Uragano Tati - September 2013

[Uragano Tati]

After the wonderful holiday of May 2012 I could not wait to go back to the park.


But this time I wanted to avoid all possible holidays and vacations to enjoy the park almost empty, so I wrote on a calendar all the holidays of France, England, Spain, Germany and Italy of 2013.
A great period without holidays and with the schools open everywhere was the end of September, which is also the time of my birthday, heheh!
Again to avoid the crowds I decided to go 5 days and 4 nights from Monday to Friday. In the weekend there wouldn't have been more shows than during the week, only more people.


So I booked the hotel Cheyenne (which cost the same as the Santa Fe, but it had the western theming that we like a lot!) from 23 to 27 September 2013, with the Irish offer of the 2 nights and 2 days free saving a lot!


But the flights were a problem.
Alitalia and Air France who had perfect flight times costed about 300 Euros per person already several months before the trip!
So I looked at EasyJet. The flight times, however, were not very good. The flight Bologna - Paris Charles De Gaulle arrived in the late afternoon and the Paris - Bologna was around midday...
Of course I did not want to lose almost 2 days in the park!


So I decided to arrive one day earlier and leave one day after sleeping the first and the last night in a budget hotel outside the park. But at this point, why not add a night and a day to visit Paris?
I was there once with my parents about 1000 years ago, and Claudio had never been there. What a better opportunity to do that?


So I booked the flights for Saturday 21 and Saturday 28 September, the Hotel Ibis Budget Porte de Montreuil for the first 2 nights (Saturday and Sunday) and the Hotel Ibis Val D'Europe for the last night (Friday).
I chose the more expensive Ibis version for the last night to have the reception open 24 hours because I wanted to stay at the park until the end of Dreams and we would arrive at the hotel for the check in quite late.
The Ibis Budget version has limited opening hours for the reception and for arrivals outside the opening hours you have to use the vending machines that distribute the keys and as we don't speak French this thing worried me a little!


With EasyJet you can do the check in online 30 days before the flight.
I wanted to do it as soon as it was possible to try to have close seats without having to buy them, eheheh!
But at the end of August we were on vacation in Austria, in a very small village near the border with Italy, where there is no free wifi anywhere.
So I asked my mom if she could do that.
My mom is not very technology friendly, it's alrealdy a lot for her being able to use the email and send a text message with the phone! So she was worried to make some mistakes. At the end it was easy. She made the check in online while we were on the phone and we got close seats for both flights! Well, the seats were exactly the same for both flights! Same row and same place!

[Uragano Tati]

Day 1 - Saturday, September 21st


Wake up early in the morning because there were a lot of things to do before leaving!
I had to arrange all the stuff of Adam, our hamster, that would go on vacation with my parents during the week we were away.
I started to prepare the paper towels we put in the cage and that he uses for building the nest, his dried herbs (mallow, dandelion, nettle, thymus, rosehip) that he likes so much, the container of good and fat seeds we give him by hand only few per day, the surprises container, the container of the mix of seeds... aaarghhhh!
I forgot to prepare the mix!!
Yes, the bowl in the cage was full, but it's good to add some seeds sometimes.


Ok, do not panic. There was time.
I pulled out all the containers of the ingredients and I started to mix:
- A teaspoon of commercial hamsters mix from which I removed sunflower seeds that I put into the container of good seeds;
- Two teaspoons of lentils, peas and spelt;
- Two teaspoons of millet for birds;
- A teaspoon of barley;
- A teaspoon of buckwheat;
- Two teaspoons of millet for humans;
- Half a teaspoon of flaxseed;
- Half a teaspoon of sesame seeds;
- A few grains of corn;
- Some yellow soy beans and some azuki beans;
- The tip of a teaspoon of wheat germ.


Phew, done!


The small cage we use to transport Adam was ready. Wrapped in a fleece blanket inside a bag. So he was protected from cold air and remained in the dark on the way.
But we must still convince him to go in that small cage.
And he was not going to do that...
He was in the tower, and didn't want to come down...






