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Thursday was Versaille and Seine cruise day. We woke up at the ass-crack of dawn to catch the metro to Versaille. We got lost once, but managed to make it to Versaille around 10:00 AM. Versaille may be the biggest tourist trap yet. It was insane how many people where there. We walked from the train station to the Versaille courtyard where we waited in line for 1 hour to get into the chateau. We toured the chateau pretty quick. People in there were ass to ankles and it was difficult to enjoy it, though the inside was gorgeous. The gardens were more impressive though. They went on and on and on. We walked past the fountains down to the lake and walked to Marie Antionettes house. The grounds were soo pretty and the weather was perfect. We spent several hours there and then took a tram back to the chateau and hopped on the train for Paris. We didn't get a chance to get to Giverny. Friday's schedule was too tight and things were taking longer than we had originally thought.
We rested at the apartment for a bit and then headed out to dinner. We ate at a cafe were we sat outside just off of Boulevard Saint Germain. We had maybe the nicest person in Paris wait on us. We decided that since it was our last night in France we would go all out for dinner. We had calamari for an appetizer. Tanya and Scott had the lamb while I had this delicious chicken and mushroom risotto. They also had a good bit of wine while I settled for a delish cappuccino. For dessert I had cheesecake and tanya had this raspberry, cream pastry thing. Everything was sooo good, and it should have been because our bill was 155 Euros, which comes to $207.00 US. Good god! From there we took a train back to the Eiffel Tower and caught a boat for our Seine cruise at 10:30 PM. The cruise was great. Everything was lit up and gorgeous. The boat leaves from the Eiffel Tower area, heads all the way down the Seine towards Notre Dame on Ile De La Cite, circle around and heads back down towards the Eiffel tower. The tour took a little over an hour. The river was busy because it was a Friday night and the weather was so nice, albeit a little cold when the boat was moving. One thing that I found interesting... there are several ways to get down to the walkways that run along the Seine. These walkways are pretty far below street level so aren't entirely visible from land, but totally visible from the boat. These walkways were covered with people partying. I'm talking hundreds if not a thousand people drinking and partying down there. After the cruise we took a taxi back to the apartment because Tanya had to pee and all of the public bathrooms were closed. We went to sleep pretty soon after because we needed to leave the apartment for the airport at 7:00 AM the next morning.
So Friday was full of weird stuff. I"ve never seen so much oddity in one day before in my life. This is a summary:
- The sarcaphogus. We've noticed in Eurpoean cities that people will dress as statues and act as statues as a means of making money. For the most part, they are really, really good at it. The guy dressed as a sacraphogus at Versaille was not. His costume was terrible. His gut was poking out. And by far the best part... Scott put a Euro in his cup when we walked past and when we looked back he was bent over in an effort to see what Scott had given him. There is a picture in the album section of this. These people never break character! It was hilarious.
- While standing in line at Versaille this weird guy came walking at us really fast while blasting away on a kazoo he had in a plastic bag.
- One the way to the metro we passed this man who had a hat on. Is was flesh colored and looked to be felt. The top of it had a penis and testicles poking up into the air.
- Once we got onto the metro we were joined by 4 people who were dressed head to toe in 16th century royal apparel. Think Marie Antionette times.
- While we were eating outside at the restaurant, this guy just walked up with a guitar and started singing songs in Spanish right next to my head. That went on for some time.
- We ate at a McDonalds in Versaille just for kicks. I had the Royale with cheese. They put Dijon mustard on there! And for a soft drink, you get a tiny cup of Coke Zero with no ice and it's almost room temperature.
- We passed a gift shop selling these aprons for cooking. The one we saw had a couple of boobs on it. There were very detailed and just hanging out.
- There was a store (think something like the deli at Kroger) where they just had an animals leg (hoof included) and they just sliced meat off of it as requested.
Very odd day.
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