Blog.
Doing this on iPhone so apologize in advance for bad spelling and grammar, the keyboard is not easy to use.
So start of top deck, silly travel agent told me Friday 5pm
to meet group at hotel in Paris. One of Tristans friend organized a carshare to Paris for me, as this would cost €30 instead of €80 on train (train takes 2.5 hours, driving at least 4).
So after week of lazing around at Tristan's walk to station. After a while guy hasn't shown up, so we text him. Still no sign, so
Tristan calls him, turns out pick up is at 1 not 11. So we wait.
1:20 we call him again. Car trouble, won't be there till 3! Screw that, run inside and paid the cash for train. Can see why they can get away charging €80. Train was full standing room only.
Get to Paris, start walking to hotel using google maps. But since data cost so much had to use cached map which worked pretty well. After 20 mins walking was still fairly far away but saw a metro stop so thought I'd try that. After little help from info desk finally got a ticket that let me in, and managed to get off at correct station. Then walked to where google maps said the hotel was.
But it wasn't there! Walked up an down but couldn't find it and it seemed a dodgy neighbourhood. Finally saw a reputable looking hotel or office something. Went in and asked guy at desk if he spoke English (only French I know). He said no and it's like arghhhhh. Start to leave, but then he says something and manages to say something like what need? I said name of hotel and he's managed to do quite good actions with his French that I took to mean two more blocks down and on the left. Thanked him, followed the direction, and voilà! Found it!
About 6:20pm, so only 80 mins late.
Walked in dodgy looking hotel and asked man at desk if he spoke English. He shook his head, but then asked "tour group?" I said yes! He handed me a piece of paper tour leader had left.
"hi Nathan it's Michelle your top deck tour leader. Sorry you didn't make it to Paris in time to join us. We're headed to Switzerland where we'll be staying two nights. The full list of places we're staying is on the back of this sheet. Give me a call on ... when you get this."
Crap! What has stupid travel agent done! I've just spent €80 to get to Paris where no one speaks English I don't know anyone and there's no tour here! No idea how I'd get to little Swiss village!
Having freak out. Tried to use payphone to make call, but couldn't figure how to dial number. Then logged onto net to get travel insurance details. Got number (freecall worldwide) but the payphone wouldn't let me make call. Eventually figured out how to call Michelle's mobile on the payphone with last of my coins. Managed to leave message;
"Hi it's Nathan here I've just gotten to the hotel I'm France and gotten your note. Could you please get back to me on my mobile the number is..."
Call expired right then arghhhhh!
Then tried asking at desk if I could use their phone to call the free travel insurance number. They said no, it's not local number. Really didn't seem to care or want to help at all. Really not fond of French so far.
Went back to desk to ask again, another guy that could speak more English was there tried asking if I could call. He said no and I kept asking and he asked why I neede to call. I said I'd missed my group!
He said no you haven't, they're still at the hotel.
Huh?
They're still staying here. There's an itinerary on the wall by lift.
Woot! Checked itinerary, they were due to be at Eifel tower. Calmed down, remembered how to dial international on mobile called Michelle and managed to get directions to meet them :)
So the mix up? Travel agent so useless they'd given none of my details to top deck either. Because of the Iceland volcano ash, a lot of plane services had been suspended. When I didn't rock up the day before at 5, Michelle assumes I had been flying in and flight was cancelled. Since flights weren't expected to be running for at least several days, Michelle wrote the letter thinking I wouldn't get it until they'd left. The guy at desk didn't read English so didn't know what note said. Eep!
Was a half hour of very much stress, but was able to leave luggage at hotel, catch metro (2 changes) to eifel tower and finally found the group! A very happy moment and wave of relief!
Not my last drama on trip, but definitely most stressful! More stories to come!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
