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It takes only four hours, including an obligatory hour changing trains in London, to travel from Lichfield to Paris, a journey which without the evidence of any coastline or sea seems quite surreal. But considering Paris is now closer to home by train than Glasgow or Edinburgh are it's a strange concession that walking down the platform from our Eurostar coach was for either of us our first taste of the French capital. Our first point of call would be to drop off the suitcases at the hostel, a word that has had Dan fretting for months, but in reality - in daylight at least but more on that later - was more than welcoming. By now it was gone one o'clock so we were straight back into the city centre to tick off the necessary tourist sights.
Coming off the subway at Concorde we were immediately at the far end of the Champ D'Leesay. Which was in the process of having its final christmas decorations finalised, today though it just seemed like it was bordered by an endless number of white beach huts. By now, having walked a considerable distance towards the Arc D'Triumphe, and seemingly getting no nearer we made a break for quick sandwich and as we were in Paris we sat down to watch the world go by. Paris, like most tourist destinations, has its fair share of beggars and being Paris they are quite persistent, something which baffled Dan into submission of half of his baguette. A few hundred yards further up the road the lady who had delighted on the crusty end of Dan's BLT was now lying stricken on the pavement, fortunately as of yet Dan has not received the same fate!
The Arc D'Triumphe was in the process of being decked out by camera crews and temporary spectator stands in preparation for tomorrow's remembrance services. The traffic around the monument is often described with peril by motorists and understandably so, standing in the centre of the island for only a matter of seconds one can be witness to whole plethora of near misses, stranded pedestrians and merciless driving.
By now the sun was beginning to set behind an increasingly dark and menacing sky, which as can be seen from the photos, gave Paris' most famous sight a truly stunning backdrop. The Eiffel Tower can truly be seen from all over the city but surely can never fail to amaze the closer you get. To gain access to the second floor you have two options, firstly the most popular option, an hour long queue followed by a 10 euro fee and a minute long lift journey or, the option we took, a ten minute queue followed by a 4 euro fee and a hour long hike up unlit, and unsheltered stairs. By now the rain was heaving and the wind trapped amongst the mighty structure, which was not good news when on the first floor I unzipped by jacket pocket to get out my camera only to have a train ticket fly out into the night sky, fortunately for me it was a ticket that I had already used, but I do hope the well-known theory of the penny coin and the Eiffel Tower was not proved true!
By now the fatigue was well and truly setting in so we made for the nearest subway station and retraced our steps back to the hostel via an atmospheric kebab shop and a the alcohol isle of the local supermarket. The room in the hostel was to quote Dan, 'well Eden you have managed it again!' The bunk bed was unattached to anything so being on the top bunk was like climbing a dead tree in strong winds, and sleeping was to maintain a precise balance of equally measured bodily weight. Down stairs the bar was only just coming to life and as the night wore on the party became only louder, my final memory was just after four in the morning when a loud chorus of the French national anthem went up accompanied with a lot of banging and smashing sounds! But this was all after a night of choking sounds from the room next door which gave my dreams some rather peculiar subject matters, until just after one when beeping sounds and English tongues came into earshot above the revelry down stairs. Our friend in the next door room was finally being taken to hospital, and then he was asked by the translator, 'what did you have for dinner?' For a split second I was convinced he was going to answer, 'a Turkish kebab' but gratefully it was just a blue steak! Anyhow an hour or so later he came back alive and was recounting the whole story to everyone in his phone book for the rest of the night.
And then at a quarter to seven our alarm rung out and time it was for day 2.
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