We began our day by walking up the hill to see the Sacre' Coeur- the streets surrounding it are filled of restaurants, souvenir shops, people, painters and people drawing portraits. The basilica sits on the top of the hill and from there you can see a wonderful view of the city. It was a very hot day. We went in the church and all lit a candle. Then we walked down from the basilica down to the courtyard at the bottom- this is where all the scammers hang out. They stand on either side of the steps so you have to go past them- the first ones we came across were the ones who tie string to your finger and then start braiding a bracelet which they then put on you and make you pay. We knew to watch out for them- but we saw a few tourists being scammed. Everywhere you look are people trying to sell stuff and have their 'products' displayed on the footpath, they are every couple of meters with Eiffel towers, handbags ect. We walked further down to a street that was full of souvenir shops. The girls all bought berets- I got a purple one :). While we were doing this I forgot to mention to katene to watch out for people playing the 3 cups game. You have to guess which disk has the target under it- obviously the tourist never wins- so he lost 40 euro. these scammers are everywhere and they are in big groups with their friends and families and they all play pretending that they don’t know each other, making it look like they are winning to get tourists to join in. We left there pretty quickly as we were weary of being targeted by pickpockets. We caught the train to the Eiffel tower and once again there were several of these three cup scammers lining the street from the train station to the Eiffel Tower. We grabbed some lunch from a street vender- for me a croque monsieur- a ham and cheese toasted sandwich with melted cheese and béchamel sauce on the outside!! While we were sitting down by the river- a group of three cup scammers came and sat right beside us- we felt a bit uncomfortable and left. We went for a boat cruise down the river Seine with a glass for champagne. I got very burnt but was a lovely and relaxing way to see this beautiful city- highly recommend it. While enjoying the boat cruise the peloton for the Tour de France came through so we missed seeing that, only their heads which was a shame. After the boat cruise we went to the Champs Elysees to see the parade of cyclists. I must say not my cup of tea, it took forever as they biked in their teams and were soo far apart it took a very long time. We got back to our hostel at 7pm and went for dinner at a small French restaurant down the road from the hostel at 10pm- its weird because it doesn’t get dark until after 10pm so you don’t feel like eating until late. At the restaurant steph used my French phrasebook to ask for a table for four for dinner- disaster- they just looked at her weird so we resorted back to English. Later steph wanted to try to speak French again so she tried to order a drink- no success there either, back to English again. The next morning we got up at 6am to get to the bus to start our Busabout tour. There were a lot of Australians on the bus who were really cool- katene loved having some guys to chat to. The bus was really nice- we had our own air-conditioning unit and earphone jack so we could watch the movie they put on in the bus. They play movies that have scenery from the destination we are going to. We watched 'In Bruges'. They have very strict rules for passenger buses in Europe and as a result we have to stop regularly- after only 1.5 hours we had to get off the bus at a rest stop where there were bakeries, minimarts and souvenir shops. The bakery food all looks soooo good. On the Busabout we all get given our own lonely planet for Europe which is cool because none of us had a guide book. We got to Bruges- passing the boarder was uneventful-just drive through, blink and you would miss it. It was very hot once again in Bruges. We had a quiet day just did some washing and booked our accommodation for Amsterdam and Berlin. We went to a Belgium beer tasting. It was interesting to learn about the beers and why they come in certain glasses and what you should taste. Most of the beers were over 9% alcohol- we got to try 5 beers and then got a free beer of our choice- the guy taking it was hilarious and there was about 45 people from the hostel taking part. It was lots of fun.
