Paris 1

Saturday December 18, 2010

My hostel room in Paris.

Rest day! Or at least a rest from the bike.

I woke up early at 9:10 am because I was planning on getting along to a free walking tour, as I'd done in many of the other major cities I'd been through. I got my monies-worth with the hostel breakfast and ate a whole lot of corn flakes and baguettes with jam and Nutella (but not together). My body was still trying to recuperate all the energy I'd spend the previous day on the bike.

Our tour guide actually took a group from our hostel to the main meeting point, and there were a bunch of us from the hostel that went along.

Our tour guide was called Jacquie. She was actually originally from Wantirna in Melbourne! She was full of humour and jokes, mostly on the crude side, I rated her as mildly funny, but she didn't cover the history of the buildings/places we were looking at in much depth. I would have liked a bit more history; I guess she was trying to entertain the group and keep them interested without droning on about history. I don't remember much history from the tour, so I'll just include some photos I took along the way below.

Meeting point for the three hour free walking tour, by the Fontaine Saint-Michel, Paris.

Start of the walking tour, by the Fontaine Saint-Michel, Paris.

The Notre-Dame, Paris.

The Palais de Justice, Paris.

The Pont Neuf, the oldest standing bridge over the river Seine

King Henri IV on the Pont Neuf

King Henri IV on the Pont Neuf

L'Institut de France building in the Académie Française

Pont des Arts, popular with couples who attach a padlock to the railing and throw the key into the river, supposedly to signify their everlasting love for each other.

The Louvre, Paris.

The Louvre, Paris.

Can't remember where this one was...

Theseus and the Minotaur (1821) by Jules Ramey, in the Grand Carré, in the Tuileries Garden, Paris.

In the Tulleries Garden, Paris.

In the Tulleries Garden, Paris.

The Obelisk of Luxor, an Egyptian obelisk in the Place de la Concorde, Paris.

Champs-Élysées, Paris.

Champs-Élysées, Paris.

I do remember some of the people I met on the tour though.

There were two girls studying in Dublin on exchange, but originally from Wollongong, and they were good company. They were talking about how they'd made a playlist especially for their visit to Paris, and it included the Art vs. Science song "Parlez-Vous Francais", which I must admit I'd had stuck in my head quite a few times while I'd been riding through France. I like the song, and love the film clip, one of my favourites!
Anyway, a conversation on music ensued. They said they saw the Temper Trap at Tripod, which is a medium-sized music venue in Dublin where I saw my favourite band Porcupine Tree when I was in Dublin a few months earlier. I mentioned that I was surprised how popular the Temper Trap were, and that they'd sold out Festival Hall when they played in Melbourne! One of the Wollongong girls also mentioned she missed Triple J, and also downloads Triple J podcasts like me. And like all good conversations, we talked about the weather; they mentioned it snowed in Dublin while they were there, and that was apparently a rarity, which suggests Europe was having an uncharacteristic cold-snap. Oh, and they had an amusing story about a gypsy who chased after them and tried to kick them, but unfortunately I've forgotten that story.

I met a brother and sister who were traveling together, Peter and Suzanne. They were also Australian, from Sydney I think. Peter was a web developer for human resources IT systems for large companies like BHP, while Suzanne was in her xth year at uni studying psychology, but was traveling for a few more months.

I met another brother and sister from Canada traveling together for a few weeks and then planning to fly home for Christmas. The sister was clearly the boss though, in that brother-sister pair. Then there were two American girls, who were changing to a different hostel to stay with their friend who was in a different one. And a friendly couple from Bristol and Cardiff who had driven over from Bristol and were just driving around for a week and a half. I'd started to realise it could be difficult riding back to London due to all the snow and inclement weather, so I'd started thinking about other options such as the Eurostar. However I almost negotiated a lift with this British couple, but they only had a small car and I wasn't going to be able to fit my bike in. The bloke in the relationship worked on fuel systems for the A380 Airbus, and provided an interesting insight. It was only recently (in November 2010) that an engine had exploded in a QANTAS A380 Airbus, and the pilot had to make an emergency landing in Singapore. Apparently, the bloke was saying, when they take off they're too heavy to land because of all the fuel they're carrying, so the pilot had to dump most of the fuel before he could make the emergency landing. Then the whole fleet of A380 Airbuses was grounded for weeks while QANTAS investigated. He said that QANTAS sent the batch of engines back to Rolls Royce (the engine maker) under warranty, because there was some issue with them.

I met three young blokes from Perth who were traveling around together for six or seven weeks, and were planning on spending Christmas in Strasbourg. Then there was a girl from Sydney who reminded me of two girls I know from Melbourne mixed together: Kit Stewart and Emily Thornton. So as you can tell, there were lots of Australians around!

After the tour, a bunch of us chilled at a cafe, and I ate a toasted ham and cheese sandwich which cost €6. 

Toasted cheese and ham sandwich at a restaurant in Paris.

Far left: Suzanne, far right: Sarah, in Paris.

Left: the girl from Sydney, right: Sarah from Noosa, in a restaurant in Paris.

We then went to the Eiffel tower, which was pretty cool. 

The Eiffel Tower, Paris.

The Eiffel Tower, Paris.

The Eiffel Tower, looking up from underneath.

Me in front of the Eiffel Tower, Paris.

Then it was back past all the street vendors trying to sell little Eiffel Tower figurines and onto the train to get back to the hostel. Paris was more spread out than I'd initially expected, for some reason I had the idea that I'd be able to walk between all the major attractions.

I dropped by a supermarket then cooked cous cous for tea back at the hostel, and spent the night there, mostly just researching the rest of my trip, and chatting to a few people. In my dorm there was a guy from Deli who was working in Switzerland, doing computer systems for a biology research lab. Interesting stuff, huh? I also had another friend from Melbourne who was in Paris at the same time - Stephanie Cumming. I was going to catch up with her, but with the time lag in her checking her Facebook messages, it didn't work out. Or maybe she intentionally didn't get back to me in time, busy hanging out with hostel folks. After-all, we could catch each other anytime in Melbourne normally, but I think I was missing Australia and keen to get back, and so was pursuing catching up with a familiar person.

Anyway, it was just a quiet night in, and I got to sleep at about 2:20 am.

Ride stats:

No riding.