Aggressive Beret Wearing 101 . Part 5.

Well, one way or another, I made it to those damned toilets.

Of course there were but 3 or 4 cubicles to service the busiest tourist attraction in the country, but I have to say that I was not surprised.

As I stood in the queue, I began thinking about all the different types of toilets and taps that I'd seen so far on this journey.

All sorts.

I also thought that of all the incredible things we'd seen and done, the world's toilets would be what I remembered in detail.

...and I was dead right.

There were maybe 4 women in front of me and the door to the ladies was propped open so that the cleaner could bang the dirty mop into your feet even as you stood patiently in line.

There was clearly no ventilation in this facility whatsoever, and once again, I'm fairly certain that she had undiluted urine in the bucket rather than Domestos.
At no stage did I get even the faintest whiff of anything resembling disinfectant.
Disgusting, oui oui?

I also noticed that the tiles chosen for this bathroom were the meanest, nastiest little tiles the 1970's could muster.
You know the ones - they're about 2cm square with half a centimetre of filthy grout between each.

And what colour do you think you'd choose for such tiles if you were planning the decor of the busiest bathroom in France?

Yellow?
Yup.

Festy, festy little dive.

This is what my head was full of as I stood there.
So, you'll understand why my mentally occupied sign read engaged as I stood staring intently into the next door washroom, craning my neck to see what kind of strange basin the man was using.

It seemed very low and I was confused as to what it was all about.

So interested was I, that I was all but in there with him, when he turned around and zipped up.

Zipped up!


OMG
Who chocks the door to the men's toilet open in such a public place?

The fucking French, that's who.

Happily pissing in front of women and children on the first floor of the fucking Eiffel Tower with a nutty Australian bird trying to cop a good look.
I'd like to read his blog.

He didn't even wash his hands by the way. Think about that next time you eat a baguette.

When I eventually returned to our very dirty table, I said to Jeff, "Well that's it, they've broken my spirit."

Jeff, nonplussed, returned volley by drawing my attention to the old Italian lady sitting next to us who looked exactly like Paulie Walnuts from the Sopranos.

This was our cue to get up and face to next 359 steps to the second level and a more distant view of the same things.
Took plenty of pics.
I had the Sopranos theme stuck in my head for the next 2 days, which is better than the Plastic Bertrand song that saw me through the first 2.

Then there is another level...the very top which may only be accessed by another lift.

A lift you cannot buy a ticket for at the same time you buy your ticket to get to the first and second level.
A lift whose special ticket box is intermittently closed without explanation.
A lift you must queue up for an hour to get onto, leaving many people stranded without a ticket because the information about tickets is at the front of the line.
Did Joseph Heller design this place?

We figured this out before we made it to the lift and Jeff did a rather heroic commando roll to get under the barricade to the ticket box which was now open.
The old Asian couple in front of us didn't and got sent back.

The Nazis were French?
Cripes!
Disorganised and bossy is a woeful combination, it really is.


January 20th - Paris

Same breakfast.
Why don't they use plates here? Yuk, cutting and buttering baguettes on the paper table cloth.

We went for a walk to St. Gervais church this morning so that Jeff could pay his respects to his God of comedy, Ricky Gervais, creator of The Office.
Blundered in to a Mass there and blundered back out at no leisurely speed.
It was interesting to note that Mass still sounds like absolute bollocks even when you can't understand a word.

Took the train to Mont Martre and hoofed it up the hill to Sacre Coeur, which is a nice church with plenty of gargoyles and an adequate view.
Nothing much green to look at in Paris though.
As a result, I have discovered that I much prefer natural views or at least semi natural views.

We walked through the Mont Martre markets where we were beset upon by artists of all description who wanted to draw our portraits.
Actually, they insisted.
They were so aggressive that Jeff got pretty cranky with them.

We had a look in one of the cemeteries not far from there, which was awesome.

Their graves look just like my perfect house.

We hoped it was the cemetery that has Oscar Wilde's grave and Jim Morrison's so we could pay our respects to both and have a good solid belly laugh at the Emo kids trying to out art school each other.

Instead we got to see the grave of the deGas family (LMAO) and where they had disintered Dumas from.
Pretty cool.

On the way back, Jeff was questing for the BBQ chicken he had sniffed out earlier and went a little nuts when we couldn't find it.
Poor thing.

We did stumble upon Moulin Rouge though, and may I just say, whoop-di -doo.

Returned to our hotel armed with enough chocolate croissants as are necessary for the task of packing for a long haul flight after 6 weeks of gift shopping.

Soooo looking forward to Hong Kong and the familiarity of Asian culture again. I've really missed that.

Oh, and I did utter a syllable of French after all.
But only because an old lady walking her dog stopped and offered to help us find something on the map.
The word I used was was escalates, which I correctly figured meant stairs.
Damn her and her unsolicited kindness which made me break my vow.

Bloody people.