Simply not capable of walking a step further, we found the train and returned to St Michel that way.
The Metro is so dirty that you almost want to lay toilet paper on the seat first.
I prefer to stand.
Not just here, but also in London, buskers are prone to hopping on the trains and playing to a captive audience.
The bastards.
Jeff termed it public masturbation and I cannot disagree.
We walked through the very lovely Latin Quarter - felt much more like home to us due to the greater cultural mix there.
Plenty of African stores, Arabic stuff and heavy Mediterranean influence too.
The French seem to really like small theatres. Looks like a lots of independent movies playing and people gather on the streets after wards to smoke heavily and discuss.
We were picking our way through the lanes when Jeff jacked on the brakes and drew in his breath sharply by saying,
"LAMB!"
OMG I remember lamb.
It was a Greek restaurant with a window full of lamb chunks and seafood on skewers.
Fresh raw vegetables!
Not potato, not cabbage, not bread!
The owner quickly spotted 2 Aussies with their faces pressed against the glass, came out to smash a few plates on the cobbles and also to harrass us into the shop.
No problem there.
At this stage in the proceedings, we were prepared to pay whatever it took to bag us some poor delicious bastards.
And we did.
Well, actually I'm not sure what it cost, I don't think either of us bothered to look.
Anyway, suffice it to say that lamb made us both homesick.
As much as we both adore Europe, there's nothing like Sydney for variety.
If you feel like immersing yourself in Asian culture, Indian, Arabic, Italian, German, whatever for a time, you can.
And from where we are, I can drive from Vietnam to Lebanon in 20 minutes.
Hell, Sri Lanka and Sudan are now just up the road too.
It's wonderful.
Let's face it, the more that wicked First Fleet is diluted, there better it is for everybody.
No monoculture here mate.
So, after a harrowing day, tomorrow we're off to Versailles and the Eiffel Tower and it's hundreds of damn steps.
Better be a good gift shop up there.
January 19th - Paris.
Got up early, coffee and baguette breakfast as usual.
Decided to try shoe shopping as they have a much better selection of boots here then in Sydney.
OK, so 3 staff members and 1 customer should mean pretty good service.
Nuh- uh.
It meant turning their backs deliberately to ignore us.
Fabulous.
But that's OK, once I figured this out for certain, I helped myself to perhaps 6 pairs of boots and after considering searching for my own sizes, thought better of it and helpfully returned each pair to the wrong location.
And before you decide to think ill of me for that, consider that they would still not have noticed yet.
The French are not service oriented.
Ahh yes, Paris.
Nothing's changes over night I see.
It was nice of me to give it the benefit of the doubt though, wasn't it?
We took the train out to Chateaux Versailles with only one hitch due to poor Parisian labelling.
Found truly excellent chocolate croissants at the station there.
I cannot tell you exactly what was so good about them, but they are magical.
Almost as good as the deadly bacteria filled vanilla slices or festy flavourless pies you might find at any Sydney train station, but not quite.
See, I'm still glass half full over here.
Let's see if I can make it through a whole day?
Versailles has been one of the top 5 places on my list of must see destinations this life time.
I've read so many Jean Plaidy books that I feel I know the place.
When we arrived, we were instantly glad we'd bought Paris passes. They saved us over an hour of queueing even in the dead of winter.
We walked straight in.
Glass half full.
OK, here's a question.
If you need to hire out audio sets, would you first have people queue to buy an audio set and then again to pick it up?
Of course, with this option, you must make sure there are no visual clues for the tourists at all so that you may waste as much of their time as possible.
What utter nonsense.
The French cover up the fact that cannot organise anything by making everything seem as complicated as possible.
The Germans are onto them though.
Each and every time I heard a voice questioning such stupidity, it was pronouncing v's as w's.
Stalemate.
Well, after busting a gut to get to this place my whole life, I have to say that I found it underwhelming.
Which is ironic because it's known for it's grandeur and extravagance.
