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Hello!!
Since the last update we have arrived in beautiful Paris, France. The train took forever and it was pretty hard to sleep (even for me who can sleep anywhere.) We left Lisbon at 4pm and arrived in Paris 22 hours later....quite a long train ride. But we amused ourselves playing uno and we made friends with this african guy visiting his parents on the cote d'ivoire. His name was cherif (or however u spell it) and he helped to pass the time. Omg the train was exactly like the one on eurotrip it was so funny. For ages it was just the 3 of us and then this annoying family with a massive pram came and ruined it all grrr. But in Hendaye on the border we were lucky to get a train straight away to Paris...so we left cherif and managed to find some seats. Until about 3.5 hours in when some stupid lady came up to me and announced to the whole train "vous etes dans ma place." Like hell i was...but anyways she paid for a reservation and i couldnt think of the words to argue so we got up and had to stand by the door grrr. Luckily 30 mins later more people got off the train then got on so we got seats again.
Anyways onto Paris. Paris is the nicest place in the world. Not only is it majorly pretty with lots of fun things to do...it is so easy to work out as a tourist. No hassles whatso ever. We arrived at Gare monparnasse and caught the metro to our hotel (voltaire station ma if that means anything...line 9). So the hotel wasnt fabulous but we had our own room even if looking at the bed there was a fear of catching a disease. Plus the shower was grreat.....
We didnt really do too much that night as we were pretty shattered from the train...just walked down around the area and crashed early. The next day though we were ready for a full day of sightseeing. We started off with the intention of seeing the Eifell tower. However as we came out of the train station we saw this massive memorial - a statue of a flame with a picture of princess diana on it. THen we remembered that it was the day before the 10 year anniversary of her death because there were flowers and cards all over the memorial and messages to her everywhere. Then we turned around and saw that we were at the tunnel that we had seen so many times on tv. Was kinda strange really. Then the french television arrived and we were asked to be interviewed. It was so embarrassing actually. They asked what princess diana meant to us...and what this memorial means to her memory and why was it such a good spot. We had no idea what to say so just kinda worked out what they might want us to. Haha one day in france and already famous hehe.
We finally managed to get to eiffel tower...its so pretty in the distance looking at it across the seine. We decided to catch the lift up to the top which was cool because its pretty high. Saw some great views and came down to have a picnic on the grass outside. Whilst we were waiting in the queue we encountered our first french gypsy who was like "do you speak english"....totally not prepared for it i was like "yeah we do can we help" only then to be begged for money for like 5 mins. But haha we were strong and just poor. There were these stupid Americans behind us that were like "oh my god it so much bigger than the one in vegas..." how freaking stupid do you have to be. But the eiffel tower rocked alot...so glad we got to see it.
In france we have taken to making picnics alot...we just go to the supermarket and buy baguettes and cheese (salami for some) and salad and make lunches everywhere. Sooo good. Had boursin ma...yes it is much better over here.
After the Eifell tower we caught the metro to the Arc de Triomphe. Their metro is absolutely fantastic...you have performers guaranteed on every trip plus a train comes every 2 minutes. Melbourne seriously needs to learn a few things from the french here. But the Arc de Triomphe was as impressive as ever. Quite hard to take photos of it but we managed to get a few good shots from the middle of the road when the little man turned green. We then strolled down avenue des champs elysees and looked at all the cafes, restaurants and shops that we couldnt afford. Ben particularly liked all of the car dealers and went in leaving me outside with the mac do (hehe) drinks for half an hour. We did find a kodak shop though which was good because the memory card on my camera was totally full. Like 3 pictures left on it.
We continued down the avenue des champs elysees to Place de la Concorde stopping off to see the Bastille thing with the cool gold statues on the bridge. We thought that Place de la Concorde was a bit odd with an ugly pole like statue in it but hey we took some photos anyway. We saw a huge group of french kids having a waterfight too...looked nice because it was hot. We then decided that we wanted to see the Sacre Coeur and Montmarte area so we caught the metro there not before being attacked by more evil gypsies. No we do NOT speak english.
Once we got to the Sacre Coeur (after climbing soooo many damn stairs) we took turns taking photos with it. Its pretty nice to look at much nicer than the one we have back home (no dodgy uniforms hehe sorry sac friends). We ended up sitting on the steps for ages because there was a guy singing with his guitar there and he was really good. Drew a huge crowd. On the way down we were seriously surrounded by these African guys that wanted to make us bracelets for free (free my arse). I was doing my best to dodge them but dear benny was like "its free fi lets see the braceltes being made". So we ended up with 2 bracelets for 5 euro which could have been worse I guess. The guys kept calling me miss kangaroo and telling me that we should have 10 babies like in africa. Hahaha right.
We then went to check out the famous Moulin Rouge. After asking a few locals (go me and my french -see dad private school education DID pay off) we found it. THEN we found it on the map which was now in 5 pieces because i have this inability to fold it properly. No matter how hard i try it just doesnt fold back and i get mocked by ben. Not fair.
We (or i) really really wanted to see a show because it was supposed to be sooo good but it was far far too expensive for us so we gave it a miss. Still we had a great night around the area and went to a restaurant there where then man gave me a piece of his new recipe that he is trialing for free. It was this sooo nice vegetable bake thing. YUM. Was pretty cheap for paris too. The Moulin Rouge is sooooo pretty at night too seriously. We just kept watching the windmill turn.
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