The only solution was to go the hard way.
I disconnected the tube from the tower! Then I put my hand near the hole with a piece of tomato on it and finally he came out.
As he came on my hand I put him in the small cage.
Mission done!
He was not really happy, but it was only a 20 minute journey.
We brought our luggage in the car, then the big cage and finally the small cage with Adam and we went.
Our destination was my parents home in Bologna.


We arrived and brought Adam inside.
Then we went to take the big cage.
The elevator was too small and we had to walk 3 floors of stairs... Luckily the cage is light!
We put Adam in his big cage and we gave him a pine seed.
He knew that he wasn't at our home. He sniffed and wandered around the cage, he was intrigued by all the new sounds he heard. Then after a while, he went to sleep.


In the meanwhile I realized that I had forgotten some of his things at home!!
First of all the vegetables in the fridge.
Oh well, my mom would go and buy some other.
And I had also forgotten the sheet (well, the many sheets!) with the instructions on what to do and what not to do and with the name, number and address of the vet. It's very difficult to find a vet who is able to take care of hamsters. Usually they only deal with dogs and cats. That's why we go from Pianoro to Medicina (around 40 km away) for our vet!
Ok, I had all the info about the vet in my phone, I could copy them easily.
And then while Claudio installed a program on the PC of my mother I wrote some basic things about how to deal with Adam.
Mom knew how to do. Last year she took care of Roger.


Finally we could leave the house to go to the hospital to visit my grandmother.
Then we went to my dad workplace.
We left my car there and my parents took us to the airport.


The Easyjet flight, scheduled for 15:40 was on time.
We already had our boarding passes printed from home and there was no queue at the security checkpoint, so even though it was already 13:30 there was time to eat.


At about 14:20 we said goodbye to my parents and we walked through the security checks.
I didn't took out from our luggage the two bags with the fluids but we were not told anything.
After less than half an hour the gate number appeared on the screen.
We went straight to the gate and there was already a considerable queue outside the boarding gate.
We joined the line because my trolley, although was of the right dimensions for hand luggage, was larger than the size of hand luggage guaranteed in the cabin.
The flight was almost full, on the internet and on the boarding pass was clearly written that on some crowded flights some hand luggage may be taken and put in hold. For free, of course, but since my trolley isn't made of strong material it may be damaged.
The gate opened only at 15:20.
Fortunately we passed without any hand luggage taken away!
The plane took off with a half hour late, but arrived at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport on time, at 17:30!

[Uragano Tati]

We were at Terminal 2D.
There were so many water fountains but no one worked...


We took the free shuttle CDGVAL to get to Roissypole, where there is the bus station where we should take the bus 351 that will take us practically outside the hotel at Porte de Montreuil.
But first we had to buy the tickets.
We approached a vending machine. Among the available languages there ​​was also Italian so at the end it was the better option!
We needed a carnet of 10 tickets t +.
Six tickets (3 per person) for the bus ride to Paris, and we would use the other 4 the next day.
The problem was that the vending machine only accepted credit card or coins...
We had with us the prepaid credit card but it was loaded with less than 50 EUR and we preferred not to use it right away.
But the carnet costed € 13.30 and we had not so many coins!
Fortunately, there was also the ticket office with a human who spoke English!


We easily found the bus stop and after about twenty minutes, the bus 351 arrived at 18:25.
In the meantime, we have sent a sms to Claudio's parents because we had forgotten in the fridge also an opened package of milk! So we asked them to go, take it and use it and also the vegetables.
We hopped on the bus, we marked the tickets and we seated.
The bus was almost empty.
Taking the bus was a good idea. We saw a bit of French life, some roads and houses, and the Porte de Montreuil stop was few meters away from the Hotel Ibis Budget Porte de Montreuil!
We arrived at the hotel after about an hour, at 19:30.






We checked in, left the bags in the room and went straight to the mall under the hotel.
Upon entering we found a video game store.
And of course we stopped there for a while. Just enough time to find LA Noir on offer at 10€.
Claudio has thought seriously about buying it but it was in French and it wouldn't be easy to play it!


