Bonjour

Howdy! I am back from gay Paris. I was a whirlwind trip, with only 3 full days, as the flight there was evening and the flight back was early morning. As I had been before, in torrential rain, and been in a fair bit, I didn't go in much (also because Paris is very expensive) but I had fairly good weather so I saw the outside of lots of things. So, here it is...

Thursday 1/2- I arrived at about 7pm to my hotel room which was very luxurious, not! Instead of getting a mint on the pillow you got a pube on the sheets! Huzzah! There were French kids staying at the hotel, I'm assuming from a school excursion, that yelled to each other constantly, and the doors were paper thin to the hall. Plus I think every singlepipe from the entire building's plumbing ran down through the bathroom behind my bed head as I could just hear constant water running, either in shower slow flow or fast toilet flushes. Thank god I brought my earplugs! So, I watched a bit of Friends dubbed in French, which was tres annoying, and gave up and went to bed.

Friday 2/2- It was a bit cloudy and attempted to rain acouple of times, but didn't manage more than a light misty shower. I explored the open top bus tour I had pre-booked tickets for. Most cities have one loop and about 12 stops. Paris has 4 different loops and over 50 stops! I spent all of the first day on busses, only getting off to change for another loop. Here aresome snaps from my bus top...

Then I got off at the Moulin Rouge stop and walked up montmatre to catch the fernicular railway up to Sacre-Coeur. But or course the fernicular was broken so I climbed up all the stairs. There wasn't much of a view becauseof the clouds and so forth. I went inside and sat on one of the pews for a bit. It was odd to be in there and see religious people coming in and kneeling, praying, holding rosary beads, reading the bible, crossing themselves. I feltlike I shouldn't have been in there. And unlike the Sistene Chapel people were silent and respecting the no photos. This church was more religious and sacred than the Vatican and St Peters. It was odd.

Last time I was in Paris I was with my granny, who past away last year, so I felt compelled to light a candle for her. I am assuming I wont get gods trying to smite me for this gesture, as neither me or my granny are what you would call religious, but it just seemed like a nice thing to do. And my way of saying goodbye to her.

After doing this I walked back down the hill and caught the metro back to my hostel.

Saturday 3/2- It was a much sunnier day today, although much colder too. I decided I would walk to the Cimetriere du Pere Lachaise which was not far from my hotel, and is a place where loads of famous peopleare burried. It is a massive cemetery filled with crypts and large raised tombs so it is almost impossible to find your way around. I was about to give up when this guy said "are you looking for Jim Morrison?" in a very French accent. I said yes, and he proceeded to show me around to his grave. On the way he took me to several others and I said I was looking for Bizet and he showed me his too. When I left the man asked for money, which was to be expected, so I paid him €10 which wasn't bad for a 30 minute personal guided tour of the cemetery, which I would never have found all the graves without. I asked him how he knew where they all were and he explained that 15 years ago he used to make the marble graves. Now he just wonders around finding lost tourists and making some money. I heard him pick up another lost person as I was leaving and started to show him around! I was Oscar Wilde's grave, which has loads of kisses on it. Edith Piaf's (which he was shocked I knew who she was). Jim Morrison's (which is guarded as 15 years ago someone stole the bust off it). George Bizet's. Bugatti's (who has a huge plot and a simple headstone, cos they burried him with his car).

Then I walked down to catch the Blue bus loop from place de la Bastille. The blue loop was my last one, as I had done the other three on Friday. I then swapped back to the Orange and went to Tour Montparnasse which is a huge tower that you can go up to the 56th floor in the fastest elevator in Europe (56 floors in about 40 seconds, so fast your ears pop) and see 360' view. And from here you can walk up a few stairs to the 59th floor which is the helipad on the roof, and stand up there in the open. It is in from the edge a fair bit though, so you don't get to see the height perspective of looking down. On a good day you can see up to 40km away, which I think I saw. You could see the curve of the horizon! Plus, unlike the Eiffel tower, there were no queues. While I was up there a lady came off the elevator guiding another lady around who had dark glasses and a cane. Surely that is a waste of €9 for a blind person to experience the view?

Then I went back down to the bottom and walked back to le Jardin du Luxembourg which is a nice big garden that has loads of seats where people were just sitting and watching the world (and the occasional jogger) go by. There are kid's playgrounds, this coold row of swings where the parents all have little spots to stand and push the kids who are going at different times,basketball courts, ponds, bee hives, orange trees. It would be really nice in the spring/summer to come and sit under the trees in the shade and watch the world go by, but in the cold winter sun people were sitting in the open trying to get any residual heat from the sun to warm up!

Then from here I walked across to the Pantheon, which is a copy of the one in Rome, and was boring. The only exciting thing is the pendulum clock that allows the earth to revolve the clock around the pendulum which swings in the same spot. When I got there it was on time, but it didn't catch up and when I left it was 30 minutes late. Maybe the world had slowed down?

Then I went just around the corner and met a girl I chat to online and her husband (who had booked a trip to Paris at the same time as me) for dinner. We went to a typically French place (that smelled of French cheese *shudder*) and ate typical French food. I didn't have the escargot... been there, done that! I had cheese pastry, beef burgundy and creme brulee. Yum!

Sunday 4/2- I got up early and headed off for my grand day as Disney. I caught a proper train and travelled nearly an hour to get to the station right next to the entrance. Then I went in and was suitably impressed with the typical Disney castle. Then 2 hours later after 1 ride (its a small world after all), several diney-esque souveneirs and a whole lot of pity for people who take their children and are forced to spend hours queueing for rides and queueing for fotos with people in disney character costumes, and queueing for extremely overpriced food, and buying WAY too much stuff that they really dont need simply because it has a Disney logo on it and they can't bear the 'but i want one' tantrum any longer like plush fantasia hats with mickey mouse ears stuck out the side. So I got back on the train and went back into Paris and saw the Pompidou centre, the place de vosges, then went back to the Sacre-Coeur for a sunny view picture (spot the difference) and saw the Moulin Rouge with the lights on. Then I went back to my hotel and went to bed, as I had to be up at 6am (5am Uk time) for the airportshuttle back the airport to head home.

I had a good time in Paris, and was lucky with the weather. It is supposed to be snowing there this week. Although, it is really cold here too, and is supposed to be snowing hereon Thursday. I had to scrape the ice off the windscreen thismorning before I could drive anywhere. Got as high as 4'C. Woot!

Now, I don't know if it's because evenyone has given up and isn't reading this anymore, or if it's because you have all just become slack lazy people, but I haven't had a comment for a while, so please write comments, or send me emails. I know I don't send you all personal emails every 5 seconds, but it is because it would just say pretty much word for word what this says, but you could reply from time to time! Please? (unless noone is reading this anymore, then BOO to you!!).