Paris (at last! XD)
Yes, it took me ages, and Lau beat me to it. But, as promised, the stupidly long Paris report.
In summary, for those too lazy/with too much sense to read:
- flying is fun!
- the French are very open with their staring. Also, the men are pervs. Especially the men around Notre Dame. >.>
- Gare Du Nord station is big and scary when you have no idea where the heck to go. But on the plus side? I got cute Hello Kitty stationary.
- I got to crawl under a ticket barrier. SUCH A REBEL.
- while everyone else was oohing over the Moulin Rouge, Lau and I were squeeing and photographing the little club next to it, La Loco, where we met outside in the queue for the Moi dix Mois concert.
- dinner on Thursday in Charles De Gaulle airport was interrupted by unidentified baggage and a scary French man with a gun. (Very exciting.)
- changing shoes on an Underground train causes much hilarity.
- we missed our train from Kings Cross despite running like idiots and almost crashing into people because we'd read the wrong time on our tickets.
I met up with Lau (cheerful_bunny) on the train to Peterborough Saturday morning, after having to run from one end of the platform to the other just to get to the right carriage. When we got to Kings Cross, we went on the Underground and then took the shuttle thingy to Heathrow airport Terminal 1. We checked in, and then hung around doing boring stuff like eating and changing money ^_~ Then after Lau set off the bleeping thing in security, we walked for about 500 hundred hours down to our gate, where more sitting around followed. Oh, the fun of air travel! We could see planes out the window though, and it made me quite excited. I was nervous about flying before, but on the way to the gate, all my nerves just disappeared.
I really enjoyed the flight! It was cool, and way way better than I expected. Although I could have done without all the ear popping :P I got to sit by the window, yay, right by the wing.
As we were touching down in Paris' Charles De Gaulle airport, I pointed out to Lau-chan this plane with a load of Pokemon painted on it - she squealed really loudly and everyone turned to look at her XD Heehee.
Charles de Gaulle airport was... really unwelcoming. But the baggage belts amused me far too much. We got our stuff and hopped in a taxi playing dodgy French rap... and were then charged 20 Euros for the privilage x_X After checking in at our hotel, we spent about 10 minutes trying to get the lift to work, then another 10 trying to open the door to our room. Curse you, EHIC keycard of DOOM!
The guy on reception, incidently? Such a perv. xD;
The hotel room was... TINY. XD; The bathroom was omg miniscule and flooded everytime once of us showered, and the bed, along with the duvet, had this... scratchy blanket thing that Lau was convinced would give us fleas XD We spent the entire holiday constantly tripping over everything. Anyways~ We ate in the restaurant next to the hotel and were all generally "squee Paris! ^___^". That night, we exchanged Christmas presents... well. We'd agreed to bring one each, but I had two for Lau instead XD; She gave me the Buffy Once More With Feeling DVD, yay! <3
The next morning, the overly-eager chambermaids came into our room like 5 times whilst we were still asleep, until Lau managed to locate the "do not disturb" sign. That was... fun. >_> We spent the day just kicking around the hotel really. In the evening, I didn't want to go out to eat, so we just grabbed something from the vending machines on the ground floor (which of course required operating the bastard lift of DOOM). Everyone was looking at us because we were dressed loli, and on the way down, a man who'd been in the lift with us was asking us about our clothes. He was really nice, actually ^^
Monday, we were planning to go to Disneyland, but we were lazy and didn't bother XD That night, we decided to go someplace else for tea instead of the resteraunt next door. So we went out, and after wandering around the area a bit (and being waved at by bizarre French men o.O), we located the local Metro station. For the win! XD We decided to go to one of the touristy areas, assuming we'd have no problems finding a good place to eat there, and after looking over the map, we settled on St. Michel Notre Dame, since a) it was on a direct line from the station we were at (Parc de Expositions) and b) we'd both been there in March and knew there were plenty of restaurants.
Notre Dame was so stunning at night! There was a pretty Christmas tree set up in front of it, as well. Neither of us had cameras, but we decided to definitely come back the next night. We had tea in this really nice, quiet place not far from Notre Dame itself. ^^ After eating, we went back to the station... only to find the ticket office had closed because it was gone 8pm! MINOR CRISIS. We could bypass the ticket barriers, but then we thought we'd have problems at the other end (turns out, actually, we wouldn't - Parc de Expositions has 2 or 3 "free entry" barriers with no ticket required). So we had only one choice... the big old self-service ticket machine. Which had no English language option. And the extent of mine and Laura's French combined is pretty much "parlez-vous Anglais?", "je ne c'est pas parlez Francais" and "je suis perdue" (and I can't even spell them, most likely). But somehow, we managed to purchase two tickets back to P.d.E on my debit card. Victory!
