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Published: March 11th 2006
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As you are likely to tell from the volume of beautiful photo’s that I managed to get, Paris is the most amazingly gorgeous city. The accommodation proved to be a slight mission after we realised that our booking for the “Peace and Love Hostel” (on which we had our hearts set based almost purely on the fabulous name) was for April rather than March. However we ended up booking into a Hotel close to the Gard du Nord which was where we arrived on the Eurostar. Did make it a little more expensive than I was expecting, but it was still pretty decently priced for a Hotel.
George joined us the next day and we trudged out in the rather miserable weather to see the Eiffel tower. We went right to the top (and were surprised that it only cost 11 euro) and the view was amazing, so amazing in fact that Gaynor and I were a little disappointed when we returned to London and went on the London Eye and it just wasn’t as high! We also charged into Notre Dame, and the next day visited the Louvre and the Arc du Triomphe.
I only managed to make
it about a third of the way round the Louvre because it is so huge (and I found the layout rather confusing). But I did manage to pop in and say “hi” to Mona. I think if I go back I will definitely visit the Louvre again, but I only have about a 3 hour attention span at Museum and Art Gallery’s, terrible as that sounds! The entrance to the Louvre was also only about 10 euro, which is pretty decent when you compare it to some of the London activities.
We were rather embarrassed by our lack of French. It did make getting around rather difficult. We worked out how to order white coffee, but not a long black- so poor old Gaynor had to drink little rocket fuel espresso’s all weekend. Wine was 2 euro a bottle- which is cheaper than coke in London, so we drank rather a lot of that just quietly. We decided to head out and test the Paris nightlife on the Friday night. So basically we drank in the hotel and headed down the road asking people for directions. We finally got a clue of a helpful young French man and found
the local nightlife. We visited a cute little bar with a live DJ (playing English music) which was lots of fun. Though we were limited to drinking “Vodka Tonique” (as this was all we could say) we did manage to have a chat with some lovely guys- well we didn’t really understand what they were saying, but they seemed lovely! I was shocked by how tastefully dressed the Parisian girls were, there was not a skanky town top in sight! Though on the flip side I did bust two men in the women’s toilets… they were rather embarrassed, well again- I couldn’t understand them but I THINK they were anyway.
We got lost for about an hour and a half in the Metro on the way to dinner, even though to use it was pretty much exactly the same as the London underground. The problem was that we couldn’t really ask anyone for directions. I tried snails, however even though they tasted ok at the time, they were closely followed by a rather violent bout of food poisoning that I got from some bad pâté. Obviously in the interest of savouring my last night in Paris my stomach decided
to wake me up on the hour every hour on our final night, and all I could think about was those damn snails. At the time I did think I was going to die, and had all these visions of trying to navigate my way round a French hospital, but as is the case with food poisoning I just suffered intensely and then recovered quickly.
Beautiful BEAUTIFUL city, I plan to go back and have a pâté and snail free visit soon. Check out the snails picture though, I am sure they are GM. In other news I HAVE A JOB! I am now working as a PR Exec for the Association of Certified Chartered Accountants. So more trips to follow when I start getting paid, however for now I am completely broke!
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