After being granted my visa, I proceeded to clear immigration and collected my vouchers for a free night at the hotel and a couple of free meals.
All I have with me at this point are a backpack with a spare tshirt, a scarf and a camera. I walked over to the spot where I was supposed to catch my shuttle to the airport and waited for about 20 minutes. It was snowing and absolutely frigid. I was cold enough to throw on a spare T under my current tshirt and jacket. The scarf did a good job of hiding the fact that I was wearing two collared tshirts, one under the other...
There was a security guard taking a smoke break at the shuttle stop so I walked over to him and tried to ask one of the stupidest questions he's probably ever heard "Hey, how do I get to the Eiffel Tower form here?". In my defence, this being an unplanned trip and all that, I had no idea what else to do when presented with an opportunity to spend ~10 hours in Paris.
The guard had no idea what I was talking about however, so I tried to invoke some of my broken French, translating the question as "Oรน est L'Eiffel Tower?" (Where is the Eiffel Tower). That seemed to mean something to him and he responded with "Oh, La Tour Eiffel?". Yup, that's exactly what I meant, and yes the French order their words a bit differently. He proceeded to explain to me (in French), with much hand waving, that I needed to go down two levels and there I would find the trains that connect to Paris. I was not technically in Paris yet, as CDG Airport is located in Roissy.
Made a decision to skip the free hotel/meal completely and proceeded to go two levels down to the station to catch the blue line into Paris! It just dawned on me at this point that I will have to spend most of my night roaming the streets quite under-dressed for the sub-zero temperatures in Paris, but hey, La Tour Eiffel beckons. Below is the map I picked up with POI's circled, courtesy the nice lady who sold me the tickets!
All I have with me at this point are a backpack with a spare tshirt, a scarf and a camera. I walked over to the spot where I was supposed to catch my shuttle to the airport and waited for about 20 minutes. It was snowing and absolutely frigid. I was cold enough to throw on a spare T under my current tshirt and jacket. The scarf did a good job of hiding the fact that I was wearing two collared tshirts, one under the other...
There was a security guard taking a smoke break at the shuttle stop so I walked over to him and tried to ask one of the stupidest questions he's probably ever heard "Hey, how do I get to the Eiffel Tower form here?". In my defence, this being an unplanned trip and all that, I had no idea what else to do when presented with an opportunity to spend ~10 hours in Paris.
The guard had no idea what I was talking about however, so I tried to invoke some of my broken French, translating the question as "Oรน est L'Eiffel Tower?" (Where is the Eiffel Tower). That seemed to mean something to him and he responded with "Oh, La Tour Eiffel?". Yup, that's exactly what I meant, and yes the French order their words a bit differently. He proceeded to explain to me (in French), with much hand waving, that I needed to go down two levels and there I would find the trains that connect to Paris. I was not technically in Paris yet, as CDG Airport is located in Roissy.
Made a decision to skip the free hotel/meal completely and proceeded to go two levels down to the station to catch the blue line into Paris! It just dawned on me at this point that I will have to spend most of my night roaming the streets quite under-dressed for the sub-zero temperatures in Paris, but hey, La Tour Eiffel beckons. Below is the map I picked up with POI's circled, courtesy the nice lady who sold me the tickets!
