Because I'm feeling nostalgic about Europe, because I didn't finish re-capping my summer adventures from 2012, because I finally found stracciatella gelato in Toronto, and because it's been exactly two years to the day, I figured I'd do a bit of reminiscing.
July 12th fell on a Thursday back in 2012. L dropped me off at the train station after work (timing was tight - she had to run back to the office right as we were about to leave to grab some documents proving that she was single in preparation for her upcoming marriage to her German beau. #internationalmarriageproblems? - but luckily we made it with a bit of time to spare). As we zipped down the Autobahn, she told me about how nervous a bunch of the other people in the office were about her driving. Yeah...
The Thalys train takes just over three hours to reach Paris from Cologne. The bright red and pink seats were a little jarring. And because Thalys services France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, all the announcements were made four times: in English, French, German and Dutch.
It was already dark by the time we reached Paris Nord station, since it was past 10pm by this point. A few months prior to this, a few of us had been joking late one night about how it'd be pretty cool to spend Bastille Day in Paris. That toss-up plan was about to materialize - S and L were set to arrive in Paris the following day.
Since I was spending the first night in Paris solo, I ended up CouchSurfing. By the looks of Google Maps' directions, the host's place wasn't that far from the station, so I figured I'd just walk. Upon exiting the station though, there was an unfortunate discovery that it was pouring rain. It was still really nice to see Paris by night though, and my CS host and I had some fantastic conversations that night. All in all, an excellent introduction to Paris.
*Street art photo previously featured as part of this post.
