Black Hawk Down or Paris in the Springtime.

I know its a little out of date order but this trip was a bit stressful to say the least and I'm still in the process of writing my letter of complaint! But we managed to get tickets to the Champions League Final in Paris, so it was a good start....we had cheap flights booked and great plans to meet up with my brother-in-law and friend before the game for a leisurely late lunch and amble around before making our way out to the stadium. Well best laid plans and all that....

But lets begin at the beginning, I was organised, thoroughly organised so we had a great deal on a little hotel all booked and paid for well in advance and a good deal on flights too so it was all supposed to go to plan. Well we touched down in Paris and all was still going well.....but the machines for the metro tickets were all blessed with thoroughly serpentine queues and were no longer accepting cards from outside of France, nor notes and as I hadn't enough change for 4 tickets we had to risk our lives by getting a cab into the centre of town with a driver who took road rage to a whole new level!

He finally dropped us at the hotel having dropped off the other half of the party at their nearby hotel as by the time they'd booked their room, our hotel had filled up, and well that's what we thought at this stage. On entering the establishment I had booked we were faced with what can only be described as a building site and hotel manager who kindly informed me that he had rejected our booking and as a result we were now in Paris on the busiest night of the year and no hotel room! Super! Just Peachy!


So we trekked off to find a bar to sit down and start calling around (bear in mind we're on swiss mobiles and now roaming in France this was beginning to cost a fortune) so we also managed to purchase a phone card, with which I made the call to the booking company who then repeatedly failed to call me back. At one point I got stuck in the phone box with the suitcase for five minutes until my Husband came to my rescue. Finally out of sheer desperation having called the UK and enlisted help from my Dad - yes I admit I am still Daddy's little girl - we got a call from the french arm of the business and I managed to get them to agree that if we found a room, at no matter what cost they would fund the difference......but soon we were called back to say they'd found us a hotel room in a 5star centrally located hotel....so we hailed a cab and made our way across town again (better driver this time.)


But on arrival all was not as we expected - lovely hotel - but they were expecting me to pay the difference.......so another call to the UK office ensued and finally the hotel management were provided with the company's credit card details and we could check in. Now the hotel room we got had quite a strange set-up you walked in to find a living room and guest toilet and upstairs a bedroom and bathroom on a mezzanine....fantastic - well yes it would have been if we'd been able to check in 4 hours previously and had that long awaited lunch in Montmartre followed by a leisurely amble. So instead it was a rushed shower and another taxi dash to meet up with my brother-in-law and then a cramped, hot and sticky metro out to St.Denis and the stadium, where we managed to grab a quick kebab (yeah the height of french cuisine indeed) and made it to our seats for what I have to describe as the most upsetting arsenal game I have ever seen.


We finally managed to grab dinner at 3am on the terrace of a great bar and then grab yet another cab back to the hotel. Next morning faced by the choices for breakfast - remember this was a spa hotel - we opted to eat out, well so would you if the only choices were muesli or a vitamin rich breakfast. But not before spotting the hotel's helpful cocktail suggestion list that came with the mini bar! Amongst my favourites were the "Vodka cooler"- one miniature of vodka and a Perrier water, the "Beer Buster" - one beer and one miniature of whisky but by far the best on the list was the "Black Hawk"- one miniature of gin and another of whisky....probably best drunk as a shot which would make it the "Black Hawk Down."