The next day, Tuesday, was our sight-seeing day. We hopped on the Metro down to Gare du Nord, and then got rather lost trying to find the next train we wanted! ^^; We did, however, locate a Claire's Accessories.... I saw it, and burst out "Eeeee, Hello Kitty! *points* ^___^" So we ended up in there buying HK/Pucca stuff. Lau bought me a cute HK stationary set <3 When we managed to pull ourselves away from Claire's, we finally managed to locate our line after wandering around in circles a few times. One more change over (which was much, much smoother!) and we reached Blanche, which took us up to Blvd de Clichy... the street on which we met, in the queue for the Moi dix Mois concert in March ^__^ (She was stood in front of me, I shyly said hi, we spoke a little... and then a few days later, we found each other on LJ). We went round to La Locomotive, the venue where the live was, and even located the spot on the pavement where we'd been stood XD; It was actually really surreal. I couldn't help but think how much things have changed in my life since the last time I stood on that ground. The moment I said hello to her really did change my life, silly as it sounds. ^_^;; It's funny how tiny things like that, things that seem so insignificant at the time, can just turn your life around in such a huge way.
Anyway ^^; La Loco is right next to the Moulin Rouge (yes, we met in the Red Light District of Paris... so romantic!), so we half-heartedly did the touristy thing before departing. I had to drag Laura past all the adult shops ^_~ Teehee. We decided to head back to Notre Dame, so we could take photos this time. (And have kisses blown at us by some guy on rollerskates. Okay! o_O)
But then when we got down to the ticket barriers... we couldn't find our tickets. These teenage boys kept trying to talk to us, jumped over the barriers then stood around waiting for us while we dug through our bags and I was all "YOU LOST THE TICKETS, LAU! *flail* XD;;" They eventually got tired of waiting, and we gave up and had to buy new ones XD
There were fire eaters outside Notre Dame cathedral that night, which I thought was cool. We ate in this little place which was really nice, but the guy there scared me a bit XD On the way back to the Metro, we took some more photos at Notre Dame, and some ugly (XD) French man came over and was all "you are lesbians? I like lesbians! Maybe I sleep with you two?" We laughed at him. Hard. For a long, long time. And before we'd gone to eat, there were 3 French guys who wanted us to go for a meal with them >_> Lau lied her ass off though ("we've already eaten, we're meeting friends tonight...") so they left us alone. Apparently, the way to pick up creepy French men? Dress goth loli and hold hands around Notre Dame!
The Metro line up to Parc de Expositions (which goes on to Charles de Gaulle airport) forks off in two different directions at Aulnay-Sous-Bois. This was not a problem for us, until the journey home that night, when I looked up out the window and saw us pulling into some station I did not recognise. "Where the hell are we?! Quick, get off the train~!"
So after examining timetables, I deduced we needed a train to Robinson, since that was the other end of the line and would naturally go back to Aulnay-Sous-Bois, where we could change on a train to P.d.E. So we jumped on the train meant to go to Robinson...
"Verte... what?! We've gone the wrong way again!"
We were totally cracking up. XD; It was hilarious, even though we were stuck there in the middle of Paris with no idea where we were! Se waited around on the platform for a while, absolutely freezing cold. It was really quiet. After a bit, I looked up at the display boards. They were blank. Not a good sign. So we decided to go check the boards on other platforms... we went down into the subway... only for a train to go hurtling over. Somehow, we realised we'd been waiting on the wrong platform, and finally managed to get ourselves onto the right one. The train pulled up further up the station than we were waiting, and us and a few others had to run for it ^^; (Although we were the only ones having to run in 3" platforms.) This guy who'd also had to run started talking to us, telling us how he'd fallen asleep and missed his stop. Aw. XD; He was quite sweet, and when he got off the train soon afterwards, was all "enjoy your holiday~~! ^_______^". Bless him ^^ Although I did... kind of wish he'd shut up. Hee. I don't like talking to random people!
