Paris

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Well... Paris! We are finally here and after what has been an incredible week, it is our last night as we are leaving tomorrow. But back to the beginning. We arrived after at Charles de Gaulle Airport in the afternoon and not knowing how to get to our hotel, hailed down the nearest cab and told him to take us there. Little did we know that Paris is actually quite a large city and the airport had to be the opposite end from where we were staying didn't it!
No hassle, we got in the cab, tried to speak a little french and got to our hotel. €70 later!!! We checked in and settled in for the afternoon.
By this time it was 6pm and I was bored, so we made the half an hour walk to the nearest train station and headed into the center of Paris. This was amazing that we actually made it in there as we had so much difficulty getting home. But more on that later. When we got into the heart of Paris it was nearly 8pm as it does take some time for the train to get into the city. We headed over the Eiffel Tower and really started to take in exactly where we were and how long we had wanted to go here. We then grabbed some dinner from Subway (yeah very french I know!!!) and headed back to the train station at around 9pm. This is where the fun began. We caught one train to a station in the completely wrong direction and had to stop and ask for directions. This proved to be pretty difficult considering our french consisted of mainly greetings. We then tried to follow these directions as best possible and ended up at another station lost again. We then asked another two guys and they were really helpful. One saw how stressed we were and even gave us two passes to do a River Cruise! These directions were also either wrong or we just didn't know how to follow them as we ended up walking the streets at 11pm at night after all the trains had stopped bar a few and we were quickly running out of options. We even asked an elderly couple in the street how to get back to the suburb we were staying in and the look of horror that came across their faces really said it all. It was the equivalent of having someone come up to you at 11pm at night in Caboolture and ask to get a bus to the city! It just wasn't going to happen!!! Finally we found someone who worked at the train station and he told us to get on another train and gave us a route to go home, which involved us going all the way back into Paris to catch another 4 trains!!! We arrived back into Paris at around midnight and decided to cut our losses and get a cab back to our hotel.
So €40 for a cab, countless train fares and a lot of frustration and stress - all for a few photos of the Eiffel tower and a pretty bad sandwich from Subway!!!

The next day was a lot better than the nightmare that had been our maiden trip to Paris. We now knew the train system better than most Parisians and probably had spent more time using the train than the average local would in a week! So we made the walk to the station once again and caught our train into the city. We then found the tourist center to pick up our Paris pass which would let us into all of the attractions. We had some lunch at a fantastic little pasta restaurant called Mezzi. After this we visited the Louvre Museum and saw the Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci. It is nearly impossible to grasp how big this museum is. An American tourist however did put it very nicely. If you were to spend 2 minutes looking at each piece of art in the Louvre, you would still need 3 whole days to see everything!!! So we left after 2 hours!! We then thought we would indulge in a popular Parisian passtime, lying in the grass in the sun in the Palais Royale gardens. It was so good to just take a break and relax in the sun! We then saw another museum called the Musee de Arts Decorative. This turned out to be a complete waste of time as they had a massive room full of old Ferrari race cars but they wouldn't let us in because our pass wasn't valid for it. What a crock! So we left and went home after a long day of enjoying the sights of Paris. When it came to dinner, we hadn't thought very far ahead so we had to settle for the McDonalds up the road.

Saturday morning came and we did Skype with the Wadley's which was very good to see them all again! We then headed back into the city and got on the bus tour that would take us around the city. We got off on the Champ Elysees and climbed the Arc de Triumphe which was amazing from the top. After our grueling walk up to the top and back down again, we headed for lunch on the "busy street" as you Art vs Science fans may know, and had lunch at an Italian restaurant called Vesuvio.
That afternoon, we headed back to the other side of the River Seine and sat and watched a french rap battle. For anyone who doesn't know what this is and hasn't seen 8 Mile, it is mainly two rappers in competition. One will start off and the next has to improvise a rap that obviously rhymes but also has to lyrically punish the first rapper and if possible refer to what the first rapper had spoken about. This was useless to use as we understood very little french but the crowd cheering after each little section let us know pretty well who was winning!! After this we climbed the Eiffel Tower. Probably not a good idea to climb two of the tallest things in Paris in one day but we're awesome like that. After being completely buggered from climbing ridiculously high things and enduring 31 degree heat all day, we headed back to the hotel and to bed.

