Paris, France

So, yesterday we decided to go to france. First was booking accomidation then the transport. We found a cheap hotel, Armstrong Hotel, which we believed to be not far from the CBD. We booked it for 4 nights. Then we tried to buy a rail pass to get us there and found the one we needed but couldn't get it online. After searching for hours we decided to take a chance and go early to the station and buy the ticket direct from the counter. We left Weinheim at 5:30 and it was raining. We took the train to Mannheim station (being a main station were we could buy our rail pass) The train we planned to catch to Paris left Mannheim at 7:40 and we stepped off the train at Mannheim at 7:20 - without a rail pass for France. After finding the ticket office we were informed that we would now have to go to Heidelburg to buy our rail pass as Mannheim did not sell them. So.... we bought a ticket to Heidelburg. The very nice lady behind the counter printed the list of departing trains to Paris from Heidelburg. We arrived at Heidelburg at 7:45 and again searched for a ticket office. The train that we wanted to catch to Paris left Heidelburg at 8:48 so we had a bit of time. Finding out that buying individual tickets would be cheaper than the Germany/France rail pass we purchased a ticket to Paris via Karlsruhe and Strasbourg. The trip was over 7 hours in total and we had to change trains twice. We arrived at Paris Est at 4pm. After asking directions from the info. desk we headed to the underground Metro. We first had to take Line 5 to Oberkampf then change to Line 9 which took us to Maraichers. We had a printed map of the hotels location but on surfacing from the metro found ourselves in an outer suburb of Paris with no bearings (this particular suburb did not look too friendly). After changing directions three time we walked for a couple of blocks and then powerwalked down an ally we believed would lead us to the hotel. We arrived at reception at 5:30 and then headed to the room on the 3rd floor. The room is tiny but has a toilet, shower and TV. The sun is shining now through our small window and we are going to headout to get something to eat.