Today was supposed to be our last day in Paris but due to the worst possible “Quirky mishap”, today did not turn out as planned.  To follow you will read the series of events leading up to this mishap and what happened after..

We were checking out today so we left the keys and our luggage in the apartment we had been staying, the owner was arranging for us to pick this up later in the day from a different apartment within the complex.

The boyfriend (Sean) and I then discovered there was another side to Paris we were not aware existed with much more delicious and competitively priced café’s..  Why oh why did we not discover this sooner than our last day!!  We had been choosing what we would order by pretending we were reading the French menu outside the cafe’s but instead we were looking to see what other people were eating..  

Whilst we were pretending to read the French menu, a French waiter approached us.  He spoke a little English and was explaining some of what the menu read.  There was a special of the day written in French however when I asked what it was he looked me up and down and said in his French accent “no no no, you would not like it.. it is a baby cow that is too big”.  I was actually pleased when he said that, it must be obvious I am a healthy eater!!  My healthy food choice today was a Nicoise salad, not the tastiest salad I have had but it was fresh and healthy which is what my body had been craving.

Time was running out, I knew our plane was flying out today but I was not sure of the itinerary as Sean had booked the flights.  All I knew was we had to be at the airport by 4 something o’clock.  We quickly got on a bike and rode to the bridge that I had mentioned in yesterdays entry, as I wanted to attach the lock that Sean had given me. I carefully unlocked it and attached it to another lock on the bridge and threw the keys over the bridge into the water.  Part of me was sad to leave the lock in Paris but now there will always be a part of Sean and I there.

We quickly rode back to our apartment complex to pick up our luggage but as we had checked out and didn’t have a key we had no way of letting the occupant holding our luggage of knowing we had arrived.  We quickly purchased 2 x espresso coffee’s two doors up and used their wifi to make a skype call to the owner but this cost us quite some time.  We eventually received our luggage and upon making our the way to the train walked across a market, the beautiful fresh produce caught my eye so I had to take a few snaps, I had never seen such pretty tomatoes, they looked like a cross between a pumpkin and a tomato, beautiful.

We then continued our journey to Paris Airport and had no time for error.  We caught two trains to where we believed the airport was located.  We arrived at Charles de Gaulle train station which shared the same name as the airport we were travelling to.  This had to be the airport right?  How could there possibly be a train station with the same name as the airport…  As it turned out it was not where the airport was located and this ended up costing us a considerable amount of time.  To cut a long story short, 70 minutes and two train trips later we were at the correct airport, burning calories by running to the Easyjet terminal however when we arrived our flight had already taken off.

Air France had a flight going to our destination an hour and a half later however this was at a different airport.  An hour, 20 euros and a coach ride later we arrived at a different airport which was ironically close to where we first started our airport journey but we ended up missing this flight also!!  What were we to do?  We were forced to think outside the square and booked the only flight available which ended up being 150km away from our destination in Biarritz.

On a positive note, while we were waiting for our flight I found a healthy cafe in the airport which was a distraction from my travel conundrum. There was a variety of delicious food available with nutritional information listed under each item detailing the calorie content!!  Why did I not stumble upon any cafe’s like this in Paris I thought!!   Sadly I did not buy anything as I thought I would eat upon arrival at our destination.

We were on the last flight to arrive in Pau which is located in the South of France.  Pau is a country town which is very different to Paris, we flagged a taxi and attempted to ask him where we could find a hotel and somewhere to eat…  This was our most challenging task by far as the lovely French people speak little English here, I mean why would they need to as this is not a tourist town!!  I did my best charade impersonation to resemble a person eating and then a person sleeping with this resulting in the taxi driver mumbling the word motel, BINGO..  We had progress!!

We stayed at the “Atlantic Hotel” in Pau, I will definitely recommend this place!!  From the outside I was a little worried but the owners are extremely hospitable, the rooms are clean, the beds are very comfortable and the shower is amazing!!  I know this is my Quirky Calorie blog but I just had to mention this as the Atlantic Hotel got us out of a terrible situation and are well worth the mention!!  The unfortunate thing was as we arrived extremely late, everything was closed so dinner consisted of some French salami sticks that Sean had bought in Paris and a pack of chocolate pretzels..  I was hungry so I ate some of this but I felt terribly sick after!!