Day 1 - Well it would have been if I'd caught the flight I'd booked from London to Paris. Got to the airport in plenty of time, just under 2 hours before the the flight, but once there hit a wall of humanity that just wasn't moving..... I took my place in the check in Q & waited, 1 hour.... 90 Mins still only halfway to the counter.... this is not good.... if I leave my place in the line to enquire, I'd have to stqrt again, surely they'll call my flight soon....
well they did & I wasn't on it, this is so stupid. Left my spot in the line & into another one for the airline counter, after another agonising 40 mins I find out there's no more flights till tomorrow & they will charge a transfer fee of 35 pounds, the flight only cost 60 ! On top of that, of course, would have been another nights accomodation probably another 50 + pounds. There had to be another way....
Got online & found it, Coach to Paris leaving in 2 hours for 41 pounds, that will do, so hot footed it to Victoriq Bus terminal. Made it onto the bus with time to spare & once again on was on my way to Paris.
It was a long trip around 9 hours, but this was broken up by the Channel crossing, on the Pride of Canterberry Ferry. Massive boat & I was able to stretch my legs for an hour or so. The ferry left from Dover, so I got to see the white cliffs, all be it at 1.00 in the morning.
Day 2 - Sunrise found me waking up in Paris Traffic, almost at the coach terninal. Once there (7.00am) took a few mins to work out the Metro & where I had to go. Was pretty tired so took me a bit longer than normal. Arrived at the Hotel around 8.30, after a knock on room 44 a sleepy eyed Tarena, greets me with a "hey, what happened to you, thought you were arriving last night ?" I considered crashing for a few hours, but the day was looking so sunny & inviting that I couldn't do it, too excited to be in Paris ! Terena suggested we take the free walking tour, which sounded like a good way of orientating my self with this big city. Turned out to be really good & have now worked out how the Metro works as well, it's not as well laid out as London but it's ok. After a lovely dinner & a sharing of travel stories we hit the hay.
Day 3 - Got an earlyish start, then hit the Louvre with avengence, this place is massive !! If I hadn't seen so much art in the world already I'd swear it was all here ! I lost Tarena after only about 30 mins, we hadn't set a meeting point so was a little concerned I'd not see her again, at least untill we got back to the Hotel. Ran into her a few hours later in the Egypt section which was incredibly lucky ! Got to the Tower just before sunset which was cool. Another big day planned tomorrow so had a reasonably early one.
Day 4 - Woke with a sore throat & the sniffles, you'd think I'd learnt by now not to push myself so hard. Oh well, went to the the Arc de Triomphe, took some great photos, but started getting the shivers. Left Tarena to explore the long list of galleries & attractions we'd planned & headed back to bed. Slept most of the day away, but managed to drag myself out of bed to have some dinner, but couldn't join Tamerna on the planned pub crawl, would have put me back in bed for another few days I reckon. Had a good night sleep though I was a bit concerned for my friend when she still wasn't back after 2.00am (when the Metro stops for the night).
Day 5 - She ended up gettting in as the sun was rising & I haven't really talked with her since. I'm feeling great again so headed over to Notre Dame. Tarena was still in bed & feeling a little under the weather when I left to do this update around 3.00pm. Hope she feels Ok for our planned outing to the Moulin Rouge tonight ? Making plans to head to Innsbruck, Austria to go skiing on christmas day, the train leaves at 8.30am & arrives, via Zurich, around 5.30.
Made it to Moulin Rouge, so glad I did what a great show ! understood about 20% of the words but everzthing was sung/said with such passion that it really didn't matter. At one stage during the show (during a set change) they had a guy up doing a ventrilaquisem act (no idea how to spell that - lol) he entered the crowd & picked 4 people, guess who found himself on the stage at the Moulin Rouge..... he instructed us when he queezed our hand to open & close our mouths, was very funny & great to be involved. No photos allowed in the place, which is a shame, but what an experience !
