After what I consider to be a very good flight, my luck ran out and disaster struck. One of my biggest fears came true - Cathay lost my bag. I was led to the baggage service counter and a rather unhelpful French lady explained that she would trace my luggage. I sent her my entire itinerary and as it looked as though my bag would be chasing me around Europe for the next 3 weeks. Great. Knew I shouldn't have come! The unhelpful French lady pointed to a pay phone when I asked if there was a phone I could use. I didn't even know who to call but it still annoyed me. When I failed to work out how to use the pay phone due to all these French instructions...I decided to give up and just get out to start off with. On my way out I saw another Cathay lady and as a last ditch attempt I told her I wanted to make a phone call. She led me to the counter and handed me the landline. I left Sylvain a message to let him know what was going on and off I went.
With my infant level French, I managed to get directions to the train station and discovered the Gare du Nord was on the same line. By fluke, I got on to an express and Paris Nord was the first stop. The poor French man i asked tried an array of sign language to explain this to me...luckily I understood "Le premier". With not too much of a struggle and on extra high alert, I managed to check into my hotel at around 10:30am. As I said, wifi makes everything better. As my room wasn't ready for check-in, I sat in the dining area and received an email reply from Sylvain. He advised that nice Cathay lady had called to say she found the bag but wanted instructions as to where to send it. Now, I had another issue...how was I supposed to call back without a phone. I asked the girl at the bar where there was a phone...she promptly dove into her bag and pulled out her own phone and handed it to me. I called the airline and she advised she would send the bag to my hostel this afternoon. Relieved - I set off towards the Louvre.
The metro in Paris is extremely confusing, smelly and dirty. I guessed my way to the Louvre and from there on it was just a lot of walking around trying to bump into monuments. At 2pm I finally made it to the Eiffel Tower. As planned, I bought a chicken et salads baguette and sat under the tower eating lunch. After lunch I visited Notre Dam and Champ de Élysées, taking a cruise of River Seine back to the Louvre. I wanted to make it back to my hostel before dark as Gare du Nord was renowned for being dangerous at night. Little did I know, it doesn't get dark until 10pm in Paris.....bizarre! I only made one stop, Laduree. Haha. I applaud myself for the determination as I battled language barriers, complicated maps and tiredness to get there.
I got back and found or rather did not find my bag. The hostel called but no one was able to give me an answer as to where my bag was and when I would get it. Nice Cathay lady had gone home for the day. Annoyed and rested to my fate of being bag less, I went to check out my room. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had been upgraded to a private room with its own shower! That made up for the missing bag, slightly. At least I could take a shower in peace and everything was clean. Even the wifi worked brilliantly. I made a risky decision to hand wash my clothing and sleep in the nude...that's normal for the French anyway, right?
Due to jet lag (and 4 glasses of wine) I was tucked in by 9 and wide awake by 12. Sleep was patchy until about 6 when I got up to resolve my bag problem. Nice Cathay lady eventually discovered that the courier company had forgotten to pick up my bag for the drop off and as such, my bag was still at CDG airport. I didn't have enough time to go pick it up myself so it was decided that they'd send my bag straight to Rome so it'd be there waiting for me. Fine. Luckily my risk paid off and my clothes were dry.
I befriended a few Malaysians and Americans over breakfast and set off to the supermarket which was very unusually open on a public holiday. Toothpaste cost me €3. Anyway, I managed to meet up with Chris (the random guy from Allianz who once again took me by surprise as to how handsome he is...) and it was so very nice to hear an Aussie accent so far away from home. We went and had a glacé by the river in Bastille. Bastille is so much nicer than Paris...it's quiet, clean and much less run down.
Due to public holiday, there were no trains to Gare d'Australitz and I had to take a special bus. Chris and I worked all this out with my extremely limited French. All I understood was "Le bus special" and that it was an orange coloured bus waiting at "Sortie deux" leaving every "vingt" minutes. Anyway, I made it there eventually...this lovely French woman who was giving me instructions eventually discovered that we were actually taking the same train to the same place! She explained that due to "l'accident" the trains were "tard" and delayed. I was due to arrive at Cahors at 3pm...we pulled into the station at 5:30pm.
To my relief, my colleague Sylvain and his cute daughter Gabi were there to greet me and give me a hug. Sylvain lives in a little town just off Cahors called Lemagdeliene. It's the real France...gigantic houses, rolling hills, clear skies and fruit markets. Southern France is so lovely. Sylvain's mother thought it was absolutely terrible that my bag got lost, (C'est tragic!) so she quickly found a change of clothes for me. The house also has an extremely alluring outdoor pool. We had dinner outside on the terrace overlooking the lake. Sylvain's mum cooked a delicious meal of fish and rice and after heaps of wine and cheese, I started to crash from the long day.
Tomorrow Sylvain is going to take me to see the sights and we're going shopping for clothes. Yay.
Oh by the way, the weather is perfect! I got sunburnt in Paris.
Ok that's all. Bye now.
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