Athena Sobhan

This post shouldn’t actually be called London week 9 since I wasn’t really in London this week.  This week I went to Paris and Zurich with my friend, Rachel for our one day of spring break (it’s a long story and I’m still bitter -_-).  

We both had to wake up at four in the morning to leave from the apartment at five to catch our seven AM train to Paris.  Throughout this particular post, you will notice that I wake up at four AM every other morning to go catch our train or flight to our next destination, which, looking back, was the worst decision that we made since it was so tiring.  

We arrived at Paris at around noon since our train was delayed on the way there.  When we arrived, we both were trying to get money out of the ATM and a woman trying to get us to sign something started to harass us. I got irritated and was firm when I kept telling her no and that we weren’t interested.  Then when trying to ask about the metro, the man, who supposedly worked at the information centre, said that all of the metro lines were closed and tried to get us to get in his taxi service, which I also told them no since they we’re trying to pressure my friend.  We ended up taking a taxi to our hostel, where we happened to get stuck in the middle of a protest against labor laws (we found that out later), which was a little scary for the both of us since Brussels occurred earlier in the week, but we made it to the hostel safely.  At this point we were both exhausted and really irritated by everything that had already happened that both of us we’re at the point that we wanted to go home.  Rather than taking the next train back to London, we rested the first day in Paris and decided to give it a second chance after a rough day.  

We had a better time the next day, going around and seeing all of the major landmarks.  I had visited Paris two years back and I was reminded why I fell in love with the city back then, especially when it was all lit up at night.  In our BLC class, we learned about multiculturalism in London and how much of a role it plays in the atmosphere of the city and that was definitely true in Paris as well with all of its diverse people from all over the world either making a living or visiting some of the best landmarks in the world.  The weather progressively got a lot better throughout the day while we explored, which also lifted our spirits and got us prepped for the trip to Zurich.  

Zurich was probably the highlight of the entire trip.  It was both of our first times in Switzerland, which meant that we were both going in cold turkey.  Once again, we woke up at that joyful four AM to get to the train station before our train at six.  We went through the South of France by train and it was absolutely gorgeous (during the times I was actually awake).  We arrived at Zurich at around 11 or so and arrived at the hostel by noon.  Once we dropped off our bags, we headed out to the park near our hostel overlooking the lake and the alps, which was so beautiful, especially with the excellent weather.  It was so hard to comprehend that I was actually in that moment, sun shining, clear skies, and the alps being the backdrop to our real-life fairytale.  We admired the view and enjoyed the park for the rest of the day and headed back to rest.  We explored the city the next and final day of our break before heading back to London.  Most of everything was closed since it was Easter, but we did get to go into the Caberet Voltaire, the birthplace of the Dada movement.  Zurich really felt like a true fairytale when we were walking back to our hostel and heard a man pleasantly whistling a jolly tune while riding his bike through the streets,  

The trip was full of ups and downs, but I know I wouldn’t change it for anything (except not dealing with the rude people).  Cheers, until next time!