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5^th October 2011 – 10am

Bonjour! Je ne parle pas Francais? Parle vous Anglais? The only thing I can sort of say in French! And even after 3 days I still struggle through it. It’s exactly like everyone said it would be here. The French mostly speak English but first you have to show that you are making an effort with their language. After that they are a little friendlier. I was a little worried in the beginning though because the first person we came across shut me down with a “NO!” after my first French attempt: “Hello. Ummmm. Bonjour! Ummm. Je ne paaaaarle paaaaar Francais?” It was a little (a lot) clumsy and very embarrassing. And just in case I need to spell it out no means no!

The Paris subway system is excellent, it can get you anywhere you need to go. I took a back seat with the navigating again because just quietly, I am complete bloody useless. I couldn’t find my way out of a wet paper bag and if it were up to me, we’d still be lost in LA.

When we arrived in Paris we were pretty excited. All the airport announcements were no good to us but the signs were readable. You can bluff your way through a lot because most of the key words are similar. So it seemed finding the shuttle bus to the hotel was going to be a piece of cake. All we had to do was follow that little bed logo. Anyway after walking the same stretch of airport 8 times over we found where we had to go in the end. It was extremely confusing.

We stayed in a shitty airport hotel on the first night just so we didn’t have to navigate the city with our packs after a big day of traveling. We had Oreos and water for dinner.

We made sure to get an early start into Paris the next morning to try and avoid rush hour with the packs but we pretty much hit it head on. We befriended an old couple on the train who were English, now NZ residents, on the train and talking to them managed to relax me a little about the language barrier. A few trains and what seemed like a mammoth walk we were at our next hotel.

The irony was not lost on me… here we were in Paris – the city of love – and the only room available has 2 single beds! Apart from that, it was a very good find because it had a kitchenette and a fridge. It’s not like Australia where at the very least you get a fridge in any hotel room. So far, this was our first fridge! Paris is extremely expensive so we ate at home as much as we could. It seems a shame that we didn’t get to have a nice dinner in Paris but when a couple of coffees cost $26 (AUD) it wasn’t even an option!

On our first day in Paris it was a scorcher. There wasn’t one cloud in the sky and the sun was hot. We went to check out the Arc De Tromphe first and not 30 seconds out of the Metro station, some Frenchy tried to con Matt. We’d be warned on more than one occasion that con artists pretend to pick up a ring or something from your feet and say that you dropped it and then they either want a reward or they may even go for your wallet! It was handy to know because Matt just told him to go away immediately.

STEAMY PARIS!

Anyway that Arc thing? Huge! It was really cool to see and I’ll let the photo fill in any blanks because I really don’t know much about it.

ARC DE SOMETHING

By this stage it was stinking hot and we felt like it was bed time but it was 2 in the afternoon. We soldiered on to the Lourve via a stroll by the water. The Lourve was amazing! The line went on forever (out in the sun, of course) but it moved super quick and once you’re inside there are 4 different wings to the museum. It wasn’t overly pricey to get a ticket but I think the 4 different wings were all on separate tickets so if you wanted to see the lot, it would work out a bit dear, plus you’d need a whole week. 

THE LOURVE

Look, I just wanted to see the Mona Lisa! So we made good pace through the halls to get there. It was jam packed full of tourists and the paintings were insanely big (and old) with beautiful gold frames, filling every wall of every hall, pretty much to the ceiling. We were both really impressed by the scale of the place. – it’s pretty much exactly what I imagined and Matt said it was so much better than he thought it would be.  

A PAINTING OF A LADY WHO SEEMS MILDLY PLEASED ABOUT SOMETHING

We saw a few sculptures, mostly naked men with their willies hanging out and paintings with lots more doodles and boobies. Sorry for the crudeness, but I am obviously not a very cultured girl!

After the Lourve we wandered a few more streets before we retired to the hotel for a very early evening. 

OBELISK

We had a massive sleep because I had a pretty bad headache from the sun the day before but being in that 2 star hotel room sans aircon was not pleasant so eventually I had to brave the big bad world with the leftover of that headache. Turns out all I needed was some bloody fresh air.

First stop: THE EIFFEL TOWER! We’d seen it from the train the day before but when we were actually standing right in front of it, I was bowled over by how big it was. (For the record, Matt says it’s about what he had imagined.) I thought it would have been about 2/3 the size. We let the Frenchies rip us off a bit more for lunch and a terrible coffee which we ate below the tower and then went to get our tickets to go up.

SO BIG!

CITY OF LOVE!

The queue for the elevator was insane, it went on for miles, we were not even sure where the end of it was. So, we took the stairs! No queue for the stairs, by the way! Hard to imagine why really. If they had told me I was about to climb 700 stairs to the platform I may have reconsidered! Each of the pillars has elevators and stairs, they were operating 2 lifts and the pillar that we went up was obviously for the walkers and the 4^th was closed. Insanely stupid but anyhow… 350 stairs up is a platform with is halfway up the pillar and another 350 steps after that is the 2^nd stage which is a platform that joins the pillars and is the start of the tower bit. You can walk all the way around and stop for a drink at the café. Matt suddenly wasn’t so thirsty for a bottle of coke when we saw that it was €5.00 That’s about 7 Aussie dollars for 500ml of coke. They really know how to suck every last penny from you. We didn’t go any further up because the view was already amazing. There are a few high rises in Paris, grouped together a distance from the tower but apart from that, there is just a sea of small buildings and it seems to go on forever.

THE VIEW TO THE SOUTH

HOLY SNAPPING DUCK SHIT!

SEA OF GREY

ANTS CAN CLIMB THE TOWER TOO!

SOME GUY I MET AT THE TOWER.

We went to see Notre Dame and wandered around the streets there for a bit. Again it was all very old and beautiful. We had a couple of cocktails at a little bar (we waited for it to tick over to happy hour) and as the sun was setting we walked over the river and made our way to the Moulin Rouge. I read to see a show, it costs about $250 each. I would have loved to have experienced a show but it seemed outrageous to fork out $500 to watch (apparently) jaded dancers with their boobs hanging out!!!

IN FRONT OF THE NOTRE DAME

NOTRE DAME

I FEEL BAD CRACKING THIS JOKE BUT... A LITTLE RAPE FOR 8 EURO?

MOULIN ROUGE.

One last stop on our way home… The Eiffel Tower by night. It was stunning.

I really have to wrap this up, we are on a high speed train from Paris to Brussels and we are almost there. We are not staying in Brussels, we are going on to Brugges. We have heard it is the better place to see of the 2 because it’s cheaper and more beautiful. Win win. The trip is only 1.5 hours, how cool is that. Getting the wind up from Matt!  So Au revoir!

Amy