Our Time in Paris

Hey there,

Yep we are running way behind on the blogs at the moment, but should be catching up a lot more soon as we have moved into our new place in London and one of our roomates has a laptop so we can go crazy! And the free wireless link from 1 of several links certainly helps. This goes back to about 3 weeks ago. (as of 24/7)

Well finding our hotel was a lot of fun. The street in Paris can be very confusing! And Nat was busting for a leak so the pressure was on the find our hotel. After getting directions from 2 people (yep Parisians helping us out, and they offered!) we found our way.



What a find, just found it on booking.com (very handy web site!) It turned out that we had the top corner room and had views of the Eiffel tower from our room! Awesome! A quiet afternoon, Cam spent it passed out in bed. I think the last few weeks have taken it's toll. We went to an Italian restaurant to feed up and watch Australia take on Croatia in the World Cup. Unfortunately it did not make it onto free to air tv and they had the Brazil game on instead. This was the game that Oz scraped through 2-2 take make it into the final 16! But during the game they
did show the goals scored by each side. Back home for some well earned rest.



Day 2
Next day, feeling a little fresher it was time to start exploring the city. Had breakfast at this cafe up the road and discovered how pricey Paris is. Nat ordered eggs and they were 4 eggs all cooked together, with a stick of french bread on the side. An odd way to eat eggs...

As we were in Paris, first stop was Jim Morrison's grave. It took a while to find it, but we did it. It was pretty surreal seeing where the legend was buried. I think we were expecting more but I guess this is how Jim would want to be remembered, nothing to over the top. RIP Jimmy...






We did a bit of walking tour of some of the sights, seen this beautiful church on the hill overlooking the city. I think we got out at the wrong stop from the train, it felt like we had arrived in the Bronx or Kenya. Man there was darkies everywhere! We really felt like the odd ones out. Had some lunch up on the hill (crepes ahoy!).

Back down the hill to have a look at Notre Dame church. This is the actual church where The Hunchback of Notre Dame came from. Unfortunately we missed the closing time by 10 minutes. But we would be back... There was also this small island near the church in the middle of the Siene river. Very nice place with small alleys, icecream shops and stuff all hidden away.


Day 3
Ring Ring!! Ring Ring!! Who would that that be 4am? It was Agg! On his birthday Bloody hell! But it was good to catch up with ya again Agg. Hope your trip to Exmouth was choice! A small French breakfast and we were on our way.

We managed to score a bus trip around Paris with the next tour group for Kumuka. It was a guided tour, showing the major sights and stuff. Some interesting history. We were dropped at the end of the Champs des Elysses. This road is huge! There are some funny rules, like the shops night signs must be iluminated white only, so not to detract from the image. And the traffic lights are hidden away also!

We found this great chain of cafes called "Paul". Very tasty crossaints indeed! After a bit more of a look around we headed home to get cleaned up for the Moulin Rouge. We had dinner at a small restaraunt near the Moulin Rouge. Yep Cam tried Snails (escargo). They were a garlic/pesto flavoured. Pretty damn gross! But I got 4 out of 6 down. (just!) And then steak / Nat had sole fish for mains.

If you plan to see the Moulin Rouge then you probably shouldn't read the next paragraph. It's a spoiler of what it's all about.


We met up with the next tour group of Kumukians as we were invited to come with them.
It's not a cheap exercise but worth it! In your price you get half a bottle of wine or champagne included, which helped! We went to the late session (starts at 1130pm!). A feast for the senses, with lots of sexy women and men in there bright costumes and loud music and stuff. Most of the girls have no tops on, just some skimpy costumes, which was a bit of distraction to Cam!


They had some sort of theme running, but as all the singing was in French it was a little hard to understand. Inbetween the singing stuff, they had some variety shows, a couple of which were a guy doing some amazing things with ping-pong balls and his mouth. He was juggling these balls (4 of them) by firing them out of his mouth in the air and then catching the ones coming back down, amazing stuff! Then he even was playing a drum kit, by firing the balls out of his mouth
at the kit and catching them with his mouth as they bounced off the drum skins! Very cool!


Day 4
Our new friends Adam and Renee came back from London, to join us for a couple of days of fun! Breakfast is not a big think in France, with only really crossaints and coffee being the order of the day. It was a crappy wet day.
We decided that it was the day to do the Louvre, the weather was still crap! Met up with Ad&Ren for morning coffee (€20 for a large pot of coffee, what a rip-off!), and then hit it. Busy would be an understatement! There was so many people there, but as the place was so big, you didn't really notice.

