Why do people hate the french?

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After a day in London we booked to go on the Eurostar train (goes under the English Channel) to Paris.... We thought it would be too expensive when we first looked on the website, but we went into a flight centre and she got us a ticket and accomodation for £120. I know we could have got cheaper if we booked more in advance... but considering the net quoted us £300 for the ticket alone... it wasn't bad.

Well..... Paris.... what can I say? Its meant to be the city of love hahaha BULL SHIT. Its the city of sex shops, dirty streets and oh..... its full of french people. I mean would it hurt them to smile for once or be nice to people? No wonder everyone says they are arrogant. hahaha OK I am exaggerating just a little. The only nice french person we met was the guy who owned our hotel.


Our hotel was very central and easy to get to the main streets. It was a small, oldish hotel - but it was clean and comfortable.

We got to Paris in the morning and once checked in - headed for another open top, hop on hop off bus tour. These things are EXCELLENT if you dont have much time and want to see alot of the sites - it also had an english commentary. The weather was great both days in Paris - 30 degrees! We even got a tad burnt sitting on the top level of the bus! But we saw alot of Paris and got some interesting history on the city as well.

The first major site we went to was the Lourve. This is a huge art museum - I am sure you have all heard of it from the DaVinci Code. It used to be where one of the French kings lived 100's of years ago. The line wasnt too bad and we were in within 5 minutes. (One thing we have learnt is, lining up for tourist attractions is just something you have to accept). We saw alot of beautiful sculptures and paintings. Alot of them seem to based around Jesus and Mary -or some other subject to do with the bible. Of course we saw the Mona Lisa.... and bloody hell - anyone would think its a famous painting the way people were pushing to see it! They had security guards telling you to line up and at one stage there were too many people and they had to close off the room. So - now we can say we saw it hahaha.

We were really amazed by the large intricatey sculpted buildings in Paris. They must have taken so long to build. One arch (where the eternal flame for the unknown soldier burns) is so huge that pilots of small aircraft have been known to fly through the middle of it for a dare!

That night we asked the hotel owner for a good, cheap place to eat. He recommended a place called the Chartier. It had a line... so we thought it must be good - and it WAS! We got sat with a french couple at our table - who thankfully could translate the french menu to english for us. We ordered french wine (which you drank out of little glass tumblers) - was very nice. We had escargo (snails) for entree.... it was a struggle to get Dan to try one, but he did ... only cause he knew he would never hear the end of it if he didn't! They have the texture of chicken and are covered in so much garlic you may as well have eaten a clove of garlic! When you pulled them out of the shell it was a case of 'just put it in your mouth and dont look at it' hahaha.

After dinner we walked up the street to the Moulin Rouge... which is also the area for alot of sex shops. Huge neon signs saying things like 'PORNO SHOP', and quite graphic pictures in the windows of the strip clubs enticing men AND women to go in. In case you dont know the Moulin Rouge is where the first strip show was performed in Paris (according to our commentary on the bus). We went to the sex museum.... come on - we HAD to see it :p. Saw some of the first porn films - very funny stuff hahaha and alot of sexual artistic works/sculptures from today and also 100's of years ago - some were um... very imaginative.

Our last day - we got back on the bus and went to of course - the Eiffel Tower. It was HUGE. You dont know how big it is until you see it. The lines were also long. We soon figured out the huge lines were for people wanting to use the lift to get to the viewing platform and the ticket box with no line was for people wanting to use the stairs.... we used the stairs - cause we aren't American - oops did I just say that out loud? Was a hard climb in the heat and also we were a tad hung over from our french wine :p. The view was worth it though. We didnt go all the way to the top - only the lift goes up that far and we didnt have time to line up.

I have to mention the crepes in Paris.... oh - my - god - to die for!!! I had one with nutella and banana in it. They fold it up so its like a cone and you eat it from a napkin. YUM!!!

Anyway - back to London to do ALOT more site seeing. I'll update the rest of the blog from Heathrow, whilst waiting for my plane!

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