First rule of budget travel: make advance hostel bookings in the high seasons to avoid unnecessary hassles as exemplified below.

Arrived in Paris and headed straight to the hostel as planned. They had no available beds. Nice. I should’ve made the booking. I whipped out my guidebook and looked at my options. At this point, a series of unfortunate events unfolded due to my own sloppiness. I picked a random hostel from the guidebook and went to the metro station, took the metro in the wrong direction, and ended up some place that I did’t intend to be. An hour and a half and two new metro tickets later I made it to the hostel. No beds. I called 4 differnt places, and finally found a room in a hotel (not a hostel) on the other side of town. The receptionist said I needed to get there in under 30 minutes if I wanted the room. It was 1:00 in the morning and I have only had a glass of water and an apple for sustenance all day. I was so bummed out and hungry by then. I hailed a taxi, and after a slight confusion on the destination with the driver, I was on my way. Paris by night reminded me of Cairo, its after midnight and there is still mildly intense traffic and many people on the street. 25 minutes and 35 Euros later, I arrived at the hotel, checked in and threw myself on the bed.

The following day was a Tuesday. My second time in Paris, and also my second time to go to Le Louvre on a Tuesday…when its closed. What an idiot! I went into the annex building of the museum, which was surprisingly crowded. It was amusing to watch how many people were trying to get their picture taken with Le Pyramid Inverse. Blame it on The Davinci Code.

Earlier that morning I had decided to get some errands done. Book a train to Amsterdam, change some money and buy a couple books (I have already read two on the trip so far). I couldn’t get a booking for Amsterdam, apparently they have some kind of quota for pass holders. I decided to book a seat to Brussels and from there hop on another train to Amsterdam. I wasn’t planning to go to Belgium but why not spend a few hours in Brussels and check it out. I am on vacation, time is a non-issue.

I did a lot of walking today. And I mean a LOT. I walked almost non-stop from 10:00 to 20:30. I guess it was some unconcious form of repentence for splurging and going over budget during the past few days. By sunset I have had an OD of old gotic churches. St Augustine, St Sulpice and a few others. Blame Dan Brown again for hordes of tourists inside St Sulpice crowding around the Rose Line.

On a side note, I think that cargo pants should be on the top ten list of most useful inventions.