Last Day of Sightseeing

Jardin du Luxembourg

The last day the weather was a bit better as I could assume looking out of the window, but still not sunny or nice. My Mum's flight would be in the evening so we still had almost the whole day to see some last things. But at first we decided to have breakfast and pack all our things because we had to check out before lunch time and we didn't want to come to the hotel several times.

So we packed all the things, brought them down to the hotel lobby and checked out. We asked the man there if they had a luggage room and he showed us where we could leave our luggage until the afternoon. So we left everything we didn't need there and started our way to the metro station (this time without umbrella). During breakfast we had decided to go to Jardin du Luxembourg as it wasn't raining anymore because I had heard that it's very beautiful and the three times I had visited Paris before I didn't manage to go there.

So I looked up in my mobile phone where we had to go and we took the metro to that place. After 15 minutes we arrived, got out of the station and had only 5 more minutes to walk until we reached one of the garden's entrances. There were many people in nice clothes directly next to the entrance and we wondered, why, until we saw the bride - there was a couple recently married who were taking pictures in the park. I loved watching them, they looked so happy and she was beautiful! But we didn't want to seem too curious so we entered the park and went to the middle.

The park was more beautiful than I had expected, because I thought that without any sunshine parks are not quite nice. But one could see that the city paid a lot of money for its maintenaince and every single plant was perfectly placed. We walked along the way to the middle and saw the beautiful building everyone who has ever seen a picture from Jardin du Luxembourg might know. There was a small fountain where kids were playing with electric boats and there were places to sit down and enjoy the atmosphere.

We sat down shortly, watched the people around us, had a small snack that we had bought in the supermarket before and talked about several things. After a while it got cold anyway, so we stood up again, explored some other corners of the park and finally we decided that we had seen everything important now. So I looked in the tourist guide my Mum had bought and searched for things around us that might be interesting. One thing I found was the famous university Sorbonne. Because there was not much else to visit we left the park and with the help of Google Maps we found the place only 15 minutes later.

Sorbonne - the Elite University

It didn't look like a university at all - more like a Greek Museum or something like that, but it was an impressing building. The only thing that made you notice that there might be students around were the many cafés and snack shops around. Of course, they are everywhere in Paris, but around that university there were even more. In front of the entrance there was a beautiful fountain and some places to sit and I started to imagine how it might be to be allowed to study at that great place. We took some pictures and entered one of the cafés right next to it in order to have a coffee and get warm again.

My Mum's visit was almost over and we talked about her experiences, if she liked it, what I would do for the rest of my time in France etc. It was not too hard that it was her last day, because I would already come home 5 weeks later, so most of my time in France was already over. Because of my (boy)friend that made me sad, of course, but I also knew that I had to go on and could not stay in my French dream at the moment. When we had finished talking and dinking our coffees we decided to get back to the city centre and walk a bit along the Champs-Elysées because that was the place my Mum seemed to like most. Furthermore, my boyfriend would arrive in Paris from his trip to Tunesia that afternoon and we wanted to meet somehow.

It didn't work out immediately because obviously he didn't want to go shopping with me and my Mum, so we said that we would meet later on maybe. So my Mum and I walked along Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Hermès a bit, dreamed of being able to buy in boutiques like that and watched the Chinese people queuing up for the shops. We had one last glass of wine before we decided to get back to the hotel to get our things.

Goodbye Mum, Hello Chéri!

My Mum is even worse than me - always afraid to be late. Therefore, 4 hours before her flight she wanted to go to the airport. I didn't care, that meant that there was still a chance for me to meet my boyfriend in Paris. So we took the Metro until Gare du Nord and from there (there were so many people, I had never seen so many people before.. ) we took the RER which went directly to Charles de Gaulle airport. It took about 30 minutes and stopped at any place possible which was quite annoying. Finally, we arrived and I brought my Mum to her Check-In gate. So finally we had to say goodbye and I was a little bit sad, but as I had already mentioned before, there were only 5 weeks left before I would return home and that's not a lot compared to the time I had already spent in France.

So we said goodbye and I went back to the metro station which took me 20 minutes again because the CDG airport is so large! I took the RER back to Gare du Nord and my boyfriend told me where he was - completely at the other side of the city. But I really wanted to meet him so I wanted to get the metro to Porte Dauphine. It was so full and with my handbag and the small suitcase it's more than annoying taking the metro in Paris. You need your ticket 100 times, the doors are not suitcase-friendly and it was so crowded!

Finally I arrived at the platform and the metro was already there. I had some problems to get in with my suitcase but I had a place and it was okay. Usually metros stop, people leave, people get in and 2 minutes later the train leaves again. But this time it waited and waited and waited, but it didn't move. After 5 minutes there was an announcement that said that there were some technical problems and it would take some time until we would leave again. I decided to wait - sometimes such "problems" end quickly. But after 15 minutes - the train was full, really full - there was still no movement, so I thought about alternatives how I could arrive at Porte Dauphine.

Source

I found an RER, so I had to leave the train, get back all the way to the RER platforms and take that train. That was incredibly annoying again with the suitcase and two times I almost got stuck in the entrances. But finally I was in the RER and only had to go 2 stops. I got out of the RER and had to find the right exit - well, actually I didn't know the right one because my boyfriend didn't tell me and I had never been there before. So I just took one - got stuck with my suitcase in a metro exit and was very desasperated until a very kind person came and helped me out. I hate taking the metro with a suitcase. So after all those problems I finally left the train station and looked at my mobile phone if there was any message. I asked him which exit but he couldn't tell me neither. After some messages we finally found each other (it was a large round point with about 8 or 9 different streets leading to it) and I had already forgotten all problems. I was happy to see him and we decided to have a coffee.

We talked about his stay in Tunesia, about my holiday with my Mum, just everything - as always. I enjoyed it so much and I was a bit sad that our plan to stay in a hotel for that night together in Paris didn't work out. But he would get back to Amiens the next day, so it wasn't the end of the world. After the coffee he insisted to take me back to the Gare du Nord, so we took the RER to the train station together and he even went into the train with me. 2 minutes before the train left he left, too and we had to say goodbye again. But I knew that I would see him the next day.

As it was already a bit late and there was almost nobody in the train I was a bit scared. I've never taken that train alone at night. But it would only stop at two other train stations and I was sure that I would survive 1, 5 hours after that stressful day. And so it was - happy and alive I arrived back in Amiens and only had to take the bus to the students residency before I could fall into my warm and cosy bed.

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