Thursday 14/7/2016.
It’s time for Paris! It’s our duck, Peking’s 16th birthday. We had to be in the airport in two hours and we hadn’t got our Euros. Cat had gone to the Post Office yesterday and they didn’t have Euros. They assured her they would be in today. Yes, we are vastly aware that leaving currency exchange until the day before is poor preparation on our part. The panic stations were armed and ready for warfare.
Cat had to make an emergency visit to the doctors for her tongue ulcers which sprung up yesterday, and she could barely eat, talk or swallow because the pain was so bad, so Lynx and our bestie, Neen, walked our combined dogs – Neen’s fluffy Border Collie, Meg, and our silky smooth Lurcher, Bandit. Most commonly known as Puppydog. It’s nice when your dog and your bestie’s dogs are also besties.
Packing a problem
They returned to find Cat on the verge of a meltdown as our suitcase was too heavy. We switched our medium Red Bulls for small ones and sacrificed two cartons of soya milk. We’ll just have to eat chips instead. Yes, we are also aware that packing drinks only a couple of hours before leaving, is also poor preparation on our part. This is where decision paralysis, executive dysfunction and time blindness are a real hindrance to organization.
Cat and Neen went to the post office at midday to collect our Euros for Paris. The Euros hadn’t arrived. They went to our other local post office. This post office had Euros, but Cat didn’t have her ID – it was already packed. Another near swearing meltdown in the post office was saved by Cat seeing a note in a box which read “do you have a big one at home?” They returned home, Cat fetched her ID then they returned to the post office and got our Euros. Crisis averted.
Paris bound
We made it to Cardiff International airport on time, finally getting one thing right. Probably because our mum was taking us, and unlike us, she insists on leaving with plenty of time. But if you think this has a happy ending, you haven’t been paying attention. At home, our case weighed just under the 20kg limit. In the airport, it was 20.9kg. It had somehow gained weight on the 45 minute drive to Rhoose. It had to be 20.3kg. We opened our case and stuffed items into our hand luggage, under the watchful baleful eye of the airport worker. We got our case to 19kg and waved it off. See you in Paris! The worker then uttered these fateful words:
“Now you have to weigh your hand luggage.”
You. Bitch.
Airport drama
Cat’s rucksack was under, but Lynx’s, Neen’s, and Neen’s two friends’ were over. We shifted a kilo from Lynx’s case to Cat’s rucksack but it was still over. We couldn’t disperse anything else and there was no way we were leaving anything behind.
The worker smiled. “You could pay £40 to check in a bag.”
“Fuck that. I’m wearing it,” Neen said.
The three of us opened our bags and started putting on clothes and heavy belts. Neen’s luggage had one of our lunchboxes of handmade shortbread, so as we dressed in a second outfit, we shoveled the biggest pieces of shortbread into our mouths. Not only were we wearing our luggage to avoid a fine, we were eating it too.
Foot, meet mouth
Cat then made the mistake of pointing out the logical fault of luggage weight.
“Us and our hand luggage combined weigh less than the average man. Therefore, we should get away with heavy hand luggage.”
The worker glared. “So because I’m fat, I don’t get hand luggage?”
Oh. No.
She wasn’t fat in the slightest, and we couldn’t tell if she was joking. Hello, Autism, this is a poor time for you to show up.
“No, I’m not saying that. I’m just saying that it shouldn’t matter if our cases are a kilo over, as we weigh less than a man.”
“Cat,” Neen hissed. “Stop talking.”
At this rate, we wouldn’t be getting on the plane to Paris.
Eating our problems
Neen’s friends’ luggage was mostly makeup, so they were crying as they had to phone a husband to come and collect it. Neen offered them some shortbread to help us out, but this wasn’t the time. They were too upset to indulge in sugary baked goods. Maybe we should have offered some shortbread to the worker. She must’ve thought us so rude.
We got our hand luggage to the correct weight. The worker labelled them to say they’d been checked. We slapped the red frowny face emoji on our way to the stairs. The moment we got upstairs, we whipped off our second outfits and returned them to the bags. What difference does it make the clothes being in the bags or on us? The weight on the plane will be the same. The only difference is that should the plane go down in the English Channel, we would now drown with the extra clothing.