We talked a lot that night. It was really nice <3 And we made a trip down to the vending machines for snacks... and my fruit cake got stuck in the flap thing! So I was all "LAU! MY CAKE IS STUCK! T____T MY CAKE~~!" and this man behind us was all ".... XD; o___O" I think I scared him a little. XD
We decided to get up early on Wednesday morning, because we had to check out of the hotel at 12. I rolled out of bed at 11.20. Lau stayed in bed until 11.30. Yes, a miracle occured... I WAS FIRST TO GET UP. FTW! XD Like, 2 minutes before 12, the chambermaids knocked noisly on the door, and Lau was all "x__X 1 minute~! ^^;" We quickly left, before the chambermaids stampeded us in their eagerness to clean, checked out, and then hopped on the Metro. (Not literally. Not with our suitcases. x_X) Actually we had a bit of trouble getting through the ticket barriers thanks to those things, which resulted in me having to crawl underneath one so I could get through XD;
We got to Charles de Gaulle airport about 1, but our flight wasn't until 10, so we thought we'd find the Left Luggage, dump our stuff, then go round to Montmartre for shopping. We had to get on a shuttle bus to Terminal 1... the bus driver didn't speak English, and we wanted to ask if it cost anything. I got all excited because finally got to make use of the tattered yellow phrase/vocab booklet I'd been carrying around in the depths of my bag, which I'd recieved on my high school's trip to Normandy when I was 13 ^^; I was all "... ummm... WAIT! That's IN MY BOOKLET! XD *starts digging madly around in bag* ... [5 minutes later].... FOUND IT~~! XDDD"
So we wandered around Terminal 1 for a while, asked at the information desk and was told Left Luggage was upstairs... only to find it wasn't. Upstairs was the departure bit. So we asked another member of staff. "Go to Terminal 2," he said. So we caught another shuttle bus and headed off to Terminal 2. Lau was feeling poorly by that point and I was getting all worried and "OMGWENEEDTOEATMUSTFINDLEFTLUGGAGE~". We went round Terminal 2 for a bit until some friendly man told us there WAS no Left Luggage at all in the airport, and suggested we try checking in. *headdesk* So we went back to Terminal 1, only it was too early for us to check in... we had 4 hours to wait. But the guy assigned us seats, and we trundled off to get a snack. We sat around for a few hours then went back to the food court to have dinner in the McDonalds there. While we were eating, there was one of those "someone has left unattended luggage in the food court, please come pick it up thank you~" announcements. Then another 7. Then? Some army man holding this huge ass gun walks over to us. "Excuse me ladies, we have a problem with some unattended luggage?" I thought he was gonna be all "is it yours, you fools? XD;" But then he went on and asked us to evacuate the area. So we got up, and I was all "I'ma take my McDonalds! *grabs*"
"Heath, no! We have to leave!"
"... but my McDonalds~!" ;___;
We just went and sat outside the food court, and they brought the metal grill thingies down and stuff. I got all excited and was going to text Mum and be all "ooh, guess what! BOMB SCARE! :D" until I realised she'd panic. So I texted leaporlepor instead. XD They let us back in after a while, and we saw some guy carting off the opened up case. We finished our food, then sat around a bit longer before we could go and check in. Then we went up to the shops :D We went in the perfume shop, because Lau wanted to find something for her parents... and as I was walking around, I caught sight of Lolita Lempicka which is Lau's favourite perfume, and which I'd been trying to find to buy her for Christmas with no luck. I knew she wouldn't let me buy it for her though, and she was standing right by me chatting away XD; So I sort of was all "is there nothing over there?" trying to get rid of her. As soon as she began to walk away, I grabbed a box from the shelf and hid it behind my back - only for Lau to turn around and start talking again, much to my horror. "Go away! XD;;;" "o______O;" I legged it to the counter and explained what I was doing to the shop assistant, who hid the box under the counter for me until he'd bagged it up ^_^ Then when Lau went to buy something, I said "oh, you'll need your boarding pass hun~" and when we got out of the shop, she asked how I knew... and then it sort of dawned on her. XD "Heath... ! O_O" "Hee. :D *hands her the bag*" ^_____^ We went round more shops, and Lau bought me some Hello Kitty stationary and a Rammstein album <3
