If you’ve read my previous post, It’s me, actually in Pari, you would have heard about the difficulty I had making my way from Charles de Gaulle airport to Residhome Apparthotel La Defense in Courbevoie. To my surprise, I was not alone. Almost every single one of my classmate got lost, struggled and felt defeated trying to get to the hotel. Only those who took a taxi or an Uber had a smooth ride but they had to pay an arm and a leg.
Prior to my departure, I asked about transportation, but I was assured that would be handled when I arrived. As I was promised, I was given a RATP Navigo card on the first day. I had to write my name and stick on a passport size photo onto the back of the card. We went to the RATP kiosk to load our cards. We would choose all zones (1-5) for 1 week (Monday – Sunday) costing €22,80 or $25.89. We would need to reload our cards each week we were there.
This Navigo card allowed us unlimited rides on the RER, Tramway, Metro, and Bus. Trust me, I got my monies worth. We were constantly swiping that card any chance we could because we were so tired of walking. We literally felt like our legs would fall off. According to my health app on my iPhone we were doing about 16,000-20,000 steps daily.
We learned that the passport size photo on the card was a lot more important than we had thought. I brought one from home with me but some didn’t. So, they needed to find a photo booth that provides that service. We were so busy they didn’t get around to it, and didn’t think much of it. Well, we were sitting on the Metro and a RATP worker comes around checking our cards. One of my classmates were charged €50. On a separate occasion, another classmate was charge €75 for the same thing.
Photo by: Adrien Olichon