My recent trip to Paris gave me more experiences than expected.

I was flying there with two friends. Our hotel was the cheapest we could find online, and so was our plane tickets. Nothing fancy about the trip, no big expectations, and we were only staying there for two nights, Saturday till Monday.

 
The first taste we got of Paris Saturday morning was their subway, something which would bite us back later in the trip. We arrived at our main destination approximately an hour after our arrival by plane, a combination of trains and walking. My friends had both brought their small suitcases with them, I brought my backpack with me, not thinking about the pain my shoulders would suffer because of it.
Our little stroll from the train station to our hotel was the most we got to experience of Paris’ streets. The beautiful architecture as well as a small inside-market which we stopped by for a quick lunch.

We passed through a square near the metro station called République and we were not quite sure what was happening. Tons of people were gathered to what seemed to be a demonstration as they all had the same yellow vests on. A few days later, back in Denmark, I found out through the news that it indeed was a demonstration and that it only got wilder the days after we left Paris. We were lucky that nothing major happened whilst we were there.

 
Sunday morning, we had to wake up early. My two friends had VIP tickets, which meant that they had to go to the concert hall to get their numbers to secure a good spot for both the concert as well as the meet & greet included in the tickets. We had to be there at 6:30 and we waited for a good hour before we got our numbers. I joined them despite having section C (the cheapest) tickets and that got me the 10th spot in the queue for my area. After that we went back to our hotel to rest before having to go back to the concert hall at 17:30 to be separated into our given areas. The concert began at 20:00 so not much was seen that day. The concert was great, and it was worth every second of waiting, and even though I had bought cheap tickets, I still somehow managed to get a great spot surprisingly close to the stage.

 
Monday morning, our last day. We left to the airport at 9, planning to catch the flight at 11:15 but then the unexpected happened. The train arrived late to the airport, causing us to miss our check-in and making us contact SAS to book us a new flight later that day. Sadly, the next flight was at 19:45, making us have to wait at the airport for many hours only accompanied by the limited amount of restaurants found in their basement floor. Spending the day writing a late history essay, eating McDonald’s and drinking Starbucks, we ended our trip on a slightly different note than what we had hoped for.

But it was all part of the experience.

-Alex, 19/12/18