On the way to the gate, there was this not-very-nice smell which really bothered Lau, and she got all poorly T__T But she had the smart idea of spraying some of the perfume onto a tissue and holding that over her nose until she got on the plane. When we got on the plane, the captain said about how they were refuelling, so we reckoned it was that causing the smell. I loved the flight back, it was such a pretty view with all the lights <3 We kept getting the weirdest food cravings, it was so funny. The guy next to us was like ".... o_O". We arrived back in England earlier than expected, I think it was about twenty to ten? When we got to Heathrow, we called our parents then went by taxi to our hotel. It was gorgeous! <3 I was quite surprised. And the bed was far too comfy XD Which made getting up the next morning not so easy~ But we managed it, and checked out on time. After a bit of messing around trying to get the right bus, we got to the station and hopped on the tube. The journey took longer than expected, so by the time we got round Hyde Park Corner (cue me giggling and being all "Lau~! HYDE! Teeheehee! XDD") we were starting to worry. We figured we'd have to make a run for it when we got to Kings Cross so we'd catch the train home. We were both dressed goth loli that day, and while Lau can run easily in her platforms, I cannot. Well, I can, but not very quickly. So I decided to change from my platforms to my flat shoes, which I had in my bag, before we got to the station. This boy near us was totally cracking up, and I couldn't stop giggling. Everyone was looking on, all amused XD
When we finally arrived, we went running through the station as fast as possible. I didn't notice at the time, but apparently these Japanese girls saw us go hurtling past and were pointing and getting all excited, going "Gosu rori~! Gothic Loli~!" ^___^ Hee. I FEEL VALIDATED. XD
When we got to the overground station, we were all pleased with ourselves because we had 10 minutes to spare... until we realised we couldn't find the train. So we went to ask one of the guards.
"Your train left 50 minutes ago."
Smart girls that we are, we'd looked at the arrival time, not the departure time on our tickets. *facepalm* So there we were, stranded at Kings Cross, neither of us having any money to get us home. Smart girls! ^_~ We went to the ticket place, and then called Lau's dad... the first plan was for him to buy us new tickets, but then he suggested we just jump on a train and have the tickets billed to Lau's house if they came to check XD; They didn't, which was handy!
My mum was originally going to pick us up from Peterborough, but due to all the messing around, she instead ran down to my bank and using my cheque book shoved some money in my bank account, which we could use to buy train tickets for the rest of the journey. We had quite a long wait at Ely station -_-; We just sat around on the platform singing j-rock XD On the train to Lynn, there were these really chatty guys talking to us. And at one of the stops, Lau had some weird guy flinging himself at her XD
When we finally got home, I was all excited to see the last of Lau's presents had arrived, along with my goth loli Hello Kitty stuff <3 Yay~
We went down to McDonalds to get tea, and on the way back, dropped into Argos to see if Darren was in~ He was, but he didn't notice us, hmph :P So nice! But I did see Tasha ^_^ When we got back home, I wrapped up Lau's stuff while she watched Invite to Immorality. Then we watched the Once More With Feeling DVD ^___^ And I made Lau sit through some Invader Zim, because I'd been talking about it in Paris (and singing the Doom song!). I was surprised at how much she seemed to like it. She was still laughing about it later than evening ^^
The next day I was feeling pretty meh anyway, and what didn't help was finding out about Kazuno and Tohru leaving Moi dix Mois. I cried about it to Lau and complained about what a stupid name the new vocalist has XD; (Seth. Ahahaha. SETH.) We went out shopping, and to cheer me up Lau spent far too much money on me ^^; She bought me a photo frame, a Discworld book, and two cuddly toys... a big polar bear and a penguin (:D). I named them Tohru and Kazuno to carry on with my tradition of naming toys after ex-MdM members (I have a mashimaro named Juka!) ^_^; She spoils me too much~
We had to rush home to grab Lau's case, and then head off to the station so she could catch her train. It was horrible having to say goodbye. It never gets any easier. In fact, it just gets harder every time. And the on the walk home, some annoying boy was hassling me >_<
So, yes. I had such an amazing time <3 Being with her makes me so so happy, I can't even begin to put it into words. I never thought I could feel this way about someone. We have a lot planned for this year, and I'm very eager for it all to happen ^^
So yes. There you have it. And no doubt I will be correcting typos and mistakes for the next 2 weeks XD If you read it? You are insane. And awesome. But mostly insane.
