Here's the short story of the beginning of our journey to Paris:
We hit a few complications with our early flight. Our flight our was set to leave at 6:50 and the train to the airport set to depart at 3:56. It takes about an hour to get to the airport we were set to fly out of. The biggest problem was that on a Tuesday night there are no night buses and therefore no public transportation after 12:30 am. So Sarah and I decided to take the metro to the central station at 12:30 and just hang out (and maybe sleep for a few hours before our train left). I had luckily taken a three hour nap before we left, but Sarah had not. Right as Sarah was about to lay down in the central station a security guard starting rounding people up, telling us the station was closing until 3:30 that morning. At this point it is about 1:30. We have two hours before we need to be back for our train and no way to get back to our village except to spend $60 for a taxi. Uh oh.
We inquired with one of the security guards and he told us the bus station was open 24/7. Good. So we walk over to the bus station, only to discover the automatic doors stop at 12:30. We searched for another door for a while, asked a few people, but we just ended up back at that same revolving door that wouldn't open. One woman who was particularly nice informed us that bars are open until 3:30 and as long as we were inside by 3:00 we could hang out in there. I was all for spending $10 on a beer if it meant we were out from the cold and not paying $120 for a taxi service. It ended up that on our way back to the bar from the bus station we stopped in a fast-food type shop that sold kebabs, wraps, sandwiches. The guy working told us they were open until 4:00. Perfect.
So Sarah and I split a kebab (90 kroner for that and a drink-$16ish) and played cards for an hour and a half. Or at least we tried (Sarah kept nodding off). This is a picture of our kebab. It's some kind of pita type bread with meat, lettuce, corn, cucumbers, tomatoes (and other possibilities) with some kind of sauce. It's really good when it's warm, but after an hour not so much.
We ended up leaving around 3:30, meeting a very nice Norwegian man in the train station who rode the train with us (and helped us translate the Norwegian announcements), and making it to the airport perfectly fine. I started to fall asleep a few times on the train, and was feeling pretty tired at the airport. Sarah and I were both asleep before the plane took off, and only woke up for take off, when they turned the lights on (which was very confusing) and when they announced we were about to land. And then we both slept most of the hour and a half bus ride into the city after we arrived. We made it through the day pretty well, but when it was time for bed I was asleep before the lights were even turned off (maybe a minute later).
As we were beginning our descent to the Paris airport, the sun was just starting to rise, which was beautiful. Overall, everything turned out okay. It was a pretty good story to tell our friends when we got back too.
We hit a few complications with our early flight. Our flight our was set to leave at 6:50 and the train to the airport set to depart at 3:56. It takes about an hour to get to the airport we were set to fly out of. The biggest problem was that on a Tuesday night there are no night buses and therefore no public transportation after 12:30 am. So Sarah and I decided to take the metro to the central station at 12:30 and just hang out (and maybe sleep for a few hours before our train left). I had luckily taken a three hour nap before we left, but Sarah had not. Right as Sarah was about to lay down in the central station a security guard starting rounding people up, telling us the station was closing until 3:30 that morning. At this point it is about 1:30. We have two hours before we need to be back for our train and no way to get back to our village except to spend $60 for a taxi. Uh oh.
We inquired with one of the security guards and he told us the bus station was open 24/7. Good. So we walk over to the bus station, only to discover the automatic doors stop at 12:30. We searched for another door for a while, asked a few people, but we just ended up back at that same revolving door that wouldn't open. One woman who was particularly nice informed us that bars are open until 3:30 and as long as we were inside by 3:00 we could hang out in there. I was all for spending $10 on a beer if it meant we were out from the cold and not paying $120 for a taxi service. It ended up that on our way back to the bar from the bus station we stopped in a fast-food type shop that sold kebabs, wraps, sandwiches. The guy working told us they were open until 4:00. Perfect.
We ended up leaving around 3:30, meeting a very nice Norwegian man in the train station who rode the train with us (and helped us translate the Norwegian announcements), and making it to the airport perfectly fine. I started to fall asleep a few times on the train, and was feeling pretty tired at the airport. Sarah and I were both asleep before the plane took off, and only woke up for take off, when they turned the lights on (which was very confusing) and when they announced we were about to land. And then we both slept most of the hour and a half bus ride into the city after we arrived. We made it through the day pretty well, but when it was time for bed I was asleep before the lights were even turned off (maybe a minute later).
As we were beginning our descent to the Paris airport, the sun was just starting to rise, which was beautiful. Overall, everything turned out okay. It was a pretty good story to tell our friends when we got back too.
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