First things first!
The new edition of BCM is here!
#37 is the 2018 holiday edition, meaning that it’s the last one for this year! There’s (holiday) fashion, interviews with KAMIJO, haru and HITT; a travel feature and column by Helcanen; beauty by Claire and Birdie and so much more!
So grab your FREE copy here and enjoy!
Have I said it’s free? Because it is! :)
And now to the rest of the post, which is about Bert and I’s first day in Paris, France. Which was exactly one week ago (I miss being on holiday abroad!).
We left at 6am, meaning I had to get up at stupid o’ clock, which I _never_ enjoy. (That’s what I love about traveling to Japan: 9PM flights!). We had booked the same hotel as last time: the Ibis Marne-la-Vallée Champs in Champs-sur-Marne, because we liked that.
Sure, the rooms are very small and basic, but we are literally there for the basics (sleep, shower, that sort of thing) and the breakfast.
Plus, the area is really good, there’s a supermarket close by and the RER is down the road. Add to that that the breakfast buffet is more than adequate and they have their own car park (which is free for guests), we have everything we need!
On the way we took a stop at the place we usually stop. And I must admit, that much to my shame because we have been stopping there for over 10 years, that only now I realised (on the way back no less) that there is a crossing bridge over the highway so I could have gone and got something from bakery PAUL across the road, oops. They are doing a lot of refurbishments in the complex (and soon enough there will also be a PAUL on that side, so my bridge discovery is rather moot now) so the little arcade with the DDR machine is gone. Which makes me sad, because I had quite liked to play a round of Dance Dance Revolution.
They had, however, expanded on the seating area, which used to be tiny, and now was most of one side of the entire building. Which meant that we sat there for far too long as Bert had a double expresso. But the booth we were in was just so damn comfy and we were in no rush!
That was also the point where I discovered I had forgotten my phone at home, which was left forgotten and abandoned in the bedroom with my kindle! (If only I had gone back for my kindle!). The thing is, I have never activated my phone’s data, out of utter self-preservation, and as I’m mostly home and prefer my tablet over my phone, I mostly use it to text and call when I’m out of the house. And to take pictures with it. Meaning I only missed it as an extra camera and not as a phone. BUT the thing is, I could go without it for three whole days just fine. Which is something not a lot of other people can say I’m sure! In fact, I didn’t actually look at my phone ‘till the day AFTER I was home, because I had to take it along to Brussels for our appointment to interview Hotei.
I’m not ashamed nor embarassed to be so analog. Not at all.
Before we continued on our journey, we popped into the little tiny supermarket and I found a thing I had been looking for. For quite a while actually. I had wanted to get Bert a car charger that he could use to charge his phone and the sat nav simultaneously, and they were either way overpriced in Belgium or I’d be at the mercy of Primark (and if there’s one thing I don’t trust Primark with, it’s tech). It was the brand (which I forgot) that a friend of mine had recommended me (he said he had gotten his in France years ago) as well, AND it was €3 more expensive than what Primark charged. Insta buy. Literally. Insta buy. We did test it before we left though, in case there was something wrong with it. But it worked perfectly. So that made Bert very happy. And it made me happy because Bert was happy.
And that was all the excitement on the road.
Last time we got stuck in traffic terribly. For an hour and half. On a super stressful road. I had asked travel advice from friends of mine that live not too far away from Champs-sur-Marne, and they had said it would be best to detour past the castle. Because the castle also has free parking, which would allow us to park the car and feed the address to the hotel to the sat nav. So that’s what we did.
And guess what: NO traffic jams what so ever. Only pleasant roads that were relaxing to drive on. We weren’t there much faster than the last time, because we spent so long at the road stop complex, and then took some time at the castle (the parking is part of a small park). So we still got at the hotel at 11.30ish. We _could_ have gotten there an hour and half earlier, mind.
So that’s my tip, if you stay at the Ibis in Champs-sur-Marne, first drive to the Château de Champs-sur-Marne, and go to the Cité Descartes from there. There’s plenty of signs to it as well, so that helps.
As an Accor hotel member, I am allowed to get onto a room at noon instead of 3PM (and check out is noon instead of 11 as well), but as it was off-season and they had some rooms ready already, we were allowed on a little earlier.
Last time we had a room facing the parking lot (the back of the hotel) on the 2nd floor, this time it was on the first floor facing the front). It was still quiet enough, don’t get me wrong, BUT if you are a light sleeper (Bert and I aren’t at all) you might be bothered with the occasional sounds coming in from outside. And in the bathroom you could hear the staff below talking and rummaging around.
