PARIS

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So i made it to Paris!!! I did not drink tap water, even though i was told that this time it would be ok - you all remember my bad Turkey experience, but i was not taking any chances!!!!

My trip started off a little rough....on the Thursday night i went for "one" drink with work mates......that one drink turned into me trying to get home a little "under the weather", getting a little "confused" on the tubes and only getting home at 1am on Friday. I still had to pack and get to my friends house so that we could leave at 4am. Needless to say this was not my brightest move.

Arrived in Paris on Friday morning and after dropping our luggage off at our hotel, which was literally just a room with beds in it. We headed off to the Eiffel Tower, it was still really early so being new Paris travellers we expected to get there and head up to the top of the Eiffel Tower in no time....boy were we mistaken. The que's were massssssive!!!! We ended up standing in a que for 2 1/2 hours...now normally i would be bummed about this but because i was still slightly under the weather it was even worse! But finally we get to the front of the que and a sign comes up saying that the top of the Eiffel Tower is closed. That is the whole point of us going up the Eiffel Tower. But what can you do and we wanted to at least get something out of our 2 1/2 hour wait. So we went as far as we could up the Eiffel Tower. As we get out the lift we hear that they have now opened the top point of the Eiffel Tower again!!! What you got to be kidding us!!! Now we don't have tickets to go to that point as per most of the people who came up the lift with us. So its back to another que to get tickets and then another que just to get up to the top....irritated and disappointed we were not prepared to wait another hour for these tickets and made do with the view from where we were. It was amazing....you can see the whole of Paris!!!! Nothing can describe the view!!! Even from the bottom looking up, the Eiffel Tower is amazing. I read that they started building the Eiffel Tower in like 1888 or something. You know its going to be huge but when u are actually standing under it it looks even bigger. Most places that you are in London you can see the Eiffel Tower. Really amazing.

After that we headed to another long que to take a cruise down the Sienna River. You go past lots of famous landmarks that i have no clue about but i proceeded to click away with my camera, telling myself I'll check what all of these famous landmarks mean one day...at least I'll have the pictures.

After that we just strolled around Paris taking in various sights and shops. Its evening now and we are very hungry so pop into one of the cute little restaurants. The menus are in French but they do have little English explanations under but its very basic explanations. We do attempt to ask for a further explanation from the waiters but they have no clue what we are saying and we have no clue what they are saying and so its just not worth asking questions. So i just ordered the special which was a fillet steak - i don't know what type of meat that was but it def was not the type I'm used to. Further more my steak came with noodles - noodles with nothing on them. I mean, who eats steak and noodles???!!! But my dish was much better than poor Sarah's. She ordered sausage and fries. Well just looking at her sausage it looks like some sort of animals penis from fear factor. And apparently it smelt like dog food and tasted like this as well. I couldn't bring myself to taste but both Sarah and Stacy had a go and the look on their faces was exactly like the contestants from fear factor!!!! At least her fries were normal fries. And for dessert....i decided to stick to something that hopefully could not go wrong....creme brulee - this was amazing, YUM!! But poor Stacy decided to go for what was called "white cheese and cherry sauce" - now we mulled over this for quite some time....it must be cheese cake...what else could it possibly be for a dessert. Well what they say is what they mean...it was some sort of cottage / cream cheese with a cherry sauce on top...a WHOLE big glass full of it. Yuck!!! And I'm not sure if they forgot to empty the dishwater out of the bottom of the glass but there was white liquid at the bottom - a lot of it...and it did not look like it should actually be there. But I'm happy to conclude that the FRENCH WINE was devine. So that was our first experience of French food.

Day 2 we headed off nice and early to go and see the Louvre - which is basically an art gallery, for those of you who don't know. We only really wanted to see the Mona Lisa. Also long que's but we get in and rush to see the Mona Lisa but everyone has the exact same idea. Its the only painting in the whole place that is roped off and you have to try and attempt a pic from a far distance and its shielded in a glass cage. And its not that big - compared to the other paintings in the place. So after our 3 min view of that painting we just wondered around aimlessly looking at random art work and clicking away with our camera's at the "pretty art". A bit wasted on us i guess.