But we had to hurry up because we had to buy some food before the Carrefour supermarket closed.
We had dinner on Saturday, and breakfast, lunch and dinner on Sunday to organize. And maybe even something for breakfast on Monday.
Of course we could eat so many delicious things in all the kiosks and bistrots around the city, but there was the little problem of cholesterol.
I have a bit high cholesterol. The doctor said that I'm too young to think about taking medicines and that I just have to be careful on what I eat. This means avoid pork, cheese, fried foods, butter, cream, eggs.
The French cuisine does not help much on this.
For my birthday (Tuesday) nothing and no one would be able to keep me away from the Volcano at the Rainforest Cafe. And at the park I would probably eat things I should avoid, heheh!
So we decided to eat right things for the days in Paris and then enjoy the best in Disneyland.
We bought bread, three cans of fish (salmon, mackerel and tuna), a packet of biscuits and a pack of 9 small bricks of orange juices.


Back in the room we decided to have dinner with the salmon can and... oops!
We did not notice that the can didn't have the opening tab!
And of course we didn't have a can opener with us.
But we had a small nail clippers.
It was not easy, but we menaged to open that little can!
The next day would be a long day so we went to bed early!

[Uragano Tati]

Day 2 - Sunday, September 22nd


We woke up at 7:00, but it was still surprisingly dark!
Evidently, the sun rises late at the end of September in Paris!
We had breakfast with the orange juice and biscuits we bought the day before and with the Nescafe we brought from home.


Small review of the Hotel Ibis Budget Porte de Montreuil.


The room was small, there was a double bed and a single bed above the double bed, but it was clean and tidy.
The thing that I found really uncomfortable was the lack of furniture.
There was no closet, there were no bedside tables, there were no drawers or anything.
There was only a small table with a chair and 4 clothes hangers. But they weren't hung side by side, they were facing each other so that it was rather difficoult to take the stuff hanging on the back.
The bathroom was ok. There was a large shower, but no pad. The towels were clean but there were only two. At least there were two shelves where to put the stuff.
So it is a hotel that can be ok to spend a night or two, but would become really uncomfortable to spend more time.
This is the room of the Hotel:






The window couldn't be opened, but there was air conditioning.
This was the view from our room:





In the evening, on the left, through the steps of the fire escape, you could see the Eiffel Tower. I tried to take a picture, but it didn't work.
In the same building there is also the more expensive Ibis.
The Ibis Budget was in the first 7 floors (we were on the sixth floor), while the Ibis was in the upper floors.
For using the elevators to go upstairs we had to insert the key of the room, otherwise it will not work.


Just under the hotel during the day there was a kind of fair, and in the evening when the stalls were removed, there were a huge amount of litter and waste scattered on the ground.
I don't understand why Parisians have to throw the trash on the ground when there are lots of trashcans...


In conclusion, would I recommend the Ibis Budget Porte de Montreil?
I don't know. It depends. It is really cheap (44 Euros per night for two people), it is not central, but it is not out of the world (it is just at the end of the area 1 of the underground, on Bd Periphique in the east part of the city). If you don't have big demands for a night or two it is fine.
Would I stay there again?
If I had to spend a night in Paris on a budget probably yes.

[Uragano Tati]

At home I had prepared a possible walking tour around the center of Paris.
It was about 15 km, and in August in the mountains in one day I had walked ​​17 km without any problems so they were easily feasible.


My plan was to take the Metro Line 9 from the Porte de Montreuil station, a few meters from the hotel, using 2 of the 4 t+ tickets we had left from the day before, and then get off at Trocadero or at Ranelagh station if we wanted to start from the Statue of Liberty rather than from the Eiffel Tower.


The day was cloudy, but not raining and it wasn't cold, Claudio wanted to walk around and see as much as possible of Paris, so we opted for the longer version of the walk.


