Au secours!

Day 1

The night before we leave for Paris we are sitting around Judy's flat in London and Aarti is bragging about how she has found a great appartment in central Paris on the banks of the Seine for 30 pound a night! "It must be infested with rats" exclaimed Judy. Not quite but it was a good 1 hour away by fast train, when we got there.....bloody internet lies!

When we arrived in Paris this is the scene that greeted us. "Eurostar, no security" they chanted with drums and clapping. Claiming illegal immigrants and weapons where being smuggled via London. Having said that, we managed to get through with a pair of garden pruners. Long story (belonging to Aarti's mum and mistaken for sandwiches on a previous trip to London, now on the way back to her!) This could become like the garden gnome from Amelie.


So 5 hours after arriving to Paris and managing to find our way by saying "oo e" (ou et) we got back from the suburbs on the seine to the Eiffel tower. A quick snack of waffle cream and chocolate prompted a Parisien passing comment "bon appetite monsieur." We spent most of the rest of the night gazing at this iconic structure from various vantage points. The street performers here seem to be at this stage of a high standard. Some break dancers entertained us while the Eiffel Tower sparkled for 10 min on the hour and today we saw two rollerbladers doing mad slalom between plastic cups. I could not help but give them some Euros. When we lay down on the gardens below the Eiffel tower on our first balmy night we were accosted by vendors of Indian origin shouting "champagne, champagne, champagne" instead of "chai, chai chai!"


Day 2

Today we fall sick on a breakfast of stale bread and coffee, which we now expect from our 'hotel' where we found our bed hiding in the sofa and had to beg for sheets.

The rest of the day we take in the usual magnificient sights of Paris from Arch de Triomphe to Louvre (free entry thanks to second hand tickets). The photo on the right is the behind of Venus de Milo as you guessed. It is proof that the Aussie builders bum has roots in the classics.

At Notre-Dame we found the hunchback gazing forlornly, but he gave us a smile, looks remarkably like Sam!

Now off to spend our free ticket money on coffee and 7 euro beers! Au revoir!