Our hostel was a big and happening hostel. We really enjoyed our stay there. They provided breakfast for us - baguettes, and we usually took extra for lunch too. We lived off baguettes for a week, I'm quite over them now!
Our next day we slept in and then went to check out some local markets. That evening we went to the Eiffel tower. This was one of the highlights of my trip so far. We sat in the park below - Jardins du Trocadero, and had a picnic dinner - including Paris's famous crepes -Banana and Nutella (man they are yummy!!). It was a warm summers night. After our picnic we went up the Eiffel Tower. We had booked tickets this time! So didn't need to wait in the long ticket line. We caught the lift all the way to the top and got some amazing sunset photos. The view from up there is amazing, you can see right out over the city. Then we went back down and back to the park, where we had some champagne and watched the tower light up - it did a light show each hour on the hour.
The next day we did a walking tour of Paris. This took about 3 hours, and covered all the main historical attractions of the city. The tour guide pointed out some scammers on the street. They pretend to be deaf, working on behalf of the deaf organisation, collecting money for the charity. Really they are just gypsys scamming tourists for money. That afternoon after the tour, we went back to a cafe and tried escargot - otherwise known as snails. They surprisingly tasted ok. They season them so much with garlic and other spices that they end up tasting good!
That evening we decided to check out the local clubs, and got talking to some people at the hostel who took us to a club - Queen, on the upper class av des Champs Elysees. It was quite expensive in there - a vodka red bull drink cost 18 euro!! ( that's about $27 NZD!).
The next day was a slow one, but in the evening we did a river cruise down the River Seine.
The next day we went to the Musee du Louvre to see the Mona Lisa. The painting was quite small, although I had heard that it was like that, so wasn't that surprised. Before that we came across the gypsys again pretending to work for the deaf foundation. Tash shadowed one for a while, chasing off the tourists as they tried to approach them, and telling everyone that they were scammers. That evening we went to the Montmartre and saw the Basilique du Sacre Coeur. The view from up there is amazing. After that we sat on the steps with everyone else and listened to a busker sing some familiar English songs. After that we went to check out the area where the Moulin Rouge is. There we meet some Kiwis and had a drink with them. NZ is such a small country. It is quite cool to find some kiwis when you are so far from home.
The next day we went to see the Les Catacombes. Unfortunately we arrived late, and the que was right around the block! The wait time was about 3 hours. We didnt have time for that, so unfortunately had to give it a miss.
In the afternoon we wandered down the av des Champs Elysees, and passed all the big branded stores such as Gucci, Abercrombie and Fitch, Prada and all the amazing cars in the european car showrooms. At the end of this street is the Arc de Triomphe. This is in the middle of apparently the world's largest traffic roundabout. So many roads meet there, there are no marked lanes, cars everywhere. Chaos really. We wanted to get to the middle to see the Arc de Triomphe, and we could see people were already there, we couldnt see a pedestrian corssing and could see a few brave ones crossing anyway, so we decided to run across also! Once we were in the middle safely, we realised there was actually a pedestrian underpass. Opps. Under the Arc de Triomphe there is the a 'eternal flame' there. Our tour guide from the day before said that some drunk Australians a few years back went there and cooked some food on it:
"In October 1997 French police arrest an Australian man for using the eternal flame at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris to cook an egg".
Also that afternoon we went to see the Notre Dame. Then we headed to the Pont des Arts, otherwise known as lovers bridge. It is heavily decorated with padlocks, which you lock to the bridge with your lover, and throw away the key into the river, as you will be together for life. Tash and I decided to put a padlock there and threw the keys in the river. How romantic.
The next day Tash and I hired a car and drove out to Normandy. I wasn't game enough to drive on the opposite side of the road so Tash did the driving. It took us a while to leave the parking lot, as Tash kept stalling the car. Turns out she was trying to start it in third gear - Reverse was in the 1st gear place, but we didn't realise that that place is also for first gear, there is a switch you have to use to change between the two. Then once out on the road, we couldn't get the Navman to work properly! Turns out we had it in demo mode. After those teething issues and getting used to driving on the other side of the road, we were on our way! It took a bit of getting used to driving on the motorway too, since the speed limit is 130 kms!
Our first stop was Rouen - a old Medieval town. We checked out the Cathedrale Notre Dame. It was stunning. Because less tourists go there, you can get up close and personal, unlike the more popular Basilique du Sacre Coeur or the Notre Dame where certain areas are closed off.
After that we headed to Mont St Michel. The view from here was totally amazing. It is the best view I have ever seen -it looked like a perfect picture of the horizon, like a photo that had been taken and then enhanced. Except I was seeing this all with my naked eyes.
Once we were done here, it was the evening, and we were low on gas. We couldn't find a gas station open anywhere. We could only find ones that were self service, and none of them seemed to take my credit card! We were starting to get a bit stressed (thought we might be spending the night in Normandy!), but after asking around, we found a gas station that was open! Once this difficulty was over, we headed out quickly to one of the D-Day beaches - Juno beach. It was getting dark at this stage, so we didn't get around all the D-Day beaches like we had hoped. Instead we did the long drive back to Paris - this took about 3 hours. We didn't get back till the early hours of the morning, and again, couldn't find a gas station open (we were supposed to return the car with a full tank of gas!).
The next day we caught a train to Geneva to meet up with Kirsty again. While at the train station the deaf scammers came around looking for money. This time I pretended to also be deaf, and I did some sign language to him. He said he didn't understand, and then promptly took off. I then looked for him, because I was going to tell security, however he was no where to be found. Funny that.
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