In summary, for those too lazy/with too much sense to read:
- flying is fun!
- the French are very open with their staring. Also, the men are pervs. Especially the men around Notre Dame. >.>
- Gare Du Nord station is big and scary when you have no idea where the heck to go. But on the plus side? I got cute Hello Kitty stationary.
- I got to crawl under a ticket barrier. SUCH A REBEL.
- while everyone else was oohing over the Moulin Rouge, Lau and I were squeeing and photographing the little club next to it, La Loco, where we met outside in the queue for the Moi dix Mois concert.
- dinner on Thursday in Charles De Gaulle airport was interrupted by unidentified baggage and a scary French man with a gun. (Very exciting.)
- changing shoes on an Underground train causes much hilarity.
- we missed our train from Kings Cross despite running like idiots and almost crashing into people because we'd read the wrong time on our tickets.
I met up with Lau (cheerful_bunny) on the train to Peterborough Saturday morning, after having to run from one end of the platform to the other just to get to the right carriage. When we got to Kings Cross, we went on the Underground and then took the shuttle thingy to Heathrow airport Terminal 1. We checked in, and then hung around doing boring stuff like eating and changing money ^_~ Then after Lau set off the bleeping thing in security, we walked for about 500 hundred hours down to our gate, where more sitting around followed. Oh, the fun of air travel! We could see planes out the window though, and it made me quite excited. I was nervous about flying before, but on the way to the gate, all my nerves just disappeared.
I really enjoyed the flight! It was cool, and way way better than I expected. Although I could have done without all the ear popping :P I got to sit by the window, yay, right by the wing.
As we were touching down in Paris' Charles De Gaulle airport, I pointed out to Lau-chan this plane with a load of Pokemon painted on it - she squealed really loudly and everyone turned to look at her XD Heehee.
Charles de Gaulle airport was... really unwelcoming. But the baggage belts amused me far too much. We got our stuff and hopped in a taxi playing dodgy French rap... and were then charged 20 Euros for the privilage x_X After checking in at our hotel, we spent about 10 minutes trying to get the lift to work, then another 10 trying to open the door to our room. Curse you, EHIC keycard of DOOM!
The guy on reception, incidently? Such a perv. xD;
The hotel room was... TINY. XD; The bathroom was omg miniscule and flooded everytime once of us showered, and the bed, along with the duvet, had this... scratchy blanket thing that Lau was convinced would give us fleas XD We spent the entire holiday constantly tripping over everything. Anyways~ We ate in the restaurant next to the hotel and were all generally "squee Paris! ^___^". That night, we exchanged Christmas presents... well. We'd agreed to bring one each, but I had two for Lau instead XD; She gave me the Buffy Once More With Feeling DVD, yay! <3
The next morning, the overly-eager chambermaids came into our room like 5 times whilst we were still asleep, until Lau managed to locate the "do not disturb" sign. That was... fun. >_> We spent the day just kicking around the hotel really. In the evening, I didn't want to go out to eat, so we just grabbed something from the vending machines on the ground floor (which of course required operating the bastard lift of DOOM). Everyone was looking at us because we were dressed loli, and on the way down, a man who'd been in the lift with us was asking us about our clothes. He was really nice, actually ^^
Monday, we were planning to go to Disneyland, but we were lazy and didn't bother XD That night, we decided to go someplace else for tea instead of the resteraunt next door. So we went out, and after wandering around the area a bit (and being waved at by bizarre French men o.O), we located the local Metro station. For the win! XD We decided to go to one of the touristy areas, assuming we'd have no problems finding a good place to eat there, and after looking over the map, we settled on St. Michel Notre Dame, since a) it was on a direct line from the station we were at (Parc de Expositions) and b) we'd both been there in March and knew there were plenty of restaurants.
Notre Dame was so stunning at night! There was a pretty Christmas tree set up in front of it, as well. Neither of us had cameras, but we decided to definitely come back the next night. We had tea in this really nice, quiet place not far from Notre Dame itself. ^^ After eating, we went back to the station... only to find the ticket office had closed because it was gone 8pm! MINOR CRISIS. We could bypass the ticket barriers, but then we thought we'd have problems at the other end (turns out, actually, we wouldn't - Parc de Expositions has 2 or 3 "free entry" barriers with no ticket required). So we had only one choice... the big old self-service ticket machine. Which had no English language option. And the extent of mine and Laura's French combined is pretty much "parlez-vous Anglais?", "je ne c'est pas parlez Francais" and "je suis perdue" (and I can't even spell them, most likely). But somehow, we managed to purchase two tickets back to P.d.E on my debit card. Victory!
