Paris

So from Venice we jumped on an overnight train to Paris. As it was busy we had to get a 6 person cabin. That's 3 bunks on each side. And Nate and I were last to book so we got the top two. It was so hot. The train was definitely better than those in Russia and China but the aircon was about the same (intermittent!). Thankfully it came on a bit later and we were able to sleep. All up it took 12 hours but the train was stopped for a while in some places so I don't know how many hours we were moving for.

Anyway, we arrived at 8am to a fairly warm Paris. We went to grab a coffee before heading to the hotel but on realising that they were 4 euro we decided to head straight to the hotel. haha. Once we'd checked in a investigated the neighbourhood that we were staying in we jumped on the metro into the city. We went for a walk and saw Notre Dame and then went to the Tuileries Garden to stroll along and watch all the Parisiens basking in the summer sun. And yes, it was actually hot!

Here's one of Notre Dame (and yes that is a stupid mark on my lense to the left of the image. grrr)...

And here's one at the gardens...

After that we found a little market thing that was selling some pets. We saw this chicken which is super-cool...

And I saw my first Chinchilla which was crazy. It looked cute but if you could see this thing jumping around in that cage it's scary.

And we also spotted some of the plastic variety on the street. They were actually part of a window display for a shop which was outside the shop. Pretty cool hey. They had heaps of smaller ones in the window with mannequins and whatever it was promoting. I thought it was Marc Jacobs at first because I saw the daisy perfume but I'm not 100% sure.

So the next day we tried to get up early but it didn't really happen. Eventually we made it to the Louvre along with a billion school kids (they get in free - hooray!). So here's the outside...

We wandered around for a few hours (this place is humugous) and obviously we went to see the Mona Lisa and Venus De Milo.

After that we went and had a great lunch in a cafe. It was an 11 Euro menu (and please consider that a 250-330ml coke costs at least 2.50!) and we got a tart/quiche thing plus a dessert and a drink.

We got two different ones and went halves. The one you can see is chicken but behind the lettuce is half a salmon one.

And we both got the same dessert as it looked so tasty. Some kind of plum tart thing. Oh and did I mention I love the food in France! I'll be on a diet in about 4 weeks. eek.

After that we went to check out that big tower thing and bought some keyrings off a dude that was trying to sell us 3 for a Euro. Then he offered 5! People had been trying to sell these things to us all day so I said we'd take 2 for 50 cents and we were all happy.

So after two of the hottest days Paris has ever had the weather turned to shit. Very British. Drizzling and cold. So we were back in jeans, jumpers and jackets again. We went to see the Catacombs and nearly missed out as they're only open until 4 and there was a massive line. Anyway, we got in and I took heaps of pictures which surprisingly all turned out very blurry. Here's a couple that will look ok blog-sized.

Do I look scared?

We also went out to Montmarte to check out a church on top of a hill which was quite cool although I will say we realised what a great area of Paris we were staying in after we got off the train in North Paris. Yikes! There was about a million dodgy looking people standing in and around the train station all trying to sell cigarettes (which is common in Albania!) and God knows what else.

Anyway we made it up to Sacre Coeur and it was quite nice... Great views of Paris too.

There were heaps of people up there and a few buskers. Here's one that I gave some money to because he was really quite talented.

There was also about 20 people selling Eiffel Tower keyrings (even though you couldn't see it from there - haha). And there was all there African guys waiting at the bottom of the stairs trying to put these string things on your fingers. They were actually quite intimidating as there was heaps of them at the entrance. When we got down there one dude said "Hakuna Matata" and I laughed but then he grabbed my arm and started to put this string thing on my finger. I told him no several times but I had to yank my arm away to get him off me. He wasn't happy that the thing fell on the floor but apparently they wind these 'good luck' things up your arms and then demand money for it. I don't know where the cops were but they were seriously hassling a lot of tourists. And I was just reading on some forums with comments back as far as 2006 saying what pests they are and how they won't take no for an answer so obviously it isn't a new thing.

But in saying that I did love Paris. I wasn't expecting to as I'd heard such mixed reviews but I thought it was a beautiful city. Probably one of my favourites in Europe so far.

More photos here