European Getaway Day 2 (17-11-2006)

Day in Paris

We woke up at 7am for our breakfast at 8 and left for the bus at 8:30. Breakfast was a continental buffet, they had croissants (we are in France), fruit, bread rolls and a selection of cold meats and cheese. It was a different kind of breakfast unusual having a bread roll sandwich style breakkie. I still ate, it you know me I have to eat the food I can when I can get it. A lot of the people thought it was a really crap breakfast as they wanted cereal or even some toast including Kieran.

After breakkie we hiked up the hill and got on the bus for our trip into Paris for our free day. We got dropped off at the Eiffel tower. There are a few ways you can get to the top of the Eiffel tower the first is the stairs to the first level. Then from the first level you can then walk up to the second where you can purchase tickets to get the lift to the top. The other way was the lift straight from the bottom to the top of the tower. When down the bottom the line for the lift straight up was massive. We decided to take the stairs as it was only 3.30 euro but the lift all the way was 11 euro.

We started to climb up to the first level. The stairs are metal and enclosed by a wire mesh like fencing but you can clearly see through the fence and feel the wind etc despite having the fence on either side of you, it does feel very open. I was fine at first as we got closer to the viewing deck I was feeling a bit more nervous about the height and how I would go getting up to the top and then back down again. I made it to the first level where we saw some excellent views of Paris and ended up spending a while on this platform just walking around and reading the plaques and seeing the suicide net ( unfortunately I don’t have any photos of that) When it came time to go up to the top, I struggled a bit. I tried to walk up the steps but just could not do it the view and the openness of the stairs was getting to me. I was happy to have made it to the first platform, for someone who is afraid of heights I think I did well and have no regrets not going to the top. However Kieran was braver than me and ended up climbing the steps to the second level and then caught the lift to the top (another 3.30 euro. I will let her tell you of her experience to the top while I stayed in coffee shop waiting for her safe return).


”Kieran’s trip to the top”: Hi, after Glen had finally made the decision that he could not and did not want to go any further (which did take a while …a lot of psychological dispute) I started to make my way up the stairs to the next level. I was O.K for probably the first 5 flights of stairs and then you could feel the wind a lot more and the ground became further and further away and I began to feel a little uneasy and also thought thank God Glen didn’t come because he would have been crapping himself and I would have probably have to carry him or blindfold him to get him up there. I made it to the second level and was lucky to keep my ticket from blowing away when buying it from the lady. I felt better once I reached the 2nd level as the area is fairly large and it feels safer. So I made my way to the lift to go to the top. The top still appeared pretty far away and I didn’t know how I would feel about such a long and high lift ride. Once in the lift which was 80% glass I started to freak out. Despite the fact that the lift was speedy it felt like it went forever and I could feel my heart beating out of my chest, my stomach went through my legs and I kept thinking “please don’t break, please don’t break”. I think that spending the time talking to Glen about how high it was etc made me think way to much about it. Anyway it sucked it was like going up on the probe 7 at Wonderland and hoping you wouldn’t be coming down like the probe 7. I eventually made it to the top and took a minute to calm down. At the top the lift opened up to an inside glassed area. We probably should have just got the lift from the very bottom to the very top and we both would have been fine. Anyway I then went to the outside area and it was pretty freaky the wind was strong and you could actually feel it move. I tool some photos/video and made myself go to the edge and look over a few times then made my way back down to Glen. At least I can be proud to say I went to the top even though it was scary!

After Kieran’s safe return we headed down the stairs as I clung to rail, its always worse going down looking at the ground dammit. After our trip to the hunk of metal, we took off for our walk around Paris to see the sites that we have read about.. First on our walk was the tomb of Nepolean Bonaparte, then onto Notre-Dame to go see Quasimodo. Then back to the louver. We didn’t go in as there was not enough time. We will be back and see it all over again so we were not fussed about missing Mona Lisa. After the louver we stopped for some lunch an apple and custard Danish. It was very yummy. We then made our way up the Champs Elysees ( the main street) which is very pretty at night with all the lights on. At the end of the street is the Arc De Triomphe (must be said in an American accent amazing race style Arrrkdayy Triuummff) worked out how to get across the road as you cannot run across it. There are no lines on the road and apparently no insurance companies will insure a car if it has an accident on the road. It is organized chaos (not as bad as Bangkok though). Ohh while I am talking about the French drivers they have a thing called bumper parking where they will nudge a car with their bumper to get in and out of spots as they pack so close together people will just hit each other to get in and out. It is crazy.

