Oh Paris je t'aime

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Up early and full of beans - made our way straight to the Eiffel Tower only to be disappointed by the already very long queues. Thankfully they moved quickly and we were at the summit before we knew it. The views were breathtaking - Paris really is a beautiful city. After pushing through a sea of people to get a lift down to the halfway point, we decided to take the stairs down. My legs were shaking like jelly for at least an hour afterwards.
Once down, my first coffee for the day was in order - managed to converse entirely in French...was pretty proud of myself 😊 😊
A lot of touristy sites are on The River Seine so we followed it all the way down to Notre Dame, stopping for pictures at the Louvre and lots of other pretty places. Can't believe the amount of locks people put on bridges!! We saw four bridges with locks on them, two of which were absolutely covered!
The weather was perfect - sunny and 28...until about 5pm when it got stormy. Thunder, lightning and plenty of rain!! This made our venture for dinner interesting (and wet). We got a bit lost heading for a particular French restaurant - found ourselves in a somewhat seedy area along the river, so took the nearest steps up to the road in an effort to work out where we were. Almost drenched, we hailed a nearby cab - the friendly gentleman didn't speak much English and we thought he was taking us to the restaurant...instead he was trying to be helpful by dropping us off closer to where we needed to be, free of charge. Problem was we still had no idea where we were!! A bus bound for Gare de l'Est (a metro station we knew) was nearby, so on we hopped. A few stops away from where we got in, some woman knocked on the door near the driver - we assumed to get on. Instead she said something in French with a panicked voice, pointing to the back of the bus. The driver quickly exited his little cab bit, also looking panicked and saying something in French. Thought maybe he had hit a pedestrian...next thing, every man and his dog on the bus is screaming (in French) and scrambling for the exit. This all happened very quickly and we had no idea whatsoever about what was happening - instinct told us to get off the bus. It was a bit like a stampede - every man for himself...fearing for their lives. Once we got off we could see smoke coming from the back if the bus and worked it out from there. Guess they thought the bus might explode, hence the frenzy to get off. Anyway, even more lost than before, we headed for the nearest metro station - still intent on getting to this restaurant for dinner. Being Saturday night, it was busy everywhere in town. Couldn't help but notice drug deals going on around the station - nothing we don't see back in Melbourne so wasn't a big concern. But we were pretty over it by this stage - had been a big day, exhausting day. All we wanted was a feed, a couple of drinks and bed!!
On a side note, there are heaps of Aussies here, including two of the bar tenders who work at the hostel. Nice to be able to just speak Aussie (bogan English) without having to think about every word I'm saying and watch the French wince when I butcher their lovely language!! At least I can say I tried 😊 😊

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