As their reception is manned 24/7 and their breakfast starts at 6.30 you can imagine that this could be a problem for someone that needs a lot of quiet to be able to sleep comfortably. So make sure to put in a note when you book that you would like a room overviewing the parking lot and above the 1st floor if you need more silence than we do.
We very quickly dropped our luggage in our room, grabbed what we would take into Paris with us, and left for the RER.
The RER ticket desk in Champs-sur-Marne, unlike many other RER ticket desks in Paris and surrounding places, is manned by people that don’t habitually fuck foreigners around. This time was no difference as the lady manning it was perfectly friendly. She was also VERY slow, and more interested in talking with her colleagues than serving customers. For us it was not really an issue (although I would have just preferred to use to ticket machine, it would have been way faster) but the lady behind us had ZERO patience. NONE. She was complaining, sighing, and making annoyed noises. And then got right up in my personal space, because clearly instead of just doing something decent like asking us if she could go ahead because she NEEDED a certain train, or just asking the lady if she could please get a bit of a move on it (she wasn’t doing her job after all, so it would have been ok to politely point out she needed a ticket from her), making life harder for me was the way forward. To the point where she tried to cut the queue. Which neither I nor the ticket lady were having (I just stepped forward and the ticket lady point blank ignored her, because she was rude AF). Pro-tip lady: if you have to be on a certain train, be at the ticket office IN TIME, not 5 minutes beforehand! But yeah, we got our tickets, and when I asked the seller what time the last train from Marne-la-Vallée to Noisy Champs (our stop) would be the next day I swear the near queue cutter was ready to blow a gasket. I seriously thought she would start screaming or something. She nearly ran people off the stairs to get to the train too. Bert and I, however, didn’t rush at all, because the next one was FIVE minutes later, and we weren’t in a hurry. Especially not with the next one being FIVE minutes later.
The RER was less utterly uneventful than usual. There was a ticket check, which I have never experienced on the RER before. But we had tickets, so no problem at all. There was a German family on the train with a big pram and two older children that thought they owned the place, which was annoying AF. It seriously makes me wonder why so many people with children feel so entitled. You’ve spawned, it just proves your reproductive organs work, you’ve not done something to merit special treatment or some kind of award. Don’t make life difficult for others. The end (I’m going to be one of those annoying parents that tells off other parents one day, I can just see it happen).
We got to our stop (Auber) and once we successfully managed to get away from the obnoxious Germans, set on our way to the Galeries Lafayette above the station. Last June, I was already on my last nerve at that point, but because we hadn’t had a car ride from hell (like June) and hadn’t encountered a ton of rude French (also unlike June) I was a lot more relaxed.
The bag check was much more relaxed too! Last time it was all “open your bag, all your bags! Grrrrr!” now it was all “oh no, I just have to go over them with some scan wand, you don’t even have to take them off!” from a very friendly security guy.
We made our way to the 4th floor for the Disney Store, because there were some things I had seen on the site that I liked and being able to buy them in real life would save on shipping.
I got Bert to try on the Marvel sweater I wanted to get him, and I’m glad he did because what the bloody hell was wrong with that cut! He tried an XL, his actual size in pretty much every brand on the planet. And the cut of the body was just really weird and saggy in an unflattering way, and the sleeves were WAY too short. It was no use to go and try the XXL (if there even was one) because the body was already so weird and oversized on the XL. So I’m glad I didn’t buy that online!
The Lock, Shock and Barrel bag, however, that I did like. It also matched my skirt really, really well. So I decided to just think about it a little longer as they still had 8 left and I could always come back for it later on the day. I did mull over the light up Nightmare before Christmas tumbler, but I decided against it as I already have a cup like it, of the same size, and I had my heart set on the Mickey 90 one in Disneyland Paris. The Nightmare one is nicer, but the other one had a handle and a better lid (one that does not require a straw) so yeah.
As there is a Starbucks in the Galeries, and I was craving Pumpkin Spice (when am I not though?) I went and got an overpriced (nearly €6!) Pumpkin Spice Frappucino. It was, however, the best one I’ve ever had so I’m willing to overlook the price tag and the slooooow service. There were very few people waiting for drinks, but the barrista’s just weren’t really working. I was surprised they let you wander around the Galeries with drinks, especially considering the amount of excruciatingly expensive clothes and accessories on display, but there you go. They do.
There was an exhibition on the first floor by Stella McCartney: Sanctuary of Stillness. Which was more curated by her and a collab between other artists. There were a few installations, and a viewing of a short film by David Lynch.
