VISITING MY DREAM DESTINATION (SoloTravel Contest )

Visiting My Dream Destination

Paris had always been the it city for me. Growing up, I had seen, read and heard so many things about the city of love that it had always been the topmost task to do in my bucket list. Then how could I not go there when I finally got the chance to?

Travelling solo was never my motive. But taking my family with me would have been too costly and my friends were just too scared to travel to a foreign place all alone. So I took the road not taken and decided to travel solo.

I had already learned a few French phrases so that I would atleast be able to ask for directions and had booked myself a hostel for two weeks to avail cheap accommodations.

I reached there on a Sunday evening. After immigration screening and other necessities, I took the RER train to reach my destination. I had absolutely no contacts of mine in Paris, so internet was all that I had to refer to.

Coming from India, I was quite skeptical about how the French were going to react to my presence, but fortunately or unfortunately, I didn't know much of French and people were not exactly bothered by my presence.

By the time I reached my hostel, I had gone over a plenty of scenes about how bad my roommates could be. I had opted for a 4 bed dorm room, and my three other roommates were travelling together and were Britishers. Well, we had a longer history with the Britishers than with the French and hence, I got an even bigger reason to be worried about.

Luckily, my roomies had known Indians and had no hatred against "the coloured Indians" as we were addressed to back then. We were actually able to communicate properly. Staying in a hostel during college, I never had a problem in communicating with people. I must say, my communication skills did help me out a lot with my stay there.

I had my first dinner there with my roomies. We ordered a Persillade, Chévre and Pâté basque. I had let them order the dishes since I had no idea about French cuisine, informing them that I do not eat beef. I was very hungry after my journey and apparently even they had not eaten anything that day, so we savoured everything in the matter of a few minutes.

The next day, I was ready and out by 9:30 am. I first wanted to visit Eiffel Tower ofcourse, but my hostel was nearer to Les Invalides, Napoleon's place of Burial. I had already had a very thorough discussion about the cheapest travel options with my roommates. I was not much of a sucker for history, but to see the entire place filled with museum and monuments, all related to military history of France, was quite fascinating, at least I felt it that way at that time.

When I reached there, a group of 9 people were busy in their photo sessions. A guy among them, asked me if I could take their photos. After about 20 minutes of photo session, that guy asked me if I was alone. On my affirmative reply, he asked me to join them.

"Oh by the way, I am Arthur. " he introduced himself in a heavy French accent.

This was the first time, I had such a long conversation with any French, so their attitude was quite welcoming.

"Neha." I said shaking his hand, agreeing to his deal.

They had already bought 10 tickets with them. So, I paid them 10 pounds instead of the usual 12, hired a guide and then we were off to exploring the building. The guide was French, so Arthur, being most fluent in English in the group, translated what the guide said. It took us about three hours to go through the entire place.

Now I was left with two options, either to accompany them to Rodin Museum and Palais Bourbon or go to Eiffel Tower. I had never heard of Rodin Museum,which happens to keep the works of French sculptor Auguste Rodin, as Emily, a girl from the group, said.

I chose the former, because it was costing me less while giving me a chance to interact with the locales. Moreover, I was already comfortable with them. So we went to Palais Bourbon, took a lot of photos, and then to Rodin Museum. All his works were simply bewitching. I consider The Gates of Hell to be his masterpiece. It is said to be showing more than 180 figures, though I did not count,hah, ofcourse!

It was almost 5 by the time we finished.

Although the group had no plans to visit Eiffel Tower, they decided that they would accompany me there. I was extremely tired by then and a company to keep me on my feet was surprisingly delightful. We had not had our lunch till then.

When we reached Eiffel Tower, we broke into groups. Few went to get us tickets, others bought us lunch. We had our lunch at the foot of Eiffel Tower, in the lawn. We had a boat cruise around the tower, and then after standing at the queue for almost 4 hours, we finally were able to get inside. My companions knew everything about the tower so they became my tour guide. We took a lot many photos from the second floor and I even had my FIRST drink there with whole bunch of strangers. Though it was risky, I do not regret it.

I was very much satisfied in my very first day at Paris and was looking forward to my stay there, which did not disappoint me at all. The group stuck by me, and even gave me a farewell on my last day there. That one solo trip had not only been economically beneficial, it even earned me life long FRENCH and BRITISH friends.