For one thing, the Hall of Mirrors really needs to have it's mirrors cleaned.
Really grotty.
Also, they had the throne etc set up, but whatever pieces of furniture they didn't have, they had made up out of cardboard to give you an idea what it might have looked like...
Cardboard?
WTF!?
Obviously the word reproduction has no French translation.
Please try to imagine what an 18th century throne looks like beside cardboard urns and tables.
Uh-oh glass half empty.....
OK, so many things from this place were seized during the revolution and either sold or melted down, but that was a few years ago now.
I'd rate the Versailles gift shop at 2/10.
Just one more example of how the French can't be bothered with tourists.
They got the taking the money part sorted, but anything else is beneath their dignity.
Hence all the tourists getting the shits and taking the piss by the wearing of berets.
I went with lolly pink today.
Marie Antoinette's bedroom was beautiful (and reproduced!) and it really was interesting to actually see the door through which she made her escape as the mob rushed through the throne room with pitchforks.
However, downstairs, not 20 metres away, is a public toilet, which would have to be one of the nastiest I've ever encountered.
Unless the French believe that mopping the floor with urine is in fact a reasonable disinfectant, I see no excuse for this place.
After seeing crazy King Ludwig's replica palace in Bavaria, the original seemed just a washed out shell.
Imitation certainly is the sincerest form of flattery.
I was a little upset by now and so we skipped Petite Trianon entirely. The gardens are it's strong point anyway, and they are all boarded up through winter.
So, we crossed Versailles off my list and skipped out of there like kids knicking off from an school excursion and headed to the Tower.
On the train to the Eiffel, Jeff befriended a group of American students from somewhere near Kansas.
He grilled them about the NFL and I have to say they were the nicest people we'd met all trip.
The Eiffel Tower was easily the best thing about Paris.
There is no angle or distance that makes it look bad.
Every bolt, every hunk of metal is beautiful.
From underneath it reminded me of a lacey petticoat.
It is decidedly feminine, which is funny when you think that it's all just industrial metal.
When you get underneath it, there are 4 queues.
One per leg.
Being tribal by nature, I headed for the South tower.
Jeff headed for the shortest queue, which by chance, was where I was off to anyway.
Apart from a 45 mniute wait just to get close enough to the small sign at the front to be able to read it... WTF, too late by then...Paris, Paris, Paris - get it together already.
Well, apart form that, there was ice water dripping on out heads in copious amounts. We later discovered that this was from an ice statue they had on the first floor.
Stuff the tourists underneath!
So, we persevered with the line, mainly because we really had no choice, and made it to the desk to learn that there is only 1 lift, which is what the long queue was about on the other side...
Naturally the Paris Pass doesn't cover it's most famous attraction, so we shelled out to walk up 400 stairs.
After taking in the view form the first floor, we had a cup of tea and went to the loo.
After three and a half days of being slammed into, nudged, tripped, brushed and smacked into by Parisians, I had finally had enough.
On the first floor of the Eiffel Tower, it happened - I stopped moving for people.
Simple as that.
So, as I crossed the floor to get to the ladies, a staff memeber was heading into my path with 2 bags of rubbish.
He belligerently decided on the shortest route with the least inconvenience to himself, which meant his speeding up and stepping fair into my path rather than waiting that mutually polite beat and negotiating smoothly.
He'd obviously noticed that I'm small and figured that he was more important and that I would move to let him through.
Not a single good manner between them, these people.
I'm trying to imagine barging a customer out of the way at work whilst holding 2 bags of rubbish... nope, no can do.
Imagine his surprise when I moved not a muscle. Unless you count the ones which dropped my shoulder and anchored my feet to the floor.
Simone played chicken and Simone won.
I even made him swear. :O)
I couldn't wipe the grin off my face for hours.
LOL that was one of the best parts of the trip.
I just wish I'd started sooner, although I don't like becoming what I hate.
No comments:
Post a Comment