The next day, Tuesday, was our sight-seeing day. We hopped on the Metro down to Gare du Nord, and then got rather lost trying to find the next train we wanted! ^^; We did, however, locate a Claire's Accessories.... I saw it, and burst out "Eeeee, Hello Kitty! *points* ^___^" So we ended up in there buying HK/Pucca stuff. Lau bought me a cute HK stationary set <3 When we managed to pull ourselves away from Claire's, we finally managed to locate our line after wandering around in circles a few times. One more change over (which was much, much smoother!) and we reached Blanche, which took us up to Blvd de Clichy... the street on which we met, in the queue for the Moi dix Mois concert in March ^__^ (She was stood in front of me, I shyly said hi, we spoke a little... and then a few days later, we found each other on LJ). We went round to La Locomotive, the venue where the live was, and even located the spot on the pavement where we'd been stood XD; It was actually really surreal. I couldn't help but think how much things have changed in my life since the last time I stood on that ground. The moment I said hello to her really did change my life, silly as it sounds. ^_^;; It's funny how tiny things like that, things that seem so insignificant at the time, can just turn your life around in such a huge way.
Anyway ^^; La Loco is right next to the Moulin Rouge (yes, we met in the Red Light District of Paris... so romantic!), so we half-heartedly did the touristy thing before departing. I had to drag Laura past all the adult shops ^_~ Teehee. We decided to head back to Notre Dame, so we could take photos this time. (And have kisses blown at us by some guy on rollerskates. Okay! o_O)
But then when we got down to the ticket barriers... we couldn't find our tickets. These teenage boys kept trying to talk to us, jumped over the barriers then stood around waiting for us while we dug through our bags and I was all "YOU LOST THE TICKETS, LAU! *flail* XD;;" They eventually got tired of waiting, and we gave up and had to buy new ones XD
There were fire eaters outside Notre Dame cathedral that night, which I thought was cool. We ate in this little place which was really nice, but the guy there scared me a bit XD On the way back to the Metro, we took some more photos at Notre Dame, and some ugly (XD) French man came over and was all "you are lesbians? I like lesbians! Maybe I sleep with you two?" We laughed at him. Hard. For a long, long time. And before we'd gone to eat, there were 3 French guys who wanted us to go for a meal with them >_> Lau lied her ass off though ("we've already eaten, we're meeting friends tonight...") so they left us alone. Apparently, the way to pick up creepy French men? Dress goth loli and hold hands around Notre Dame!
The Metro line up to Parc de Expositions (which goes on to Charles de Gaulle airport) forks off in two different directions at Aulnay-Sous-Bois. This was not a problem for us, until the journey home that night, when I looked up out the window and saw us pulling into some station I did not recognise. "Where the hell are we?! Quick, get off the train~!"
So after examining timetables, I deduced we needed a train to Robinson, since that was the other end of the line and would naturally go back to Aulnay-Sous-Bois, where we could change on a train to P.d.E. So we jumped on the train meant to go to Robinson...
"Verte... what?! We've gone the wrong way again!"
We were totally cracking up. XD; It was hilarious, even though we were stuck there in the middle of Paris with no idea where we were! Se waited around on the platform for a while, absolutely freezing cold. It was really quiet. After a bit, I looked up at the display boards. They were blank. Not a good sign. So we decided to go check the boards on other platforms... we went down into the subway... only for a train to go hurtling over. Somehow, we realised we'd been waiting on the wrong platform, and finally managed to get ourselves onto the right one. The train pulled up further up the station than we were waiting, and us and a few others had to run for it ^^; (Although we were the only ones having to run in 3" platforms.) This guy who'd also had to run started talking to us, telling us how he'd fallen asleep and missed his stop. Aw. XD; He was quite sweet, and when he got off the train soon afterwards, was all "enjoy your holiday~~! ^_______^". Bless him ^^ Although I did... kind of wish he'd shut up. Hee. I don't like talking to random people!
