Ladies and gentlemen the title pretty much says it all. Let me summarise
1: Sleep paralysis
The day was off to a rocky start to begin with as I 'woke' up with sleep paralysis. While I could hear all the girls in my room moving about and getting ready I couldn't move, couldn't open my eye or even make a sound so I got left behind and missed the bus into the heart f the city.
2: Lost my room key
I don't understand this one. I had a shower in the morning with my swipecard and returned to my room. Once I was ready, dressed and perfumed I made to leave but miraculously the swipecard had vanished. Brilliant. I then spent an hour and a half unpacking and repacking both my bag and suitcase hunting around for it but for all it was worth I would have better luck searching for MH370.
After deciding to go without I left my hostel and navigated the convoluted rail/bus system that runs in the city quite successfully. Probably one of my proudest moments and I felt like I was a successful traveler being able to do that all by myself. It wasn't long until I jumped out at Notre Dame and began to wind my way back and forth across the many ornate bridges that cross the Seine River.
Fun fact : There are actually 3 love lock bridges in Paris. Pont de l'Archevêché is the bridge that crosses near the Notre Dame Cathedral and traditionally you hang your love lock there if it is for secret affairs. Passerelle Léopold-Sédar-Senghor is the third bridge in the series which is were you hang locks for those in happy marriages while Pont des Arts crosses near the Louvre and is for young lovers. Pont des Arts is also bad thing No. 3 happened.
3: Got robbed
Yup. I honestly did. I stopped at a souvenir stand near the Pont des Artes and brought a snowglobe. As I was closing my wallet this hand swooped in and grabbed all my euro notes before it's owner ran across heavy traffic and was quickly followed by another five women. I guess they were part of a gang that does this kind of thing frequently and I was, understandably, pretty upset. There goes all my admission money to the Louvre, a walk to the top of the Arc del Triumph, lunch and more souveniors. I just wanted to go back to my room and sit there for the rest of the day but no money for metro and no keycard for access. I may as well just head to the next meeting spot and wait.
Next meeting spot so happened to be for a fat tire bicycle tour of the city. I quite enjoyed this bit a lot. It nearly made up for the rest of my shitty day. Nearly.
4: Rain
Towards the end of the bicycle tour it began to rain. Just little drips at first, then big. fat, heavy drops. After the tour I still had to get back to our final meeting point. I didn't have money for an umbrella as atms seem to be nearly non-exsistent and to be honest at this stage of the day there was not many more fucks to give so I walked back in the pouring rain and arrived thoroughly drenched.
On the plus side though, I went to a cabaret after dinner. So many boobs. If you want to know what a cabaret is watch this. It also had really ,really good red wine.
http://youtu.be/IivaDS3eWrE
Despite all the crap that happened, I quite liked Paris. Each and every building is a historical. You can walk a single block and have to stop at another piece of beautiful architecture. I would come back again just to do all the things I missed out on due to losing my money but it's definitely a four-six day stop needed to take everything in.
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
Thursday, August 7, 2014
Tour 1 : London to Paris
It was an early start this morning, filled with the frantic shoveling and squashing down of toiletries into my suitcase as well as the odds and ends I wasn't able to categorise during the night and had left out for further pondering. No time for pondering now, I've got a bus to catch! In it goes! Stuff, stuff, stuff, squeeze, zip? Nope, stuff, squeeze, squeeze, zip? Zip! Run, taxi, drive, drive, arrive, YAY!
The first part of our trip is a 'short' bust trip to the white cliffs of Dover to meet the ferry for our trip into gay Paris. The white cliffs of Dover are very white. Very, very white. There's this image in your head on how you think they look. Now make those cliffs whiter. No, whiter still. There we go, that's about right. Of course I'm an idiot and I was to baffled getting pushed through passport control and then searching for breakfast once I got onboard I forgot to take pictures. Yet another fail.
Oh well, next we jump on another bus and drive through the French countryside. I have never seen land so.. so.. flat! The horizon seems forever away and all you can see is fields of green growing things and sometimes yellow growing things I think the peasants call 'Wheat'.. or some similar sort of grain type ....thing. The country is beautiful, lush fields stretching as far as you can see. Every hour or so we past through a town. The building are all made from ornate carved stone, even the cheap shacks. The architecture of even the boring run-of-the-mill houses is astounding.
We arrive in Paris just before dinner time and settle into our rooms. Downstairs the kitchen staff lay out bowls of French onion soup, escargot tasters and some.. creamy chicken rice concoction. All delicious. Escargot is like eating a small piece of garlic calamari. OM NOM NOM MORE PLEASE! Then it's back on the bus for a night time tour of Paris even though it's not quite night yet despite it being 8:30pm. Don't worry, I took a bunch of photos. Most of them blurry but I'll sort them out tomorrow. For now it's time for bed to rest up for a long day or art appreciation, shopping, bike riding and fancy foods.
The first part of our trip is a 'short' bust trip to the white cliffs of Dover to meet the ferry for our trip into gay Paris. The white cliffs of Dover are very white. Very, very white. There's this image in your head on how you think they look. Now make those cliffs whiter. No, whiter still. There we go, that's about right. Of course I'm an idiot and I was to baffled getting pushed through passport control and then searching for breakfast once I got onboard I forgot to take pictures. Yet another fail.
Oh well, next we jump on another bus and drive through the French countryside. I have never seen land so.. so.. flat! The horizon seems forever away and all you can see is fields of green growing things and sometimes yellow growing things I think the peasants call 'Wheat'.. or some similar sort of grain type ....thing. The country is beautiful, lush fields stretching as far as you can see. Every hour or so we past through a town. The building are all made from ornate carved stone, even the cheap shacks. The architecture of even the boring run-of-the-mill houses is astounding.
We arrive in Paris just before dinner time and settle into our rooms. Downstairs the kitchen staff lay out bowls of French onion soup, escargot tasters and some.. creamy chicken rice concoction. All delicious. Escargot is like eating a small piece of garlic calamari. OM NOM NOM MORE PLEASE! Then it's back on the bus for a night time tour of Paris even though it's not quite night yet despite it being 8:30pm. Don't worry, I took a bunch of photos. Most of them blurry but I'll sort them out tomorrow. For now it's time for bed to rest up for a long day or art appreciation, shopping, bike riding and fancy foods.
Tours and Excuses
So yeah, updating this every day. Right.
Fail.
I didn't intend to be as busy as I was in America but illness and distractions did hi-jack my attention and instead of trying to blurt out a big hunk of posts all rushed and ruined I thought I would do it another day. Each post of the tour I write, I'll also cover a place I visited in America.
This post not included of course. This is just to say I made the Europe tour safe. Caught the bus and ferry and bus and aren't languishing in London stressed out of my fragile little mind.
Proof:
Fail.
I didn't intend to be as busy as I was in America but illness and distractions did hi-jack my attention and instead of trying to blurt out a big hunk of posts all rushed and ruined I thought I would do it another day. Each post of the tour I write, I'll also cover a place I visited in America.
This post not included of course. This is just to say I made the Europe tour safe. Caught the bus and ferry and bus and aren't languishing in London stressed out of my fragile little mind.
Proof:
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