parisMonday 26th :
We took off for Paris and got to the Hotel de l’Europe (Bd de Strasbourg, next to the Gare de l’Est) and then we went to the Ache de la Défense. The place was AWESOME!!! It is really pretty, with high buildings and all, really great!! Chris got a souvenir, it’s him and me in a glass cube, made with a laser, it’s so cute!!! There was also a Christmas Market, where we ate some crêpes.
Then, we got back to the hotel to find out stuff had been stolen from us!!!!
Yes indeed!!!
Here is what happened: we went to the hotel at 2 p.m (when we got out of the train station) and put our stuff there, I locked the door (and checked it was locked). When we left, the man at the desk asked for our room key back, which seemed kind of weird! Then, we got back from the Arche de la Défense, we got the key back and when we got into the room I saw my bag was open and my clothes messed up. I asked Chris if he’d opened my bag before we left though I knew he hadn’t cause I had closed it before leaving, but I wanted to be sure, and Chris said straight away that the portable DVD player he’d put on the desk was gone. We went straight downstairs and I told the guy at the desk about the robbery, and another employee came with us into the room. Then, he said he’d call the maid and the manager. Then, I remembered I hadn’t seen my tickets when I had checked if something had been stolen from my bag. I checked and our two tickets to Disney land were gone as well as our train tickets to get back home. I called the man again to let him know and he said the manager would be there the next morning; they didn’t seem to take the thing seriously. Chris asked for the manager to get there right away and for them to contact the maid. The manager first talked to me on the phone and asked if I was sure I hadn’t left the stuff home and was sure it was missing…!!! Also he asked why I hadn’t reported the robbery right away… which is what I had done, so I didn’t understand what he meant by that! Then he came over and tried to dissuade me from going to the police.
Chris and I went to the police (taking the subway in Paris at night is pretty dangerous and I was really scared).
The next day I decided we had to go to another hotel. The manager of the hotel de l’Europe was REALLY rude to us, saying that none of the clients could have done it cause they were people going there all the time, and that the employees were really honest and didn’t do it. He said the whole story seemed weird to him (he was in fact implying that Chris and I were lying and were trying to gain some money from the hotel or something). I paid for the room and took off. The fact is: the door to the room locks as soon as it is closed, even if you don’t use the key to lock it, and I had used the key and checked it was locked!! And they had asked for my key back before I left the hotel to go the Arche de la Défense...!!!! I really didn’t appreciate the innuendoes about me being a liar or being maybe insane or oblivious (cause they were implying that we didn’t know for sure we had the stuff when we got to the hotel in the first place). We are not idiots!!!! If I say we had tickets to Disney and a DVD player, it means we had them!! Plus, they also stole the ticket we used for the train TO Paris (how could I have gone to Paris if I didn’t have that ticket with me in the first place)!!! What really upset me was that they didn’t take the ting seriously, they implicitly called us liars and the DVD player was Chris’s niece’s (YES, whoever stole the DVD player stole it from a 3 year old child!!!! That rally pisses me off), and finally the train tickets were for Chris’s birthday and the Disney one for his Christmas and I had been saving money for months for them, that really pisses me off!
Anyways, AVOID GOING TO THAT HOTEL!!!!!!!!! And please, pass the word to as many people as you can. We lost for 500 euros of items (tickets, DVD player and DVDs) and I don’t want that to happen to anyone else.
Then, we went to the hotel next to that one (cause it was convenient cause it was close to the train station and cause we had luggage we didn’t want to carry around Paris and we didn’t know any other hotel anyways). So we went to the hotel de Paris (same street) and they received us like princes and princesses. They gave us the choice between two different rooms. They gave us breakfast that very morning though we hadn’t spent the night. It was clean; they had CNN for Chris to watch. We stayed there the next three nights and when we checked out they didn’t make us pay for the breakfasts (even though it should have been 6.5 euros the breakfast and we had taken breakfast for four mornings in a row!!!). That hotel I really DO advise: Hotel de Paris, Bd de Strasbourg.