We talked a lot that night. It was really nice <3 And we made a trip down to the vending machines for snacks... and my fruit cake got stuck in the flap thing! So I was all "LAU! MY CAKE IS STUCK! T____T MY CAKE~~!" and this man behind us was all ".... XD; o___O" I think I scared him a little. XD
We decided to get up early on Wednesday morning, because we had to check out of the hotel at 12. I rolled out of bed at 11.20. Lau stayed in bed until 11.30. Yes, a miracle occured... I WAS FIRST TO GET UP. FTW! XD Like, 2 minutes before 12, the chambermaids knocked noisly on the door, and Lau was all "x__X 1 minute~! ^^;" We quickly left, before the chambermaids stampeded us in their eagerness to clean, checked out, and then hopped on the Metro. (Not literally. Not with our suitcases. x_X) Actually we had a bit of trouble getting through the ticket barriers thanks to those things, which resulted in me having to crawl underneath one so I could get through XD;
We got to Charles de Gaulle airport about 1, but our flight wasn't until 10, so we thought we'd find the Left Luggage, dump our stuff, then go round to Montmartre for shopping. We had to get on a shuttle bus to Terminal 1... the bus driver didn't speak English, and we wanted to ask if it cost anything. I got all excited because finally got to make use of the tattered yellow phrase/vocab booklet I'd been carrying around in the depths of my bag, which I'd recieved on my high school's trip to Normandy when I was 13 ^^; I was all "... ummm... WAIT! That's IN MY BOOKLET! XD *starts digging madly around in bag* ... [5 minutes later].... FOUND IT~~! XDDD"
So we wandered around Terminal 1 for a while, asked at the information desk and was told Left Luggage was upstairs... only to find it wasn't. Upstairs was the departure bit. So we asked another member of staff. "Go to Terminal 2," he said. So we caught another shuttle bus and headed off to Terminal 2. Lau was feeling poorly by that point and I was getting all worried and "OMGWENEEDTOEATMUSTFINDLEFTLUGGAGE~". We went round Terminal 2 for a bit until some friendly man told us there WAS no Left Luggage at all in the airport, and suggested we try checking in. *headdesk* So we went back to Terminal 1, only it was too early for us to check in... we had 4 hours to wait. But the guy assigned us seats, and we trundled off to get a snack. We sat around for a few hours then went back to the food court to have dinner in the McDonalds there. While we were eating, there was one of those "someone has left unattended luggage in the food court, please come pick it up thank you~" announcements. Then another 7. Then? Some army man holding this huge ass gun walks over to us. "Excuse me ladies, we have a problem with some unattended luggage?" I thought he was gonna be all "is it yours, you fools? XD;" But then he went on and asked us to evacuate the area. So we got up, and I was all "I'ma take my McDonalds! *grabs*"
"Heath, no! We have to leave!"
"... but my McDonalds~!" ;___;
We just went and sat outside the food court, and they brought the metal grill thingies down and stuff. I got all excited and was going to text Mum and be all "ooh, guess what! BOMB SCARE! :D" until I realised she'd panic. So I texted leaporlepor instead. XD They let us back in after a while, and we saw some guy carting off the opened up case. We finished our food, then sat around a bit longer before we could go and check in. Then we went up to the shops :D We went in the perfume shop, because Lau wanted to find something for her parents... and as I was walking around, I caught sight of Lolita Lempicka which is Lau's favourite perfume, and which I'd been trying to find to buy her for Christmas with no luck. I knew she wouldn't let me buy it for her though, and she was standing right by me chatting away XD; So I sort of was all "is there nothing over there?" trying to get rid of her. As soon as she began to walk away, I grabbed a box from the shelf and hid it behind my back - only for Lau to turn around and start talking again, much to my horror. "Go away! XD;;;" "o______O;" I legged it to the counter and explained what I was doing to the shop assistant, who hid the box under the counter for me until he'd bagged it up ^_^ Then when Lau went to buy something, I said "oh, you'll need your boarding pass hun~" and when we got out of the shop, she asked how I knew... and then it sort of dawned on her. XD "Heath... ! O_O" "Hee. :D *hands her the bag*" ^_____^ We went round more shops, and Lau bought me some Hello Kitty stationary and a Rammstein album <3
