Starting the New Year in France!

When we departed on the night of the 30th, Paris was the end destination for the morning of the 31st but we first had to travel North for a few hours to London, spend 90 minutes in London and then head south across the Channel. I was so excited to drive through the Chunnel I have heard so much about. I even talked it up to Lisa. Well when we got to Dover we ended up taking a ferry across the channel and subsequently Lisa now thinks I was trying to make a fool of her by getting her to believe there was such a thing called the Chunnel.

Upon arrival in Paris at 7am, we were lost, exhausted, starving and it was still dark outside. And so, we decided walking was a good idea. It wasn’t. We had no idea where this fancy hotel we booked was, so we took the metro into the heart of the city and loaded with a surplus of luggage and armed with a map, we began walking. I have to admit it was a very interesting experience to watch one of the worlds busiest cities slowly come to life. It is rare that I see sunrise and there was something about watching all these people open their shops, get to work and go about their morning routines that was chaotic yet peaceful. Probably peaceful because I didn’t have to take part. As day broke we worked our way down the Champs-Elysees. After asking at a partner hotel, we found out where we were headed and grabbed the metro into the business district of Paris (La Defense). Our hotel was a 5 star Renaissance Hotel that if we had not got a deal online, there was no way we could have afforded to stay there. To give you an idea, the price of our room, if we had walked in off the street and booked it, would have been 450 sterling pounds. At the current exchange rate, that is around $900 Canadian. To book the presidential suite would have been 5,000 pounds or $10,000 and we were outside of town!! There is a hotel in the heart of the city that is ranked as the most expensive in Europe and to stay there in the standard room is 10,000 pounds a night. To book the presidential suite is 52,000 pounds or $104,000 a night. The winner of the Tour du’ France is given three nights stay there as part of his prize. I am happy with the deal we got, that’s for sure!

Once we checked into our hotel Lisa crashed for a couple hours and I went wandering. With that night being New Years Eve the business district was pretty quite outside of the large amounts of military patrolling the area. However I did find the greatest statue I have ever seen. Just outside of the center square there is a giant thumb sticking out of the ground. Constructed with remarkable detail, at a height of nearly 5 stories, this is the ultimate thumbs up! Once we were ready for the night we headed into town and joined the couple hundred thousand people who had gathered on the Champs-Elysees. It was anarchy. People flooded the streets, everyone was drinking, dancing, laughing and just partying in general. When midnight hit the city went crazy, the Eiffel tower lit up in an explosion of sparkling lights and champagne corks flew everywhere. After a while we decided to head back to our hotel and I warned Lisa that the metro might be a little busy. That was a drastic understatement. I cannot find the words to describe the sea of people that quite honestly swept us away. We got to within a few feet from the metro entrance and still could not get in as we were pushed passed by surge after surge from the crowd. When Lisa and I finally fought our way out of the crowd we were nearly two blocks from our desired subway station. The fun and happy crowd had “Cinderella’ed” at midnight and was now an angry mob. Kids were firing roman candles and lobbing firecrackers into the crowd, the pushing and shoving was fierce and we were happy to get out of there when we did. We ended up walking a couple of blocks to find a metro station that was more reasonable and after it was all said and done it took us around 2.5 hours to make the 15 minute trip back to our hotel. All in all it was a fantastic experience that I look forward to never doing again. Next New Years I might be a hermit or host the party so I don’t have to try and go anywhere.