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Published: April 5th 2010
PARIS!!
We arrived at 7.30am after the longest flight ever - we managed to sleep from about 10 pm, although it was quite a broken sleep, and then they woke us up at 4am to serve breakfast. I don't really feel like breakfast at 4am, but we managed to stay awake after that anyway.
We had been given separate seats on the plane, but the guy next to Danny was nice enough to swap with me. We had great seats too, they were right up the front of the economy section so we had extra leg room, and we were on the left side, and had only our two seats in our row, so it was really easy to get in and out. Danny was also kind enough to offer me his window seat so I could see the lights as we came into Paris. I really enjoyed looking out the window and seeing everything. I think I'm still new enough to flying that it is a novelty.
Charles de Gaulle airport was horrific. It was so badly signposted so we had no idea where to go, they broke Danny's bag in transit off the plane and we never
got the missing piece back (the stomach strap on his huge backpack, so now all the weight goes onto his shoulders). All in all, not a fun experience. But we got out reasonably quickly and then gradually figured out how to catch a train into the city. Getting the train into the city was easy enough, but then we had to transfer onto the metro to get to our hotel, and that was very confusing. We found the right station but couldn't find anywhere to buy tickets. It look us quite a while, but eventually we figured out that you have to actually go through the exit and buy a ticket and then come back through.
The walk from the Piagalle station to our hostel is only about 2 minutes, but we weren't sure of how to get there the first time and it took about 15 instead. With the heavy bags and the half-broken suitcase (we bought it for about AUD$12 in K.L. so we could carry all the stuff we bought there... bad mistake, it is rubbish and didn't even last through one country!) it was not a fun walk, but we were very relieved when we
found the Victor Masse.
We dropped all our heavy bags off and headed into the city to explore while we walked to the Eiffel Tower. Unfortunately, we had no idea where Manford was so he didn't get to come with us. We will make up for his lack of appearances in todays photos by taking lots of him tomorrow!
The walk took us about an hour and a half, and we took lots of photos of buildings and statues on the way - the buildings here are gorgeous, even the doors are amazingly intricate.
As we walked past a supermarket I saw Easter eggs inside and remembered it was Easter Sunday, so I quickly went in and got one so we could share it to celebrate Easter.
We walked past the Louvre and Obelisque and stopped for a coffee and hot chocolate on the way (it was a very long walk!)
As we got closer we started to really feel the cold and realised we were really not rugged up well enough, and had to go searching for some scarves. I think it was about 7 degrees, but it was really the wind that was the worst.
We eventually got to the Eiffel Tower, and it was well worth the walk. It was so big that we had to walk back quite far to be able to get the whole thing in a photo on my camera screen. There were heaps of people selling little Eiffel Towers, and the lines were massive. We are planning on going up the tower at night, so we decided not to join the enormous lines and just go up once.
We headed back to the hotel and on the way stopped for brunch. We really only wanted to use the loo, but as almost nothing was open (it is Easter Sunday and the streets are very quiet) we ended up paying 18euro each for a disgusting raw beef plate (I thought I was going to be sick) and a couple of croissants. The croissants were nice, but the beef... I felt like it would be very rude not to eat it, and I also knew it was expensive and that I am meant to be trying new things, but it was very raw. I ate about half of mine before I couldn't handle anymore. Even so, I was very proud
of myself. It is possibly the most disgusting thing I have ever eaten.
When we got back to the hostel we were able to check in straight away and got all our bags and headed to the lift. We only just fit. It is the smallest lift I have ever seen! I took a photo, but I don't think it does it justice!
We stopped at a little supermarket and bought some snacks and planned to go back to the hostel and watch some dvds while eating chocolate (for Easter of course!). We were going to wait until about 7pm and then go out and find some dinner, but we ended up being so exhausted from waking up at 4am, flying for 12 hours, and all that walking that we were too tired to go get dinner and ended up just going to sleep at about 8!
A good day though, and plenty of photos!
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Wez
Nathan Brown
Lift
I was wondering why you guys looked so weird in your current facebook pic, it all makes sense now haha Also raw beef is good for you =p