Also like June, we walked to the Tuileries gardens. Because walking, especially on a day that nice, is much more enjoyable than taking the métro or RER. I had been taking photos with my Agfa Click, which I had loaded with Lomography Color 100, as autumn demands colour film I feel. And after about 6 shots, the camera froze. That was that. So with a lot of pain in my heart, I took off the film and ruined it, because I REALLY wanted to shoot with it in Disneyland Paris. Guess what, the film (which I thought was a little too wide to start with) had completely clogged up inside the camera! This has never happened to me before, I shoot with that camera a lot (the most out of all my analog cameras).
So we sat down in the Tuileries, in the shadow, and Bert reloaded it for me with another roll (there’s three in a pack). I took one photo with it in the gardens, and then put it away (so I would have plenty photos left in Disney) in favour of my trusty DSLR.
Our last stop before the Louvre was the tiny, tiny PAUL right by the Arc du Triomphe where Bert and I both had a chicken sandwich. Which was delicious. It was so hard not to feed the super sociable birds that came up to us to beg for food! I have always seen people with small children feed them bird food, so I feel they should eat that instead of chicken sandwich. They just beg because they like the human food anyway, they all looked very healthy and well fed. Next time I’m taking some bird food too!
Because it was a week day (and only a few hours before closing) there wasn’t much of a queue to get into the Louvre at all. And there was mostly a small one because of the security. You just put your bag through a scanner (they let you take out meds and camera equipment without any hassle though, so kudos to them!) and walk through another scanner (sans cameras, with meds) and that’s that.
I had read online that people with a disability card and the person accompanying them go in free, but the site didn’t give any other info. So we went to the ticket desks, which were also very quiet. The lady manning the one we were at was so rude, omg. First she pretended not to know what my card was (probably because the EU disability cards are in English) and then practically shouted at us that we just had to go up and show it at the entrance point we wanted to us. So that was far from cool.
The people at the entrance point we were using (we wanted to see the Egypt pieces) were really good about it, they looked at it and waved us right through. So if you have a EU disability card: just go right to the entrance point you want to use to get into the museum proper and show it there.
Don’t bother with the ticket desks first, you might lose a TON of time waiting in line over nothing.
They also made _no_ issue of backpacks, which is unlike a lot of other museums these days, who demand you put your backpack in a locker.
My outfit for the day:
Glasses: Theo
Top: Photokina
Skirt: made it myself
Petticoat: Dear Celine
Socks: HEMA
Boots: Palladium
We walked around the Louvre ‘till closing, looking at the Egypt, Syrian and former royal palace areas, as well as some other halls that we walked by on our way to the aforementioned ones. To see the Louvre properly you need at least a whole day. But as we only wanted to see a specific part of it at the time, just a few hours was ok. But only just!
Of course, the gift shops remain open a little longer than the museum, such is the way of these things. They had quite a few steampunk style home décor bits on sale, but they were all very, _very_ expensive. So I didn’t get any. I could have. But I didn’t. I also resisted the super cute mummified cat and crocodile plushies, because I feel I have enough toys as it is.
We debated about whether or not to get food at the nearish Monoprix supermarket, or just go to the U closest to the hotel. In the end we decided on the latter.
We did pop back into the Galeries (where once again the security was very chill, even though a LOT of people were popping in as the Galeries were open for a few more hours) to get that bag in the Disney Store (bag review here :)). From way back when in 2005, when we did a city trip to Paris, we remembered that _somewhere_ at the bottom floor of the Galleries, there was a food department. Realising it was probably under the men’s building, we went back to our plan of just going to the U, and took the RER back instead.
As the U is open ‘till 8.30PM we still had plenty of time to pick some food and drinks for dinner. Bert ended up getting a salad, some sandwiches and the same organic wine he liked back in June. I got sandwiches and a carton of Tropicana juice I hadn’t seen in Belgium yet. I could have gotten my usual blood orange, but I can get that out our local supermarket so I went for the mango, lychee and watermelon one. Which was nice, but mostly tasted like mango. Bert claimed it would be fine outside of a fridge the next day, so yeah (spoilers: he was WRONG, but more about that in the day 2 post).
We ended up going to bed at a very sensible hour (10PMish) because we had to be up at 6AM to go to Disneyland Paris the next day. Which was good, because we had been up since 4AM :).
All my Paris photos are here :).
All our trip photos are here, and I did finally got 'round to uploading that Disneyland Paris trip report, which you can read here :)
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