July 23rd
Today Marion, Molly (Marion´s daughter), Lisa and i took a half hour trip to a shopping centre, was very similar to our DFO complexes. Lisa bought a pair of shorts and a few other items, and i bought a new pair of bathers...black strapless one piece item with orange and red flowers, quite nice for spain i think! haha...
Then came the great bus/ferry trip over the Channel to France...After getting on the bus that was full and smelt horrendously of a male toilet, we drove 200m, stopped and proceeded to sit on a stationary bus for 20mins until it was finally our turn to clear customs...off the bus and and very cheery policeman basically sang in french, english and then spanish what we had to do, was very entertaining! through customs and another wait while the sniffer dog went on the bus and about 40 mins after getting on the bus originally we finally were on our way to the ferry...the ferry was HUGE! about an hour trip - you didn´t notice the rocking unless you went to the toilet and sat down haha! - we were on the bus again and on our way from Calais to Paris! after leaving eng at 10.45 we finally hit Paris about 7am...a quick check in at our hostel and we were off sight seeing!
July 24
Sightseeing around Paris was extreme! and the thing that hit me most about this apparently beautiful romantic city was the smell! i don´t know whether my nose has become really sensitive, but lately everything has been smelling of toilets and off pee lol! Looking at our map Lisa and i thought to walk to the Louvre from our hostel at Gare De Lyon would be about a 10 min walk, 8kms later!!!!!!!!! we finally hit the Louvre and with the heat we were about to die! The place was absolutely gorgeous though and we even got to see the ´Mona Lisa´. After this we saw the Arc De Triomph, and then lined up for the queue at The Eiffel Tower...only took about an hour in line which we were quite happy with and up to the top we went! it may have been quicker to climb the first two stories, but after our walking everywhere so far, we just didn´t think our legs had it in them, and weren´t game to gamble with toppling back down the stairs! haha...got quite a nice few pics and then back down again...by this time we were knackered so headed back to the hostel.
July 25
With the promise of breakfast that morning provided by the hostel, we bounded down the stairs and were promptly given ´tokens´ for the vending machine! what the?! around the corner we find the vending machines and inside where these pastry (if you can call them that) chocolate things...not the healthy hearty breakfast i was thinking, and certainly no orange juice in sight...oh, well, down went the chocolate things (can´t waste food! hehe), and off to Versailles we went...the story goes that in this palace there is a room of mirrors and this is where the Germans were made to sign a document making them pay back costs to the union for starting the first world war...because the price was so high germany became even more poor and lead to the rise of Hitler and the revolt against this document in turn leading to the start of World War 2...unfortunately the queue was about 1km long (no joke, i even took photos) and that was just to get in, you had to line up first to buy your tickets!!!!!! so we decided not to go in and went back to visit Notre Dame and then the Catacombs. The Catacombs are an underground network of tunnels where the french buried a whole lot of bones from a cemetary...is just crazy as there is wall upon wall upon wall of bones stacked a least a metre deep and 1-2 metres high...very eerie!
Once again we were quite knackered so headed back to the hostel.
