So a few weeks ago I would have been able to get a trip to Vienna for Techgirl, but another girl got it. Which was okay, as I went to Munich last year for the Nvidia conference and that was a treat too. Lucky me though, there was another trip: Paris! I went there to see the new Huawei be presented and it was amazing.

No Disneyland this time

I only ever go to Paris to visit Disneyland, so it was nice to get into town again without being stuck in Disney with my mind. The last time I was in Paris I was there with my ex W, and we kissed in front of the Eiffel tower, which is very corny and that is pretty much why I love it. I even made a very childish painting out of it, haha.

Anyway, this time I went to Paris with a very fun group of journalists, they were all great guys and I really had a good time with them. First we took the Thalys to Paris, then we had to have lunch extremely quickly cause Thalys was delayed by one hour and eventually we ended up at the Grand Palais, which is this prestigious, huge building used for the World Fair once. Last year the Tour de France went through it and now I was there to look at the new phones being announced.

Grand Palais Paris

It is an incredible venue, and it is so beautiful it should not even be called a venue. It’s art, it’s history, it’s beauty. After the presentation we got to play around with the new phone a bit, which was a lot of fun cause my Samsung S7 Edge takes awful pictures and this one is extremely good at helping people take pictures and edit them. We had dinner at this restaurant called Cafe Moderne, which was an interesting experience.

They were rushing and rushing to get us food, but not in a good way. I was literally still eating my main course when desert was put on the table and when I told them I do not eat fish (as a main course, haha, not for dessert 😉 ) they were angry with me and the cook was yelling POISSON POISSON POISSON! and then I got a plate just like everyone else, except for the big chunk of fish that was taken off. It was a bit sad.

Paris NEF and Cafe Ruc

The food was very good though, and afterwards we went to the after party that was taking place at the NEF, another beautiful location. There were bands playing, there was a slide (yes, a slide and yes of course I went on it) and there was amazing food. We stayed until 1 o clock I think and then we headed back to the hotel, where I still had some writing to do.

Though the rest of the group left in the morning, I had asked to get a train in the evening, so I could explore Paris. I was so happy I did that, cause I had an amazing day in the city of love. First I took the underground to the Eiffel tower, to have some breakfast and write a few things about the phone. It is one of the things I love the most: travel, sit in some cafe and write. I always try to pick an amazing location, like the Bristol Cafe in Warsaw for example. This time I was actually looking at the Eiffel Tower, very nice.

Unfortunately many buildings in Paris are surrounded by barricades due to terrorism and maintenance, it was really hard to really take good pictures of them all. As it was raining all day, I deciced to take one of those extremely expensive hop on hop off buses (36 euros a day, wtf!) and just take it for 1,5 rounds so I could at least see Louvre, Notre Dame and drive around the Arc de Triomphe, as I never had seen them in real life. It was a good investment, cause I got to take pretty nice pics and I was just so happy to finally see them.

The rest of the day was just strolling around, having some awesome eggs benedict at cafe Ruc and just being happy and alone. There is something very peaceful about travelling alone and I find it to be highly addictive. Highly addictive…

Gare du Nord

Anyway, the underground to the Gare du Nord was a bit of a drag. The Gare du Nord station was closed off, meaning I had to go one stop further and walk back, but there were all these people trying to get my attention in ways that I do not really appreciate, so I did not really feel at ease. Thankfully those were just 10 minutes of my trip, the rest of it was really great. At the Gare du Nord I watched some The Crowne and on the train I did some more writing, feeling very happy about the amazing trip I was able to make.

It is too bad it’s not too common for me to do these type of trips, cause I really, really love them. On to the next one! 🙂