How to See Paris in Seven Hours

As you may have read, Scott and I made an early campaign for Worst Mozzers of the Year by abandoning our sick boss to trainset to Paris. Though we seem like horrible, horrible employees, enough people (including, hopefully, Rand) got a kick out of it to motivate me to share with you all a step-by-step guide on how to plan a trip to Paris in thirty minutes and run around the city in seven hours:

1. Go to SES London and head down to the hotel’s bar. Proceed to drink and schmooze with various SEOs until 3:00 am.
2. At around 3:30 am, some genius (in this case, Greg Boser) will be drunk enough to come up to you and say, “Hey! Do you want to go to Paris?” At this point, you should be drunk on booze, lack of sleep, or both, and you and your coworker’s response should be “Hells yes!”
3. Drunk genius (e.g. Greg ) will plan out the itinerary, which consists of meeting him, his wife (Barbara), his coworker (Dax), and a bubbly blonde (Becky Ryan) in the lobby of the hotel at 6:30 am so we can take a taxi to Waterloo Station and buy train tickets.*
4. Craft a thoughtful note to leave your sleeping, ill boss so that he won’t worry about you and wonder where you went. Leave the note with a rose to sweeten the deal.
   
5. Sleep for two hours. (Or, if you’re Greg, Barb, and Dax, stay up and drink until 6:00, then eat breakfast.)
6. Wake up and leave the note for your boss.
7. Take an Italian Job-type cab ride to Waterloo Station and purchase tickets.
8. Board the train and wonder what the hell you’re doing. Fall asleep.
9. Arrive in Paris and spend about forty minutes trying to figure out how to buy a day pass for the subway system.
10. Put all of your navigating faith in a sick, half-drugged guide (e.g. Dax) who has visited Paris about five times and should know his way around the city fairly well. (Thankfully, despite being drugged, nearly mute, and prone to spontaneous nosebleeds on subway trains, he was a very good navigator.)
11. Take the subway to the Eiffel Tower, but as you’re transferring to another line, realize that you’re at Notre Dame Cathedral.
12. Poke your head outside and snap some photos (hint: looking especially guilty in said photos will hopefully soften the impending wrath of your boss).
    

13. Walk around the inside of the cathedral for about ten minutes.
14. Hop back on the subway and dash over to the Eiffel Tower. Spend about a half hour or so oohing and ahhing at the tower’s Eiffelness.
    
15. Make your way to the Louvre, but at the next transfer realize that the Arc de Triomphe is outside. Run outside and snap some photos. Once again, looking pained and guilty (this time with the guy who convinced you to go in the first place) will hopefully cushion your boss’s punishment later.
    
16. Stop for some lunch and feel like a complete moron as you try to tell a French waitress what you want to eat. (Baguette sandwiches are probably a safe bet.)
    
17. Make fun of one of your traveling companion (i.e., Becky) for ordering a “large” Coke that ends up being a liter of liquid served in a giant stein that costs 14 euros.
    
18. Take the subway to the Louvre and buy tickets.
19. Realize that you bought tickets at 5:05 and the museum closes at 5:30.
20. Proceed to haul ass through the massive building in order to see the Mona Lisa.
21. See the Mona Lisa and start to leave.
22. On your way out, notice the signs pointing to the Venus de Milo statue; run to the statue and snap some idiotic photos of you trying to give Venus a high-five.
    
23. Head back to the train station and wander around for 45 minutes, trying to find the ticket counter so you can try and get on the earlier train back to London. (You won’t be able to, by the way.)
24. Wait around (meaning sleep) for an hour and forty five minutes until it’s time to board the train.
    
25. Board the train and sleep the entire way back to London.
26. Hail a cab to your hotel and get driven around by a cabbie who doesn’t know where the hell he’s going.
27. After you finally get to your destination, get the crap scared out of you by various mean SEOs (i.e., Dave Naylor, Danny Sullivan, Vanessa Fox, Jen Slegg, Andrew Goodman and his wife, Carolyn) as they make up stories about your boss being so furious that you went to Paris that your other boss flew into London to find you and yell at you. (Yeah, they were pulling my leg, but in my defense I was nearly insane from lack of sleep; plus, our company is crazy enough to maybe do just that.)
28. Reunite with your sick, tired boss, who is (hopefully) no longer angry at being abandoned in favor of the city of lights.
29. Offer him Airborne as a peace offering. (Hooray, he accepted it.)
30. Head to your room at 2:00 am, write a blog post chronicling your adventure, and crash for six hours before flying back to the United States.

And that, folks, is how you spontaneously decide to take a train to a neighboring country, take a whirlwind tour of it, and return in one day.

*The SEOmoz Parisian Adventure is brought to you in part by the generous sponsorship of our wonderful friend and colleague, the AussieWebmaster himself, Frank Watson.  Merci Beaucoup, Frank!