When we reached the boarding gate, who should be there to check our boarding passes and see that we were no longer wearing the second outfits? Check-In Charlie. But she couldn’t say anything because our bags had clearly been labelled as passing the check. We were surprised she didn’t alert security to have us hauled out of Economy and thrown into the cargo hold.
Paris, please
After arriving in Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, we had to get a train to be taken to baggage. This was the longest trip ever to baggage reclaim. When we got outside, we realised that five of us weren’t going to fit in a taxi. Neen called an Uber instead, requesting a big car. This was our first time of experiencing Uber and we were sure it was a money-making kidnap scheme. We got the Uber and headed to our apartment. Except our street wasn’t coming up on the driver’s SatNav. Uh oh. Neen found it on maps on her phone and had to direct the driver there. We should have got a discount for that. Paris seems to be a system of one-way streets with a complete free-for-all on the roads and scooterists riding on pavements.
We got to our street then headed for our apartment. We got through the doorway of the building to find ourselves in some sort of narrow courtyard. Which postbox was ours for the key? Cat texted the apartment owner, Allan, who told us the number. None of the doors were numbered. We started trying random doors until one guy appeared, convinced we were trying to break into his apartment. After assuring him we were lost tourists and not inept criminals, he relaxed a bit. Cat texted Allan again. It was the apartment with the brown door.
Moulin rouge
We had an hour before we had to leave for food before the Moulin Rouge. Yes, booking a show so close to our flight was ambitious, but the tickets were so much cheaper on a Thursday evening. The stress of this has ensured we never book anything on the day of arrival anymore. The Hard Rock Café is a ten-minute walk from our apartment, so after a quick change of clothes into our fancy Moulin Rouge outfits and shoes, we headed there for chips and Red Berry Press, recreating our San Francisco meal. Neen’s friends had removed all their makeup, showered, and were reapplying it, so we left them in the apartment and told them to catch us up.
After quickly stuffing our faces, we got a taxi to the Moulin Rouge. The dress code had said “elegant,” so we’d bought gothic corset dresses and lace witch-style boots. This is why our hand luggage was so heavy. Unfortunately, on the day we bought the boots, Bandit chewed the toe of one of Cat’s boots, so it has teeth marks in. As we queued to get in, we realised that everyone else was in jeans, and some even committed the cardinal sin of wearing flip flops. What happened to the dress code? We caused a scene in the airport because we adhered to it, yet here these scoundrels were, shamelessly flaunting their crimes against fashion in the Capital City of Cool.
Showgirls
There was a building inside the theatre to queue in, which kept the queue off the street. We were eventually allowed in and shown to our table. We were on a slight balcony so had a great view. It was €17 for a vodka and lemonade! The others ordered drinks. We figured we could survive a couple of hours without fluids.
The show was phenomenal and the outfits were incredible. One dance involved a man and a woman rollerskating on a circular platform. At one point, a strap attached her head to his neck and she corkscrewed while he spun. Then she landed smoothly and carried on dancing. When we went on the roundabout in the children’s park in Temple Newson, Leeds, the three of us couldn’t walk straight, yet she was able to dance. Another amazing dance involved a couple in a large hula hoop, at some points standing in it and dancing. As people who have never mastered the art of waist-hooping, we were mesmerized. Our least favourite bit was definitely the clowns. Nobody warned us there would be clowns. Not in Paris. We’d had a bad day, there was no need for those monstrosities in a chic cabaret.
Life is a cabaret
There was a strange part where a guy had puppets. We later learned he was from Britain’s Got Talent, but it seemed odd to have that part in the middle. The crowd loved him. We were merely perplexed. One thing we couldn’t understand, was how the women’s boobs just did not jiggle. There were definitely real boobs. Yes, some were small, but as fully paid up members of the Itty Bitty Titty Committee, we still need sports bras for zumba because the shimmying shakes your boobs like maracas. Yet theirs didn’t move. Witchcraft!
The Moulin Rouge is in the 11th Arrondissement, which is Paris’s red light district. As we walked away from the theatre, we found ourselves on a street full of sex shops. We went in one and found some awesome costumes we would’ve happily worn. The man behind the counter insisted on showing us the shop’s largest dildo. It was black and called the Dark Crystal. They could have used that to plug the Euro tunnel in the event of a natural disaster.
Read Day 2.
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