We learned the hard way that when you travel, it pays to always confirm the place you're staying at, before you get to your destination. There we were in London having a great time, trying to do as many activities and sightseeing as we could, since we had only three days, before going to our next stop--which was Paris.
Now, before we flew over to England, we had made arrangements with a friend that lived in a really nice neighborhood in Paris, to stay at his place. This was good for us because it would save us money on a hotel, plus give us a chance to have a native show us around. The original plan, as we had agreed, was that he was going to be on vacation also--and would welcome all three of us and play host and tour guide.
It was late on Monday night, we were celebrating our last night in London by staying at a pub, and didn't get to our hotel until about 2 o'clock in the morning. We had to catch a late morning train to Paris, so we were not worried about oversleeping and missing it, besides we had left everything packed, so we had no worries.
As we entered the hotel lobby, one of the concierges, went to us and said that someone had left a message for us. He hands us a note--and suddenly our good mood went out the window. The message was from our friend in Paris, informing us that due to a family emergency he would not be able to receive us in his apartment, sorry about that and good luck.
To say we were really angry and upset would be to put it mildly. Here we were-- already with our bags packed, and now ---without so much as an advance warning--being told--sorry, you have no place to stay when you get to Paris. No apologies, no suggestion as to where we might stay--nothing! And we had already purchased the tickets to go by the Chunnel train, so it wasn't like we could extend our stay in London, while we looked for a hotel in Paris. One of my travel companions kept crying---oh no, we are going to have to sleep under a bridge in Paris! I had to tell her to stop being so negative!
Thank goodness for the internet! Thanks to our "friend" instead of being able to get a good night's sleep, we now had to spend that time looking for a place that wasn't too expensive, and that had three nights available. After much searching, we found this small hotel, not too far from the Eiffel Tower, that could accommodate us. We had to put that charge on a credit card, to be paid much later, as our cash was very tightly measured, and this unexpected problem--- really threw our budget out of line.
We did not sleep at all, so that when we made it to the Chunnel train, we really looked awful, but we didn't care, we would nap on the train, and sleep when we would get to our hotel in Paris. So we made it OK, and were congratulating ourselves---it turns out that the small hotel we found, was one of those boutique hotels and quite charming. The staff was very friendly and gave us a room with a full view of the Eiffel Tower, we could not believe our luck!
Then to put the icing on the cake, our so-called friend gives us a call on the mobile phone, to ask us if we had made it to Paris alright, and could he get together with us, and oh, by the way, sorry for the inconvenience. We told him to go to hell, that we were fine and did not have a need for his company. And with that--- we enjoyed our stay in Paris immensely.
