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No, Cheryl is not in Rome and London at the same time...this is obviously Sonja, writing only her second travel blog, and for some reason doing it in third person. That stops now.
So the last time I wrote anything was weeks ago and as Cheryl has covered most of the stuff in between, I'll just give you my personal highlights. The Paris section will be a huge chunk of that...but Paris really deserves a decent amount of ranting devoted to it.
I've already told all of you how much I loved Switzerland so I won't go into that any more other than to just say that that's definitely the highlight of the trip so far and I could've easily spent another 10 days there doing nothing but walking around the mountains. You've seen the photos. You understand.
Ok. Now. Are you ready for Paris? I sure as hell wasn't. Coming from picture-perfect, idyllic Switzerland, where it's all peace and quiet and communing with nature, into the huge and inconsiderate Parisian crowds was quite a shock. Here are some of the highlights:
* Disgusting Parisian men. What bothered me most was that they don't go away even when you make it clear you want them to, they keep leering and mouthing stuff at you...ugh they're just gross and incredibly offensive. In every place we've been so far I've enjoyed just walking around and soaking the place in, but because of these creeps I found it so hard to relax and enjoy roaming the streets of Paris.
* Getting hit by a bicycle. Yeah, it kinda sounds funny, except I've got several really bad bruises and my leg still hurts a week later. This is what happened. I'm walking on the PEDESTRIAN walkway along Notre Dame cathedral and I hear a bicycle bell behind me. I move to the side, towards these bins that line the walkway, and instead of slowing down, the guy tried to pass in between me and the bins and slammed right into the back of me. I went flying across the concrete, he hit the bins and both him and his bike fell on me. Rather than coming up to me and apologising he stood there grumbling and shaking his head, looking all angry and pissed off that his bike broke (his wheel was all rattly) and he seemed angry at me too. All these people ran over to check if I was ok and they were yelling at him because he wasn't using the bicycle lane which is right by the pedestrian walkway. GRRRR!!
*The trip from Paris to London by Eurostar, which is meant to take 2.5 hours took me 7 hours. What happened was the man who booked my ticket over the phone booked it for the wrong date. I went to the the Paris Eurostar desk and told them what happened. This was my interaction with the Charming Parisian Lady:
CPL: "It says here this is a public sale, you booked this by yourself on the internet so it is your fault".
ME: "No, I didn't book it on the internet, I called Eurostar and a man there booked it for me"
CPL: "No, no, it says here you booked it on the internet"
ME: "I don't know what it says there but I did NOT book it on the internet, I know how I booked my ticket, I was there. I have the number I called in my phone, here, I can show it to you - - show CPL the number - - - "
CPL: "This is not a Eurostar number, I have no idea who you called"
ME: (thinking I may be going insane) This IS a Eurostar number, as you can see you just printed me a ticket which I booked callnig this number, it's just the wrong date"
CPL: "London booked this for you we can't do anything you have to call them"
ME: "But I'm right here and you're from Eurostar and I just need to talk to someone from Eurostar. Can you at least call them for me? (I had no credit on my phone)"
CPL: "No, we can't call them because I don't know what that number you have is. You need to call them." She then turned and made it known our conversation was over.
So after this I spent 2 hours waiting at the station for London Eurostar to open (I was waiting from around 7am Paris time, ie 6am London time) even though I was sitting right in front of a Eurostar office.............GRRR
So basically, my problem with Paris was the Parisians. What I've seen of the city though, I've liked. I hope when I meet up with Cheryl there we'll just be busy sighsteeing and that will keep us interested and occupied and will outweigh the rudeness of the people. There is definitely a loooot of stuff to do. One cool thing I've seen so far are the catacombs which are tunnels under the city decorated with skulls and bones of Parisians who were transferred from graves underground when the cemeteries were becoming overfilled in the 18th (I think) century.
From Paris I went on 2 daytrips. The first was to see Chartres cathedral which is incredible. It supposedly has some of the best, if not the best stained glass windows in the world. There's around 170 of them and they are just amazing. I will post pictures up. So much detail, such beautiful colours.
The other daytrip was to Giverny which is where Monet lived and painted. That's where THE water lilly ponds are. So glad I did this, it was a beautiful sunny day and everything smelled like flowers.
I'm in London now and soon as I got here I felt like I breathed a huge sigh of relief because I was out of Paris. I really like it here so far, a lot. There's so much stuff going on...lots of it for free! All the major museums are free, and there's just a lot of cool artsy stuff on the streets - the buskers are great! So I am going to get back out there and enjoy it. It was raining before which is why I came in here to write this, but now the sun is back out again. Today is the first time it's rained since I've been here, and it didn't even last for very long so I've been pretty lucky.
Until next time...
Sonja
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