Night to reminisce (bored)

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Again, just starting by saying I don't know where in Paris I am.
Starting to get lazy with the blogs (as I had predicted). Second night in France now, and not liking the cost of everything and the amount of beggars. But I'll start off where I think I finished last time. Dublin was absolutely awesome. Met up with friends from high school, and pretty much drank every night I was there (only up to the point of being tipsy, except one night). That is to say, however, that it wasn't consecutive days since I went to Galway for a night. Galway was really nice, relatively big city, and soooo many people were dressed in Halloween, even though it was only the 28th or something. Anyway, back to Dublin. So first night, drank with high school peeps, second night, did a pub crawl. Going to hopefully do them in every city I go, really fun! Shame Paris doesn't have one. Third night was the trashy night. Met some cool people at the Guinness storehouse, and pretty much the drinking started at 5pm and finished at 2am. The lame part about that story, is that I had to wake up at 6am to go to Galway. Last night in Dublin was also meant to be a calm one since I had to get up at 6am again for the ferry to England. Ended being out until 2, again, with Renee, an American from the Galway tour. Needless to say, we drank and listened to Irish music and got home way too late.
So on the 31st I was on my way back to London to go to France. Looking back, I probably should have taken the plane. But I still don't know, Plane would have been 180 euro for a however long flight it was. I decided to go for Ferry, train, train, a night in London, train, and lastly, another train. Total travel time was about 10 hours, but total cost was about 90 euro. So anyway, the night in London was a normal night, met someone at the hostel, we went for a walk to Piccadilly Circus to check out the Halloween costumes. I never got her name so I can't add her on Facebook, so meh. Again though, that night was meant to be alcohol-free and finish at 11pm. Was NOT alcohol free and finished at 1am. Next day, woke up at 6am to get the train to France … yay.
When going to France, I had a choice of not using my Eurail pass and paying 180 euro for the train ticket to Paris (which was stupid since I could have taken a plane) or take a train to Lille for 53 euro. So I ended up getting lost in Lille and got directions from a homeless French guy with no teeth, which was nice of him.
So eventually, after about 28 hours since leaving Dublin, I made it to Paris! yay! It was pissing down rain so I went to the closest hostel I could find, and settled in. Should mention that it stopped raining as soon as I got into the hostel. Oh yea, the beggar thing. So I get out of Gare du Nord station or whatever, and this beggar comes to me telling me to sign something so I sign it, unaware that it's a rouse to get me to donate money. Having already written my name and country, I thought I would just give them 5 euro for the trouble. But nooooo, they were like "10 minimum" and tried to reach into my wallet. I said no, and walked away. I was being followed for a bit but they eventually gave up when they saw police ahead. Ever since then, no more giving money. I actually got poked with a pen for refusing to give money today, which was unpleasant. There's something about a lone asian traveller with a backpack that tends to attract beggars. I've come up with some courses of action if I go to a touristy place. First, I'll always have earphones on, even though I have no music to listen to on my phone. Secondly, I find that if I embrace my asianness and say "ni hao" 6 times then "bonjour" 3 times in a broken voice, they tend to get the idea that I can't communicate with them. Of course, the other thing to do is just shake my head and walk away, but man, they'd give stalkers a run for their money. Anyway, today, 2nd November, I walked around Paris from 11 till 8. Did the main tourist crap, museums, eiffel tower, crap like that. Was meant to do a bike tour as advertised in a pamphlet thing, which I was really looking forward to, but apparently it's out of season so that didn't happen. Friggin pissed. France has not given me a very good first impression.

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