Ni**as In Paris: My Lit European Adventure

Back in March of last year, my friend Landy and I caught this bomb ass flight deal to Paris for $400. (Read more about how I catch great flight deals here). We also decided to get the most bang for our buck by spending a few days in London as well. This was the first of many international excursions of 2018 and I think we managed to have a pretty good time. Grab your popcorn girl cause I’m sharing my European must sees and general travel tips by recounting this unforgettable experience. Let’s Go!

I believe the key to a great trip is derived from a combination of planning and spontaneity. Doing a bit of research is great to ensure that you maximize your time,but having a rigid schedule can turn a once in a lifetime mind-blowing experience into nothing more than a preplanned field trip. And aint nobody got time for that! Some of the greatest moments I experienced on my European excursion were birthed from last minute decisions and chance encounters, the stuff you couldn’t plan if you tried. In preparation for our trip, we crafted a google doc filled with places we wanted to see. Our activities were divided into 2 groups: Must see locations, and places we weren’t crazy about but would visit if time and opportunity permitted. I think the magic of spontaneity flourished on our trip because we really didn’t pick specific times or days for our planned activities. We would mostly pick our must-see location of the day first and then decide what to do next based on proximity and what we were in the mood for.

Locals are an amazing source of spontaneity for your trip. Our amazing Airbnb host in Paris gave us the idea to visit Pierre Sang, which was hands down my favorite restaurant we visited in Paris. Landy and I were able to get last minute reservations which left us sitting in the bar area. While the seats were a bit uncomfortable, we had the unique opportunity to watch the food being made and chat a bit with the chef in between courses. Our VIP seating allowed us to get a bit of extra duck during the 3rd course and as girls who prefer out meat to be dead when served to us, ask the chef to throw our duck on the grill for a bit longer. Had we been stuck to some predetermined schedule, we would have definitely missed out on this amazing opportunity. Our dining experience was constructed of five courses and cost about $50, which isn’t too shabby for a Michelin star restaurant. If you’re ever in Paris I highly recommend this unique and interactive culinary experience.

Another great tip when planning your vacation: Don’t let “travel norms” dictate what YOU want to do and see when traveling. Let me make a confession: I didn’t visit the Louvre. GASP! In my defense I went to Paris BEFORE Yonce’ and her cheating ass man(#lemonadeforever) released the infamous Ape Shit video. So I had no personal motivations to see it and I’m not super interested art that isn’t black. So we decided that seeing the beautiful structure that serves as the entrance to the Louvre was good enough. Had we been inside the Louvre I would have missed my chance to witness a seemly girl next door teenager transform into Gigi Hadid. I’ve since adopted her pose in my Instagram pictures.

Travel Tip: A great way to get good insight on the city you’re visiting is to take suggestions from locals. So we always made a habit of chatting up our uber drivers and other passengers in the car. Uber pools are budget friendly and are also a great way to meet new people. We met this dope girl in London during one of our uber trips, who was so impressed by our crazy travel stories she followed us on Instagram. Which brings me to the story of how me met our friend T’challa, our uber driver turned personal tour guide (and low key Landy’s man)! We called an uber from our hostel to take us to the English Rose Café for traditional English afternoon tea. We were cutting it close to closing time and shared that with our new-found friend, who we affectionally refer to as T’challa. Somehow in between our 10 minute drive to the tea shop, we’d exchanged information with T’challa and he’d agreed to treat us to lunch if the tea shop was closed by the time we arrived. (#hatianspecialaffects) The tea shop was closed when we got there so as he promised, T’challa transformed into our tour guide and took us to Nandos for lunch. As a southern belle and expert on all things chicken, I wasn’t too impressed by the food there but the fact that our uber driver was now treating us to lunch definitely made up for the fact that the Brits no nothing about seasoning chicken. After lunch, T’challa treated us to a driven tour of London. While the gesture was amazingly sweet of him, after about 30 minutes of driving my anxiety started to kick in and I started to wonder if we were being kidnapped. We made up some lousy excuse for him to drop us off at some random shopping outlet and after making tentative plans to link up later that night we parted ways. He would later volunteer to take us to our train at 6 am the morning we were set to return to Paris. T’challa was a real one, too bad he and his car smelled like bologna. I remember hugging him the morning he came to pick us up for the train station and fighting the urge to vomit down his back as his scent engulfed me…but that free ride to the train station tho!

While being open to last minute changes can transform your trip from zero to hero, sticking to the plan is also a great option. We knew when going to London, we wanted to experience traditional afternoon tea. My good girlfriend, Google, suggested we try out the English Rose Café. English Rose was everything I imagined English tea to be. The cucumber sandwiches, macarons, tea, and prosecco (because we had to be fancy and get the sparking afternoon tea) blended together wonderfully. While there are plenty of other tea shops in London with chic over the top décor, I loved the classic simplicity of English Rose. She wasn’t super fancy but she made sure to show you a good time.

When we weren’t making friends from ubers and taxis, we made friends the millennial way: dating apps. Now we have all read the horror stories on the news about young girls who go on international vacations and bite off way more than they can chew. Meeting people online is risky in general, but the stakes are a little higher when you’re in a foreign country. While I don’t have all the answers Sway, I will share a few tips for trying not to end up as the next pretty face on a milk carton. There is safety is numbers. NEVER MEET ANYONE ALONE. It’s way easier for you and your homegirl to jump someone than duking it out all alone. Public places only. No kickbacks at the cribs or meeting in sketchy alleyways. If your goal is to get a feel of a new place, that can be accomplished perfectly in public There are more people on dating apps who are down to meet you, with friends, in a public place than you think. So now is the part where I share our experience with dating apps on the trip. They were um…interesting to say the least.

