Jet2 promised us a trip to Paris for 99p there and £1.99 back. Plus taxes. Oh, do you have a bag? That’s £5.99. Oh, did you want a seat? That’s £3.99. Do you want “Priority Checkin”? No? sure?

So £150 each later, we had two nights and two days in Gay Paree. We flew Leeds Bradford to Paris Charles De Gaulle and wandered around looking for a bus that was supposed to take us directly to the Arc de Triomphe, where we were staying. Couldn’t find it, but did find a railway station so paid our €16.50 and jumped on a manky SNCF train into Châtelet/Les Halles and rode the Métro to Place Charles De Gaulle/Étoile which is really the Arc de Triomphe. (Everything seems to have 2 or 3 names in France) We crossed like 7 billion roads to find the Star Hotel Étoile, and dragged our sweaty, luggaged forms in through the airy, marbled foyer.

“Bonsoir“, said I, “nous avons… uh … reservée une … uh … chambre se soir…”

I even spelled my name in French letters (no, oh never mind) when the reception guy looked puzzled. So I showed him the reservation thing and he pointed down the road.

At least I was stupid in French not English.

At the Crowns Hotel Étoile, where we really did have a booking, we checked in En Franglais and got our small, clean, badly-maintained room. Chucked down our bags, watched some gay love scene in French on the telly, then went out to eat. We found a small Crêperie absolutely chock full of high school girls from Brooklyn speaking something that was related to English and French but didn’t seem to be either. It later became a pattern that the friendliest Parisians were the ones where we attempted to speak French when they had just dealt with an American.