Checked out the usual exhibitions, the greek and Roman art etc. But seen plenty of this already, so we went on the hunt for the Mona Lisa. On the way found a great painting by Thomas Edison. That's right, the man that invented the light bulb was a great painter, but the Americans didn't like his style so he decided to be and inventor instead. The painting was of a heap of the paintings that were in this room that we stood in and people in there and stuff. All sorts of hidden meanings in there.

We finally made it to the MONA LISA. What a crowd, very busy. It was like a mosh pit without the music. I finally surged forward to get to the front, and checked her out. It was OK, but not such a big deal... At least we have seen her!



After this we went to Notre Dame and a little island nearby again where they have all this gourmet food and stuff. As the weather was so crap, we decided to collect some gourmet food and 4 bottles of wine and head back to there's for some boozing and feeding! What an afternoon! Very nice little setup, can't believe that we got through the 4 bottles and then cleaned out their 5th bottle.

Full of booze and wine we decided to go for a walk to the Arc De Triumph. This is only about 5 minutes from their hotel. It was a fun experience. Climbed up about 200 stairs to the top, for a pretty good view of cloudy Paris.But fun nonetheless!! Especially with a heap of alcohol running in the system. This is where they have the biggest roundabout in the world with nine entrances, and no lanes around. It is free reign around the place!
You have to enter at high speed and hang on. Apparantly no insurance companies cover you if you use this roundabout! This was the view of the Champs Des Elysses from the top of the tower.

And they have an accident at this roundabout around every 11 minutes! But we didn't get to see any... Back to their place and time to head home for a good night's sleep, after a feed of Japanese food.


Day 5
It was our Eiffel tower day. We got there about 10am and had to wait about half an hour for tickets, and another 1/2 hour to get in the lift up (blow the stairs!) A very impressive structure indeed! It is over 300m high, and gets over 3 million visitors a year! The lift was really cool up the first couple of levels. Got off had a bit of look and then it was time to head up the top. More queues to get the vertical lift. This is a glass lift and a bit scary when going up! But we made it there and heaps of school kids to give ya the shits... Pretty cool views but!

Back down to the first level, sent some postcards, had a feed (they even have a cinema up there!) and some more photos. By the time that we had got back down the queues was massive. I guess coz the weather had cleared everyone had come for a look now. But we had beaten the crowds. Some more photos in the park nearby, and it was time to head off.

We had decided to go back to our respective rooms and get ready for the football that afternoon. But when we got back to our room, we could not get in! Turned out the lock had failed and everyone was locked out. Even the master key did not work. So we spent 1 1/2 hours in the reception waiting to get into our room. Finally got in showered and down to a bar near our hotel, just in time to see the kickoff. It was only a small bar, they have these bars in Paris that probably only hold 30 people tops, more like a cafe that sells beer also. So it was us, the bar staff (2) and a a couple of locals. Got stuck into the beer and wine, and things were very merry. Even befriended the resident cat, and he was watching the game and smooching the whole time. He found a new friend in Renee. Snuggled up the her the whole time...

I had forgotten my flag, so it was a quick race home to get that at half-time. So us and some more locals had arrived at the bar, eyes glued to the game. During this time an American girl had stumbled into the bar for a drink, and ended up befriending us also. We got chatting and she had her accounts drained by someone and had no funds! So who was on the phone etc trying to get something teed up. Turns out she was a bi-sexual divorcee who liked to talk about her ex-husband cheating a lot...

0-0 with the game nearly finished. All the French people I spoke to were going for Oz! And then the devastating blow, that dodgy penalty decision awarded to Italy with 5 seconds to go in the game.

And they scored :((((((( Everyone was in disbelief! They could not believe that penalty had been awarded. There where some very annoyed people after that game.

We were getting pretty hungry by then, so on the search for a feed. Of all things we decided to try Japanese food in Paris. It wasn't too bad. Our new American friend joined us. Then we all split and headed home for some well earned rest.

Day 6
A quiet morning after the disappointing loss and the many drinks the morning was kinda slow.
We made it over to Adam & Renee's train stop and went to a place the Renee had eyed for lunch. It was a great lunch, I had steak, Nat had a great lamb chop and stuff. And some of the best service that I have ever experienced in a restaurant! Our time together was drawing to a close so we went back to their place to wait for there airport shuttle. Teary goodbyes and then we realised that we needed to rush to get our Train down to Bordeaux.

Picked up our luggage from the hotel and realised that we were running late! Damn we are going to be really cutting it fine to get to the TGV station in time. Trying to get through the metro ticket entrance, I gotr through but my bag got stuck! Damn, I tried but and then he couldn´t get through! But he just forced it. When we got of the metro station we could not find the TGV station! No bloody sign posting! But found it and missed our train, but just changed our ticket and were leaving 1 hour later. That's right we head south again. More coming soon on Bordeaux, France.

Cam & Nat