On the way to the gate, there was this not-very-nice smell which really bothered Lau, and she got all poorly T__T But she had the smart idea of spraying some of the perfume onto a tissue and holding that over her nose until she got on the plane. When we got on the plane, the captain said about how they were refuelling, so we reckoned it was that causing the smell. I loved the flight back, it was such a pretty view with all the lights <3 We kept getting the weirdest food cravings, it was so funny. The guy next to us was like ".... o_O". We arrived back in England earlier than expected, I think it was about twenty to ten? When we got to Heathrow, we called our parents then went by taxi to our hotel. It was gorgeous! <3 I was quite surprised. And the bed was far too comfy XD Which made getting up the next morning not so easy~ But we managed it, and checked out on time. After a bit of messing around trying to get the right bus, we got to the station and hopped on the tube. The journey took longer than expected, so by the time we got round Hyde Park Corner (cue me giggling and being all "Lau~! HYDE! Teeheehee! XDD") we were starting to worry. We figured we'd have to make a run for it when we got to Kings Cross so we'd catch the train home. We were both dressed goth loli that day, and while Lau can run easily in her platforms, I cannot. Well, I can, but not very quickly. So I decided to change from my platforms to my flat shoes, which I had in my bag, before we got to the station. This boy near us was totally cracking up, and I couldn't stop giggling. Everyone was looking on, all amused XD
When we finally arrived, we went running through the station as fast as possible. I didn't notice at the time, but apparently these Japanese girls saw us go hurtling past and were pointing and getting all excited, going "Gosu rori~! Gothic Loli~!" ^___^ Hee. I FEEL VALIDATED. XD
When we got to the overground station, we were all pleased with ourselves because we had 10 minutes to spare... until we realised we couldn't find the train. So we went to ask one of the guards.
"Your train left 50 minutes ago."
Smart girls that we are, we'd looked at the arrival time, not the departure time on our tickets. *facepalm* So there we were, stranded at Kings Cross, neither of us having any money to get us home. Smart girls! ^_~ We went to the ticket place, and then called Lau's dad... the first plan was for him to buy us new tickets, but then he suggested we just jump on a train and have the tickets billed to Lau's house if they came to check XD; They didn't, which was handy!
My mum was originally going to pick us up from Peterborough, but due to all the messing around, she instead ran down to my bank and using my cheque book shoved some money in my bank account, which we could use to buy train tickets for the rest of the journey. We had quite a long wait at Ely station -_-; We just sat around on the platform singing j-rock XD On the train to Lynn, there were these really chatty guys talking to us. And at one of the stops, Lau had some weird guy flinging himself at her XD
When we finally got home, I was all excited to see the last of Lau's presents had arrived, along with my goth loli Hello Kitty stuff <3 Yay~
We went down to McDonalds to get tea, and on the way back, dropped into Argos to see if Darren was in~ He was, but he didn't notice us, hmph :P So nice! But I did see Tasha ^_^ When we got back home, I wrapped up Lau's stuff while she watched Invite to Immorality. Then we watched the Once More With Feeling DVD ^___^ And I made Lau sit through some Invader Zim, because I'd been talking about it in Paris (and singing the Doom song!). I was surprised at how much she seemed to like it. She was still laughing about it later than evening ^^
The next day I was feeling pretty meh anyway, and what didn't help was finding out about Kazuno and Tohru leaving Moi dix Mois. I cried about it to Lau and complained about what a stupid name the new vocalist has XD; (Seth. Ahahaha. SETH.) We went out shopping, and to cheer me up Lau spent far too much money on me ^^; She bought me a photo frame, a Discworld book, and two cuddly toys... a big polar bear and a penguin (:D). I named them Tohru and Kazuno to carry on with my tradition of naming toys after ex-MdM members (I have a mashimaro named Juka!) ^_^; She spoils me too much~
We had to rush home to grab Lau's case, and then head off to the station so she could catch her train. It was horrible having to say goodbye. It never gets any easier. In fact, it just gets harder every time. And the on the walk home, some annoying boy was hassling me >_<
So, yes. I had such an amazing time <3 Being with her makes me so so happy, I can't even begin to put it into words. I never thought I could feel this way about someone. We have a lot planned for this year, and I'm very eager for it all to happen ^^
So yes. There you have it. And no doubt I will be correcting typos and mistakes for the next 2 weeks XD If you read it? You are insane. And awesome. But mostly insane.