Pro Tip: Unlike tinder, Okcupid let’s you change your location manually so you don’t have to wait until you’re in your actual travel destination to set up hangouts with your future international besties. So about 2 days before the trip I changed my location to Paris and got to swiping. I started talking to this guy, who we will affectionally refer to as Lion King, and he agreed to meet with us at some spot that supposedly serves really good aligot. (It was on our short list of foods to try in Paris) While I understand that OKC is a dating app, I was not trying to date nobody from there and I made my intentions VERY CLEAR to everyone I communicated with. This brings me to my next tip for using dating apps to meet people abroad: make your intentions known. While there are plenty of people on the apps who would love to meet tourist and hang out, there are also a lot of people looking for…other things. So no matter how cute and flirty the banter is make it very clear what your intentions are. I made sure to communicate often that while I was there for a good time and not a long time, the good time didn’t not include any bumping and grinding. I also stressed that I would be bringing a friend and would under no circumstances meet up with anyone alone. Now back to the story:

We meet LK at the restaurant and it’s kinda awkward because it takes a minute for your girl to warm up to strangers. LK is chatting to me in the line but it’s loud and I can barely hear anything so I mostly nod and smile to be polite. I’m also trying to make this hangout a 3 person thing by including Landy in the awkward conversation, but this heffa decides to be shady and walk ahead of us while pretending to be distracted on her phone. I swear it be your own people! Once we were seated and waiting on our food, I was finally able to hear him and quickly realized that I could barely understand anything he’s saying. He admits that English isn’t his best language and the little bit he could muster was so laced with his French accent I couldn’t comprehend. So I did what any girl would do in my situation, I just kept drinking. Landy fortunately is Haitian and fluent in creole, which is very similar to French. So she took over the conversation and I focused my attention on getting to know the red wine a little better. My recollection of what happened after dinner is a bit shaky because the wine was good and my French is bad. I remember standing outside trying to figure out how to ask this man if we could use his shower because we were scared we would catch the plague in ours. (This was dumb. Do NOT do this.) I don’t remember how we parted but we did take a picture (gotta do it for the gram) and we made plans to meetup later but we never did. He ended up weirdly texting me later saying something about he wished we kissed and I was only interested in kissing prosecco on this trip. He was such a sweet guy and made himself avaliable for suggestions whenever we asked. Thanks Lion King!

The other dating app hangout I set up was with this guy I met on tinder. Now I wasn’t looking for love on these apps but this guy I was excited to meet because he was fine af. He seemed pretty cool from our convo on tinder and was perfectly fine with hanging out with me and my friend. We show up to the bar a little bit before he arrives and we’re seated in the back of the restaurant with our back to the wall. When he walks into the bar I recognized him immediately and was taken back by how handsome he was. He walks over to our table and gives us the signature French greeting of a peck on each cheek and I try not to swoon. The waiter comes over to take our order and in the middle of him ordering he turns to me and asks a question. That’s when I realized that my South Georgian ears were no match for his thick French accent. After leaning in closer and annoyingly asking him to repeat himself a couple of times, Landy came to the rescue and translated. I then started to notice that he had more of a thing for Landy than for me. So I fell back in the conversation and just observed. (Get your man boo!) The drinks at this place were absolutely delicious AND it was happy hour so your girl was lit lit. He wanted us all to go dancing after we left the bar and he was cute so I was down. He ordered a round of shots for us and did this weird thing where he flicked us on the forehead. Sober me now realizes that it was a bit weird, but the lit me was basking in his beauty and the drinks and didnt think much of it. I took a quick restroom break and when I come back Landy is telling me to grab my things because she called an uber. Later I found out that he’d done his flick you in the forehead trick one time too many for her. Either way I had an amazing time and he was nice to look at!

This trip truly taught me that the people you meet while traveling can truly transform your experience abroad. Landy and I were a bit hesitant at first, but we took a risk and decided to book a hostel for the duration of our London stay. The choice to stay in a hostel was one of the best things we could’ve ever done. Staying in a hostel is not only great for your budget it presents an opportunity to meet new people without ever leaving your bed. We had one of the littest nights I’ve ever had while staying in the hostel and I won’t even try to confine the experience to a blog post, maybe I’ll make a video of it one day. Just know that we ended up clubbing all night, while never making it into an actual club, learning how this Nigerian dude cheated on his girlfriend by having 2 sim cards, drinking beer with our Korean bunk mate, Hannah, while she told us her seemingly never ending stores of how she encountered racism, and a whole bunch of other stuff I was either too drunk to remember or too tired to type. You can plan and gooogle doc it until your fingers fall off, but why I learned most is that the moments you will remember the most are ofthen those you could never plan. On your next trip be sure to say Hi to the stranger on the train, or check that cool restaurant you passsed walked to a preplanned destination. It just may lead be the beginning of your next “Girl, you wouldn’t believe…” travel story.

When are you making your next travel memory?! Be sure to check out Landy’s recout of our trip and follow me on instagram to keep up with my latest travel stories!

-Tasia

Fantasia WilliamsJanuary 21, 2019Comment