Next stop the Pompidou which is basically a building that has been built with the inside on the outside...meaning there are pipes and stuff on the outside instead of covered on the inside. And inside is weird art work, together with a library and computers etc etc. Long que again and once inside we realize we were standing in the library que. Great...only wasted an hour!!! Its ok though, we realize we can use the ticket machines inside and get tickets and then don't have to stand in the long que again as we are already inside of the building...so maybe we didn't make such a bad move. Oh but wait...i then use my bank card to purchase the tickets at the machine and the machine only prints 2 tickets, not 3 like i wanted. But the money has been charged to my card. So as our luck would have it...the machine ran out of tickets as we did our transaction. Off to find some French person who can't speak English and try sign language what had happened. We wait and wait and wait and wait....40 minutes later they give us an extra ticket. Now its off to look at the weird art...again lots of clicking away with the camera's to art work that means nothing to us. I know I'm making it sound bad but it was really interesting.

Ok now we are starved...walking and standing in que's all day long makes you hungry. So we buy picnic food and head off to the park as its a beautiful day. The people in Paris are such chilled people, they just lay around in parks all day or by the side of the river. So there are heaps of people in the park. We find our little spot and prepare to relax but as we are settling down some french dude comes up to us and asks us if we speak English. Stacy says yes and he proceeds to sit down next to us and attempt a conversation with us. Asking Stacy (and i say asking Stacy cause Sarah and i just turned our back on him and left poor Stacy stuck facing him) where we are from, she tries not to answer him to much hoping he will go away but she does say we are from South Africa. He has no clue where this is and then lies down next to us, getting all comfortable for a long chat. Now normally i would be friendly but we just want to relax and eat our lunch..we've been walking and standing in que's all day and trying to attempt conversation with someone who can hardly speak English is no what we want right now. So eventually he says "I'm not hungry, u don't mind i sit here" so having had my back to him the whole time, i turn and face him and say "actually we just want to eat our lunch on our own" but he either doesn't want to hear this or is just pretending he doesn't understand cause he just carries on talking. We just tried to ignore him and talk amongst ourselves but he is lying literally on top of us. He's got his shades on and keeps lifting them to peep at us. I mean there is a whole park FULL of people, many foreigners....WHY US!!!! But he eventually gets the hint and goes away!!!

Picnic lunch / relaxation complete its off to Champs Elysees which is one of the main roads to shop in - if you earn megar bucks. We walked this whole strip and did not buy a single thing. We definitely are getting older...gone of the days of being able to do a day full of exploring, we had to plan our feet resting breaks, we would walk for 10 minutes and then just sit on the side of the pavement for 20 minutes. Always planning when our next resting break would be. Eventually we all decide a pub is what we need. Do you think they have pubs in Paris....NOPE not a single one. Only cafe's. After searching forever for one that serves cocktails we finally are able to have our 90th foot rest for the day. Our cocktails arrive and yet again completely not what we expected. The cocktails are not made with ice there, just pure liquid and not as good as our cocktails. But its a drink and we definitely need one after our long day. Finally we decide to grab some normal food for dinner (KFC) and head back home - I'm glad to say that the KFC tastes just like KFC.

Day 3 and up early again, its off to Disneyland. Seems like everyone had the same idea as us. Disneyland was amazing...except for all the millions of little rug rats running around. I really wanted a picture with Mickey Mouse but i couldn't really push the little ones out my way to get to him. In fact by the end i would have chosen any character to have a pic with but you would think that by evening the parents would take their kids home but noooooo they had to stay until the very end...so thanks to those little kids i could not have my picture taken with my favourite characters....just doesn't seem fair does it now!!!! But besides for the kids ruining my moments with the characters, the rides made up for it. There were some truly scary rides....it was AMESOME!!!!!

Back on the train for our hour long ride back to Paris....completely exhausted. But we haven't got pics of the Eiffel Tower in the dark so we have to head back into the centre of Paris. Paris in the evening is amazing. The Eiffel Tower lite up is amazing...as exhausted as we were I'm glad we saw it. Ok 10pm and we need to eat, we decide to try another restaurant by the Eiffel Tower...hoping the food is better than the last. It was a tad better....i ordered chicken (wasn't going to eat weird meat again), specifically asking the waiter if the chicken was on a bone cause then i wouldn't order it...no no he assures me, its just meat from the chicken....food arrives.....chicken on the bone. See no point asking them questions cause they have no clue what you are saying and just agree with whatever you say. Oh well, chicken was chicken and was edible.

Day 4 and we decided to just have a very chilled day. Did some souvenirs shopping and then decided to do as the French do and relax by the side of the Sienna River with our bottle of wine. The sun was blazing, the Eiffel Tower right behind us...a band playing in the distance.....life is amazing and i got to share this experience with 2 awesome girls who made the trip even more amazing!!!!!!!

Next trip - AMSTERDAM.........whooop whooop!!!!!!!

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