Sunday started off pretty badly as we were due to link up on Skype with my family but Sarah woke up with a shocking migraine so we decided to postpone. After she woke up at midday, we headed for lunch but nothing was open being a Sunday. Once again Maccas it was. It was actually quite good to relax and not walk ridiculously long distances and climb things for once so after a long day of doing nothing, we headed for dinner at a place called Viva Pizza just next to Maccas. It was amazing to say the least. The staff were more than happy to help us order despite our lack of native tongue and the food was to die for. After an ice cream and a stroll back to the hotel we went straight to bed in preparation for another big day!

Monday! And it was Bloody HOT!!!! 35 degrees and more humidity than an Indonesian wet season. It was ridiculous. We started off by hitting up the local bakery for some Pain au Chocolate or Chocolate Pastries which were awesomely good! Then back to central Paris! We headed back to the Eiffel Tower but this time it was to cash in our free tickets for the River Seine cruise. this took an hour and a half and highlighted all of the different areas around the river. At this stage it was extremely hot so as soon as we got off we made a beeline for one of the many street sellers selling €1 bottles of water. I think we spent about €10 this way!!! Then it was lunch time. We headed back to the Eiffel Tower but this time to eat. We stopped at a clearly tourist orientated restaurant but at this stage we didn't care because we were so hot and hungry and just wanted to sit down. I ordered a steak medium well and of course they managed to cook it rare. At least they managed to get Sarah's pasta right but even that wasn't that good. Oh well i suppose that's what you get for eating at the tourist restaurants. We went back to the Palais Royale gardens after lunch to have another sit down only to have sat in the only shaddy place in the whole park... next to a bum. This guy obviously hasn't cleaned in weeks let alone seen a can of deodorant! So that was short lived but also gave us time to get lost in the blistering heat on the way to our French wine tasting class. We tried 3 wines, a white, a rose and a red. The teacher told us how to smell the wine and how to know what it will taste like purely by looking and smelling. This was a really interesting part of our trip and gave us some really useful knowledge. Plus free wine in the heat in the middle of Summer, it doesn't get much better than that. Once again we didn't think of dinner and by the time we got back to the hotel McDonalds was once again the only place open so big mac for me and wrap for Sarah. Both resulting in what I like to call the McStomach, we all know that feeling after eating a maccas burger.

Tuesday morning came and it dawned on us that our Paris trip was winding down and with that we got up and headed to Notre Dame. We had breakfast at another little place tucked away in a side street which was the first we had found to do a proper breakfast of bacon and eggs so that was worthwhile. We then went to Notre Dame it was quite a busy place and although the architecture was quite amazing, it didn't do too much for us as an attraction, but was still not something that we would miss on purpose. We then headed to another museum, this time The Musee de O'rsay which meant we would have to line up in the sun for 3 hours. This idea was quickly dismissed for the Aquarium. So we spent the afternoon in airconditioning looking at all the different types of Poisson or fish. This was actually a lot more fun that it sounds as there were so many different fish to see.
After our fishy afternoon, we headed to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner but first had to stop at the Australian Bar which was a few doors down. We walked up to the bar and ordered a beer. This would have been fine if there was anyone working there with an Australian accent. No i got "Bonjour Monsieur". How ya going is the correct greeting in an Australian bar. After failing to get any sort of Aussie response from a "fake" Australian bar, we headed to dinner at the Hard Rock which was great as always! We then headed back home with a full stomach just in time to escape the storm that was passing over.

Wednesday came and it was our last full day in Paris. We had a bit of a sleep in and headed to the city center for lunch in the central shopping district of Les Halles. Afterwards we headed to an exhibition dedicated to the absolutely amazing Salvadore Dali. Mr Dali was an incredible surrealism artist, and a lot of his work centered on time and it fluidity which I found very intriguing. To get to this museum, we passed through a section of Paris called Abbesses. Abbesses is the cultural underground of Paris if you will and we found it full of arty, musician types which was really quite a surreal place to be.
To top off our trip in Paris we headed back to Viva Pizza and by now, our french had become good enough to order our pizzas entirely in French. Then it was back to the hotel and packing to leave to Lisbon in Portugal. I cannot wait to get to the beach!!!

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