Monday 18/7/2016.
You know it’s a sour end to the trip when you end up naked by the Seine in an area that stinks of piss.
The others went to get breakfast while we finished packing. We were supposed to check out by 12, so they left their cases with us in case they weren’t back in time. Not back in time? Breakfast isn’t supposed to last until lunch! We hung around the apartment, catching up in our journal and hoping we wouldn’t be responsible for getting everyone’s luggage out of the apartment. No way were we lugging several suitcases down the flight of stairs to the courtyard. We ended up waiting until 12. Apparently breakfast does last until lunch.
The plan was to picnic by the Seine, so the others wanted to go into different shops, picking up food. They could have done that during their marathon breakfast break! Yes, we get grumpy when we’re made to wait for other people. We couldn’t be arsed to traipse from shop to shop, falling behind due to the weight of the case and our painful feet, so headed to the Seine. Carrying our case down all the steps to the metro was too much, so we walked, using Google Maps and sticking to the shaded side of the streets.
Picnic by the Seine
We originally sat under Pont Neuf but it stank of river and piss (downside of Paris in the summer heat), so we moved to another shaded part, near a decent looking guy while we waited for the others. And waited. And waited. Fine, we’ll picnic by ourselves.
By the time they’d arrived, we’d already eaten, so we left them guarding our case while we went to look for a present for our brother-in-law and our mum. There was an artist selling oil paintings on Pont Neuf, which were beautiful. While we looked at his paintings, he graciously held an umbrella over us to shield us from the sun. We bought a small canvas of the Eiffel Tower for €15 for our mum, as she doesn’t like touristy stuff, or more ornaments she has to dust. We like buying art from local artists. Plus the grey and orange/red colour scheme matched our living room.
In Seine
Then our trip ended as badly as it had started. One minute Lynx’s wallet and two-week-old smartphone, Dragonstone, were sat on the top of her rucksack, the next they were sliding down the concrete bank towards the Seine. There was a lip halfway that we hoped would catch them. No. It launched them into the Seine like they were on an Alpine ski slope, jumping for Olympic glory. Dragonstone sank, but the wallet floated. And floated along the bank.
Lynx slithered down after them and tossed her boots up to Cat. She hurried along the lip and scooped out her wallet. She returned to the scene of the accident. Cat passed her one of her walking sticks (knee meniscus tear and three surgeries from 2009-2011 has resulted in lifelong pain), so she used it to test the depth of the river. Waist deep. She prodded until she found a large, stable rock. Against Neen’s and Cat’s wishes, she passed up her jewellery and waded into the Seine. It was so murky, she couldn’t see her phone or feel it with the walking stick.
Tourist attraction
A small crowd gathered on Pont Neuf, calling out that they used to dump bodies in the Seine. How they knew to shout in English, we don’t know. They probably realised that only a tourist would enter the water. She had little hope of Dragonstone working again, but she’d just spent £10 on her Game of Thrones case and figured she could at least reuse that.
There was no way she was putting her face in the water, so she held the ledge and carefully felt around with her feet. In hindsight, we should have used our action camera in its waterproof case to have a look. After several minutes, Neen and Cat persuaded her to give up, convinced she’d catch a disease. She hopped onto the ledge, and they grabbed an arm each, hauling her onto the bank. She discarded her fishnets and socks.
Luckily, as we had our case, she was able to use shower gel to wash the river off her. Cat got her dry clothes and a towel and she went under Pont Neuf to change. She checked nobody was in the vehicles under the bridge then hid between a van and a car. Getting abducted at this point would really sour the trip. The bridge stank of piss, so she made sure not to put her clothes in, or stand in anything remotely wet. Cat gave her the antibiotics the GP had prescribed for her tongue ulcers.
Ending up naked by the Seine, without her brand new phone, was not how she wanted the holiday to end.
Going home
It was time to go home. Our suitcase is half our body weight, and our rucksack weighed at least a quarter of our weight, so while the others went on ahead, we limped in their wake, not bothering to keep up. They could wait for us this time. We went to go down into one train station and a guy offered to carry our case down. The others asked if it was the right station. No. We wanted the one across the road. The poor man had to carry our case back up.
We went to another metro station and Neen carried the case down, only for it to be another wasted journey. Our annoyance was soon growing heavier than our case. They eventually found the right station and we waited for the train to take us to the airport. The ticket entrances don’t hold the doors open long enough for you to struggle through with your case, so it shut on Lynx’s rucksack, jamming her. The doors only opened when a guy put his ticket in and helpfully pushed her free.
The train was hot, sweaty and smelled of hot, sweaty people. And it was the same price as a taxi. Disheartened and fed up, we made it to the airport. This time, baggage allowance was 23kg and they didn’t even weigh our hand luggage, making the fiasco of flying out even more unnecessary.
RIP Dragonstone 1st.
Read Day 4.