Je suis le seul robo dans ce coin!

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Bonjour mes amis!! We have just left Paris after three fantastic days and nights in the city! We arrived from Geneva after a lonnnnng train ride! We had to backtrack to Lausanne to get there and then the train was delayed, but we made it. After successfully navigating the Metro (which is great by the way! i am a huge fan - Teija) we arrived at our clean hostel (a rarity in Paris according to common rumor). We headed to the Champs Elysees, Arc de Triomphe and Eiffel Tower right away to take in some of the sights before dark. It happened to be Fashion Week so there were tents set up everywhere and we saw a few EXTREMELY skinny women walking on the streets! Unfortunately we arrived at the Tower in the rain, but by the time we had ascended to the top the rain had stopped. The view was incredible and we took lots of pictures. Contrary to popular belief, it is not particularly romantic, mostly because many old Asian women kept trying to push me away from the railing in their rush to take photos.

On day two we decided to join a free walking tour that was advertised at our hostel. This turned out to be an excellent idea because our guide Alex was hilarious and the tour was super fun! He took us around to many sights including Notre Dame cathedral. The tour was almost 4 hours and it was free other than the tips we gave our guide (which he certainly earned). We then headed to the Catacombes with some friends we had made on the walking tour. The Catacombes are tunnels of an old quarry that were filled with the bones from several mass graves in an overcrowded cemetery. It is really creepy, but also cool because the bones have been stacked in patterns. it was odd to be walking past human skulls.... our friend claimed he saw a spine, but luckily we missed that. After that we wandered over to the Louvre museum to take advantage of the cheap after 6pm rates. We saw the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, and tons of really cool Egyptian artifacts. Additionally we saw a Grecian statue of a little naked boy strangling a goose. Odd. Pictures were taken. That evening was karaoke night at the hostel bar. And yes we sang haha!

On the third day we went to Versailles, the old palace of Louis XIV, XV and XVI. It is enormous and lushly decorated with huge paintings, gold and statues. The best part was the grounds around the palace. Marie Antoinette's gardens were amazing, with a man-made grotto of rocks, a working farm, a maze of hidden footpaths and enormous sucker fish! Okay so on our way back to Paris the train caught on fire. The worst part about the little fire was we had to walk 20 minutes to the next train station. C'est Dommage. After finally arriving back in the big P we toured the Montemarte region. Montmartre is what Paris IS. It is the place where the artists live and work. There are narrow little streets lined with bright cafes, hilarious venders sell cheap souvenirs and the Sacre Coeur cathedral sits atop the hill above it all. The best part of Montemarte was that we were able to see the various places Picasso contracted several different veneral diseases.

So Lyon was next on tap. The place was beautiful but our roomates were wankers that couldnt grasp the concept of shutting up at 2 am while everyone else is asleep. We visited a cool site of Roman ruins which included a large amphitheatre and wandered next to the river until rain forced us into a pub (oh darn!).

So funny thing about France they can't/won't translate signs properly. Here is an example of a few signs we found throughout our travels that were lost in translation.

1) Carlsberg Forskinnig Center (i regret getting the carl's special lager)
2) The Erotic Mess (Germany is littered with these posters)
3) Puberty in Teaching: You to can learn puberty
4) Follow our rules or we will enunciate to you (oooh very threatening)
5) For your comfort please wait in line (the line was forty minutes, unfortunatly not very comfortable).

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