When we came out of the Metro station we started to walk down Rue du Ranelagh to the Statue of Liberty.








The Statue of Liberty between two buildings:





Behind us the Eiffel Tower:

[Uragano Tati]

We started walking along Allee des Cygnes.
There were many people who were jogging, probably because it was Sunday.
And having a lot of people running around made ​​us hungry so we stopped on a bench to eat some cookies!











Then we arrived at Pont De Bir-Hakeim.

[Uragano Tati]

We continued along Av De New York:





And we arrived at the Trocadero, where there was the final of the Archery World Championship.





And here we are at the Eiffel Tower.

[Uragano Tati]

As might be expected, we continued along the Champ De Mars...











... to the Ecole Militaire.











Looking behind us, the Eiffel Tower and one of the many wedding photoshoot that we encountered!

[Uragano Tati]

We then went to the Hotel des Invalides and in front of a small bistro there was parked this:





Hotel Des Invalides:














And then we walked to Pont Alexandre III, Grand Palais and Petit Palais.

[Uragano Tati]

Pont Alexandre III:








This is not Pont Alexandre III, it is a bridge that can be seen from the Pont Alexandre III! I think it's Pont Des Invalides.





This is again Pont Alexandre III, or better the statues of Pont Alexandre III!

[Uragano Tati]

Petit Palais and Grand Palais:








And here is the first flowers picture of a looong series, heheh!
My dad asked me to take a lot of pictures that could be used as a wrapping for cars mirrors, and besides monuments and landscapes what's better than a little of nature?!
Ok, those metal things that you see behind don't give the idea of nature, but the photo can always be cut when we print it on the wrapping film, no?!





Walk and walk, we arrived on the Champs-Elysees.
At the end you could see the Arc de Triomphe de l'Etoile:








We then went down the Champs-Elysees to Place de la Concorde and the Louvre.
But before I got a fit of artistic photos for wrapping...

















And my dad liked them, ahahah!!!

[Uragano Tati]

It was time for lunch and we stopped on a bench along the Champs Elysees to eat.


We had with us the bread and the mackerel can.


There were a lot of kiosks that were selling some wonderful crepes and even more amazing huge, very huge hot dogs filled with sauce and cheese...
All of this for only 5 Euros...


If only I had not done the blood tests, I woudln't know that I have high cholesterol and I could enjoy that stuff... Sometimes ignorance is a good thing!
However, the thought that in a few days I would have eaten ​​the Volcano at Rainforest Cafe made me happy, heheh!


We were enjoying our lunch, when a guy who was walking down the way stopped to pick up something from the ground right behind us.
It was a ring and this guy asked us if it was our.
We said no.
He looked at the ring and then in a mixed French - English told us that it was gold.
We replied that he had been lucky.
He then went on saying that since he was an evangelist he could not wear rings and he gave it to us.
Ok, we thanked him and then he went to leave.
After less than 3 seconds he came back (how strange, we didn't expect that, hahaha!) asking us to give him some money to eat.
Very well, we gave him back the ring and we told him he could sell it.
He began to say that he could not sell it because he had no documents and insisted that we kept the ring and gave him some money.
Of course, we have given him the ring and he have not even seen 2 cents from us.
At the beginning he had also asked us where we were from, we told him that we were Italians, at least he could do more!
Come on, in Italy frauds are much more sofisticated!
Did he really think we would have fall into the deception with that old trick?!
Over all, we were sitting on a bench eating a sad can of mackerel... like two tramps , hahaha!
Once we had finished our meal, along the Champs Elysees we found perhaps the only free toilet in Paris!
There was a lady that if you would give her a coin she would certainly not refuse it but there was a sign saying "free".


And then we arrived at the Place de la Concorde.

[Uragano Tati]

And then we continued along the Jardin Des Tuileries:























Until the Arc De Triomphe Du Carrousel:

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And then of course the Louvre:

[Uragano Tati]

We didn't have time to go into the museum, so we headed to Les Halles.
We didn't imagine that everything was closed for renovation.