencies, talking to security guards about how to get to my hostel. Finally, one nice guard pointed me in the direction of the train station I arrived at originally, except that this entrance had information staff. The metro here was also a lot more confusing than the London underground… but once I figured it out, I felt a lot better.
I arrived in Paris at 11:30am. It is now 1:30 pm…
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What I love about travelling is how the experiences always challenge the way I think about and navigate the world. I arrived in Paris today expecting a glamourous city, and it was a little disappointing to see that it was quite … simple. Maybe I just got out at a plain station, but it was definitely not as awesome as London. I was lost for almost 2 hours, asking for directions and being pointed in different places… it was a really bad idea to come into this city with no French. The metro system is more confusing than the underground. I didn’t sleep for 24 hours.
Maybe tomorrow will be a better day.
The hostel here is less like a hostel; the people are older, people are travelling together…