Bonjour France

---

First stop for our final bit of Ireland was breakfast at D'Lush Cafe in Wexford. Then found our way to drop the hire car off and were driven back into town by the hire car guy for our 12noon train. He asked if we knew about the Jill Maher murder, which of course we did...being from Melbourne. Next thing he's asking us about Home and Away - apparently he prefers that to Neighbours. Certainly not an ideal representation of Australia!! 😞 😞 Also, in Dublin's Temple Bar area, I was asked to take a photo of a group of lads who started saying "skippy" and mimicking a jumping kangaroo, upon realising we are Australian. Somewhat hypercritical of me to complain as we've spent much time saying things like "to be sure, to be sure" and "potatoes, potatoes"...lol!!
Short train ride to the port and a long wait before check-in opens for our ferry - not much else to do except use and abuse the free wifi 😊 😊 (Which we have been pronouncing as 'weefee' thanks to a cute add on Irish TV)
We were able to get some form of laundry done (hand washing in the sink) on the 17 hour ferry trip over to France. I got a bit carried away in the onboard shop - if that was a taster of what's to come in Paris (shopping), I could be in trouble!!
Poor miss Georgia was quite affected by travel sickness, despite taking Travelcalm at the port. We'd hardly eaten since breakfast which contributed to the dizziness that was making her nauseous. I, usually prone to travel sickness, on the other hand was fine. So I sat and ate a delicious two course meal by myself in the onboard French restaurant (including some beautiful French red wine), while Georgia had a lie down in our cabin. The waiters were lovely and wrapped up some food for her to try and eat later. Thankfully she felt better and was able to eat.
Wifi wasn't working on the ferry so our phones didn't automatically update to French time - by the time we worked this out, we only had half an hour to shower, pack and eat breakfast. Once off the ferry, we got a cab to the train station (mostly because we had no idea where we were going) - took a half hour bus trip and 4 hour train ride before we finally arrived in Paris. Relieved and exhausted, we made our way to the hostel that will be home for two nights. The weather is amazing but not so enjoyable on the packed, humid Paris subway.
Was after 9 by the time we made our way out for dinner - not much still open locally for food, despite being a Friday night. Ended up a little pizzeria - trying to communicate in French to a waiter whose native tongue was Italian. Again, we got a kangaroo reference - took a little while to work out what he was saying... sounded more like kagooloo.
The hostel bar was in full swing, when we got back, with young travellers taking advantage of the 2 for 1 drink offer (available all day and all night). We'll check that out on our second night - had a big day getting here and got ourselves up early so we can get to the Eiffel Tower before the queues get crazy! Not many photos of Paris yet but after our day of site-seeing, there'll be plenty to share!! Stay tuned xxx 😊 😊

---