So back to the trying to get over the road to the arch de triumph, managed to find these signs which pointed to an underground path to get to the middle. We started to follow the signs which made us cross a few roads before realising that the signs were saying the underground path is on the other side at the Champs Elysees road where we had initially been standing. So we back tracked found our way to the underpass and made it to the middle just in time before closing. We didn’t walk to the top as there wasn’t enough time but we might do that when we go back

After the Arc we had to find our way back to the Eiffel tower as we were having a champagne picnic dinner there. We wound our way through the streets, good thing we had a map. Although you could see the tower we still wanted to find the quickest way there (we didn’t want to be late). Made it down to the tower with time to spare and found the others but could not see the bus where the picnic was to be set up. We all stood around for a while with the group. We waited for an extra 45mins for the bus. We had no idea what was happening, at first we thought they had left us and we were stranded in Paris with all the others.

They finally arrived at 7:45pm due to a traffic accident; everyone was starving especially us who had only really had a danish all day. We pulled out the tables and camping stools and had a good meal of chicken and salad as well as the Champaign. To top the meal off we had Escargo (snails) in a garlic sauce. I could not pass up eating these as I would never have ordered them in a restaurant. The trick to eating them at a picnic was to break the 2 outside prongs of a plastic fork and then stick it in and scoop out the little sucker and eat it before it got cold. You only should chew it a few times and then swallow the more you chew the worse it is. I have not had oysters or muscles so I cannot compare it to that but it was like garlic calamari in a way a little bit chewy, but still ok to eat. Even Kieran had one!

The whole time we were eating dinner we were waiting for a girl to come back from walking around town that we hadn’t seen since the morning. We were told to meet at the drop off point at 7pm. Which we all had except for her and the coach. When the coach arrived at 7:45 she was still not there. We started eating dinner thinking she will just be late. We finished dinner and still she was not there we waited until 9 pm and she still didn’t show. The tour leader had to make a decision to wait for her making everyone else miss their optionals or treat her like and adult and make her get her own way back to the hotel. The second option was the choice. Before we went into Paris for the day we were all given a map of the city and a ‘get lost sheet’ which has the address’ and contact phone numbers for where we were staying on tour. So if we did get lost we could get a taxi back.

After finishing our picnic dinner we packed up the coach and headed onto optional extras for the night. Some people were going on a boat ride down the seine river. We and mostly the girls were going to a cabaret show. On the way Jaz (tour Leader) was trying to find out if anyone had S.J’s mobile number. She was asleep when the contact number and emergency contact numbers were collected by Jaz on the first bus trip

In the Cabaret show you get to see a bit of boobie (can't take photos inside, sorry guys). It was interesting to see that the only guys who went to the show were the only 2 men who were their girlfriends on the trip. I wasn’t going to miss out on boobs. We arrived at show, me and the other taken man (the saffas) with about 15 girls. We walked in the door and the place was packed heaps of people in there drinking and eating. Part of our package was to get either 2 beers or half a bottle of wine each. That’s a pretty good deal to me. Kieran and I opted for the half a bottle so we could share a whole one. So we down got our bottle of wine and started to enjoy the evening.

There was some singing just before the show, which really got the crowd in the mood it was great. One thing I did notice before the show started was the when the French people were drinking their champagne or sparkling wine; they don’t care about safety when popping the top. Infact they would try and get it to fly really high not caring who it hit in the head or where it landed. Lucky for us we were under a balcony so we wouldn’t be hit. It was crazy to see and I was amazed no fights broke out. If I kept getting hit by the cork I would go find where it was coming from.

The cork popping continued for a while, then the show started. A French man came to welcome everyone in the crowd and told us about the show. He spoke a few languages which always amazes me and he spoke good English even though it was with an American accent. The curtains opened and the show began. There were boobs out straight away! The show was a sing and dance act. Not every act or part had boobs out. It was interesting to see how different these are to what I thought one would have been. It kinda felt a bit like a Rock eisteddfod where the kids are trying to tell a story (but these are good looking men and women with only half there clothes on). This is what the show was like they were telling the story of dance through the ages and in French. They skipped a few years but started in the 20’s and ended up somewhere in the future with space ships and fluro suits. By the way Kieran said the guys had there tops off too and they were pretty nice to look at.

Half way through the show there was an intermission where a man (Christopher) was doing aerial tricks on a piece of rope hanging in the middle of the room over the crowd. It was excellent, he had amazing strength, however he was a bit of a ‘love me do’ which kind of ruined it for me. It was still good to see anyway.

They continued on after the rope tricks. Half way through the last half we heard a scream and girls moving from behind us, it was from one of our tour’s tables. We all thought that one of the girls had spilt her wine on another girl. What actually happened was one of them was not feeling the best and had a spew on the table and on her friends jacket. What a way to ruin a good evening for that table, classy too. The show finished with the classic Cancan and balloons fell from the sky. We got a balloon as a souvenir. We then headed back to our bus where the boat people were waiting; they too had been drinking on the cruise. Even got some back on the bus, can’t say no to a drink so had a few for the road on the way back to the hotel. Got back to the hotel and met the boys in the bar for a few more drinks (Kieran joined me). The night ended at 2:30am.

Glen and Kieran