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Captains log 3/6/13. Free day in lovely Paris! We woke up around 8 and went down for French hotel breakfast. It was ok, ham cheese is a different breakfast item but were told that's a staple here. We all got on the coach and went into the city. First stop the arc de triumph , the giant arch Napoleon built to celebrate his victory at Waterloo. It's amazing it's a lot bigger then I expected, they also have the enteral flame there which is in the memories of any French soldier lost in combat. We headed off with 2 other couples, josh and jade and brad and Agni, down the chante eylssee, naturally the girls decreased there age by about 10 years and turned into Japanese tourist, snap happy at all there favorite designers. Bella brought a lovely pair of shoes, apart from paying for them I then found out I had to luge them about for the next 7 hours in my backpack. We continued to walk down dodging and fighting our way though pick pockets and street merchants to get to the louve. Apart from the fact that the building spans about a kilometer and has a funky glass triangle thing, creating a green house effect down stairs, it was really beautiful. We got a pretty decent line up too, only about 30 minutes. We fraught though the crowds and got to the Mona Lisa and the Venus de milo. Two things off the bucket list. This experience had me question why they are so famous because every single room in the building is just covered in amazing art from all over the world and lots of time periods. Unfortunately there isn't enough hours in the day to see it all so we had to leave quite quickly. We headed down to the massive gothic master piece which is notra dame. However on our walk down we were treated with a show of a old Asian man loosing his s*** at a failed pick pocket attempt, he held them down while the police were called, it was all very dramatic. We came to the cathedral and it was breath taking. We had lunch directly opposite. The group had snails to share which were really nice, even with the eyebrow raising we got from jade. For mains I had steak tartar which again prompted lots of questions and strange looks of my raw beef and raw egg dish, Bella had quiche Loraine. We rushed though that and went into notra dame. Lucky we were allowed to take photos in here and it was all so nice and amazing. The stain glass windows and the architecture of it is out of this world. Even more so when told the fun fact of the French burying the huge "rose window" during world war 1 so it couldn't be destroyed. We then rushed back to the coach to go get ready for the moulin rouge. Finally a good reason to suit up and get our sexy on. We had dinner there of foie grae which was more of a terrine with a small paste in the middle, it was nice but a bit of a let down because I wanted to eat a slab of it, again we both had the beef and that was ok. I don't think anyone in Europe seasons anything but oh well. Dessert was nice, a triple lair chocolate mouse, with a white chocolate chest finger in the middle. There was a live band before the show and Bella and I got up for a slow dance, I even got a wink from the French singer. That made me feel like perhaps even though Bella almost broke all my toes and both my shins it wasn't that bad of a job. The show started and well, what more can you say but it was incredible. Lots of girls and guys in amazing costumes. Everyone very happy to have there rig out, some pretty girls and some handsome guys that almost look unreal. However the best part of the show were the acts and not the dancing. There were a couple that showed off the most amazing core strength lifting and holding on their heads and backs in all kind of crazy positions. You could tell it was stressful for the man when every single muscle in his body was shaking and pulsing, and the big smile and relieved look on his face when they had finished. There was a girl swimming in a huge water glass tank with 4 very large snakes, which looked very tame. However I wouldn't want to do it. A vantriquest that was really good with a lion puppet and got 4 people up on stage, it was quite good. However the best part was the juggler, he was such a showmen he was unreal. Juggling so many things in so many ways. The best was juggling 5 ping pong balls in his mouth catching each one then blowing them back up, some serious training and time was spent in that act. The show finished and the whole group went to the bar next door were we had our first night out. Plenty of drinks, some semi decent music and many laughs. It was a small realization that most of these lot are 19 and want to write them selves off quickly but was good. At 2am it was time to go, so I rounded up all the stupidly drunk girls that would likely never make it home and got them in a cab despite Bella's frowns and huffyness. The cab driver wasn't as creepy and weird as I suspect so that was good, the best part was winning the bet of Bella telling me the drunk girls won't even remember, but during breakfast the big public thank yous I got made it worth it! Troy 1 Bella 0. I was once again reminded what happens after a few drinks with Bella, she morphs into snorlax the legendary Pokemon only catchable with a master ball. No matter how much I poked prodded and spoke to her it didn't stop the beast. :) time to go the south of France and spain!!!!
P.s I got sunburnt, how the hell do you get sunburnt in 12 degree over cast French weather!
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John Gr8 sfory troy sounds like a fun night after a good day