♣ May 18th, 2008. Aloha Hostel, Paris, France.
It was at least a 15km hike into Le Mans. I say at least because it was way longer than we wanted to measure, or even could measure. We waited for over 7 hours if not more again today trying to catch a ride. Ian now has determined that hitching out of Le Mans is by far worse than Dallas, and that blows. When we arrived in Le Mans we found the train station. It was under-construction and was a Sunday so no one was to be found. We tried to find tickets to Paris but the machines were not reading any of our cards. The machines here were looking for the microchip on the card that almost all European debit and credit cards had. Ours didn´t. We went to an Internet café to search for the train ticket and we bought them on line. Still the machines would not read the card to give us the tickets. At the last minute the station manager appeared and he led us thought some obscure part of the construction zone which we would never have found on our own, until we arrived at the train´s head quarters. We had lucked out and were even able to grab the earlier train out of Le Mans. Don´t go there, No reason to go to Le Mans. As we were on the train headed to Paris we met the Stereotypical Annoying American Tourist. I completely understand why Americans get a bad rap. This lady starts talking English to everyone and she kept talking. She just kept talking, she just wouldn´t stop telling everyone about her trip. Her husband, her hometown, what ever was running through her mind was running out her mouth. Another stupid American not thinking about others. At least by this point Ian and I have been a number of times mistaken for Italians, Spaniards, English, Irish, German, Austrian, Danish, but no one has asked if we were Americans. We look European. We pull into the Gare dÁustelitz on the east side of Paris. It still being a Sunday hardly anything is open, and we need to find a place to sleep, cuz frankly, urban camping in Paris is just not an option… We found one of the only phone card shops open on a Sunday and we called the Brazilian girls who we met at the Guinness Factory. A real let down that was, cuz not only could they not give us a spot to crash on the floor but they also made it seem as if they were to busy to hang out with us, so i guess… se la vi. We had to make our way to an Internet Café. There we made some reservations for a room. We have to stop doing that 20 € a night kills our budget. WE Check in to our hostel and bunker in for the night. We meet one of our roommates. He was a bit sketch but we talked to him for a while. He was from Algeria and he told us about there. Ian and I made an exit a short while later to the lobby. We socialized down there for a while. We talked til lights out. That´s right a curfew. I haven´t been on curfew since 11th grade. We went to bed.
