After a really nice few days exploring parts of Paris with Antoine, I headed towards the Eurostar train terminal this afternoon, where I proceeded to miss my train to London.
I was there in good time, but picked the wrong three consecutive queues to spend my ticket-collection time in. No matter! I am already seasoned at missing connections. So, I did what any other self-respecting traveller would do- got sloshed in train station bar.
Beer: Creativity’s lubricant! Besides, I just realised I had all these Euros to get rid of before Pound-town.
Fortunately, the ticket chaps saw pity on me and let me to reschedule my train an hour later, so that was all OK. I’m once again here in a terminal of some description, rolling it laptop-style. The gate is swarming with the English, which is a somewhat refreshing but mostly bizarre change from the past however many months that I’ve had in these not-very-English-speaking countries.
I really have to take my pants hat off to men who choose to where kilts, despite their functional redundancy. There must be something very airy liberating about wearing a man-dress. A special sensation that I fear I will never be able to fully experience/appreciate.
If it didn’t feel like everything was wrapping up before, then it really does now. London, this time at least, is more of a Qantas stopgap between Paris and Thailand.
But before I get too into that, let me share a bit of Paris with you! My easyJet flight was delayed by about an hour and a half, meaning that, of course, the train network had stopped by the time I arrived. Fortunately, I befriended some Portuguese exchange students and we split a cab into the city’s centre. It was on this journey that I caught my first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower, all tall and sparkly-like. Wow wow wow. I’m really glad I saved this city until ‘last.’ From a completely gay (read: Enid Blyton) point of view, Paris has provided me with with thrill after thrill.
The next day, the very first thing I did was seek out the Eiffel Tower in person, like a good tourist. I walked to the second level and then caught the lift to the top.
After learning how to spell Notre Dame properly, I also paid it a visit, followed by the Louvre Museum. Here, I once again played the tourist, following the “Mona Lisa This Way” signs through until completion. One excellent thing about travelling at this time of year is the lack of queues. I was able to more or less walk straight through to the the Mona Lisa, and had a zero wait time for the Eiffel Tower and other main spots. I should point out that after satisfying my Mona Lisa fetish, I spent the rest of the day seeing everything else on offer!
I also visited Pari’s eerie old underground tunnel network, The Catacombes, which is filled with the bones of exhumed bodies from the days of the plague! Later that night, I made a special effort to get out into the city at night to grab some photos, which was really nice.
In my hostel, I was inundated with the highest number of Australians yet. In fact, one dinner was spent with just a handful of Americans and all the rest Australians. Funnily, times like this seem to provoke an unspoken ‘who is the most Australian’ competition. With Australians so ubiquitous in parts of Europe, there is an even more increased determination towards a unique identify, and it seems very easy for people to get caught up in the European Backpacking Olympics.
It was after this dinner that I promised myself to never tell another Drop Bear story, again!
I met up with Antoine Friday night. We stayed with his grandma in her very nice flat, and I had a really nice time eating real French food in France! We visited Versailles, a really big palace out of Paris, once home to such names as Marie Antoinette and King Suchandsuch the Somethingorothery. I’m not ashamed to say that I have little interest in rich old kings who thought quite literally that they were god’s gift to the people. That said, the palace was magnificently decadent, and a spot well worthwhile visiting.
Antoine explained to me how the main king of the time wanted to treat his favourite mistress (not his wife) to a necklace of pearls after she gave him oral sex, so he hung it over his erect willy and once the job was complete and he had ‘calmed down’ the necklace would slide off into her lap. Classy guy! Take notes, men!
It was an eye-opener seeing the shear affluence available to the select few at that time. We also visited the Museum Orsay, home of a lot of really fantastic Impressionist paintings, which I like a lot more than the naturalistic and mostly biblical portrayals that seem to have dominated my museum visits so far.
My MacBook Air has been a real shit lately, punishing my lap with excess heat and slowing down to snail pace if I even think about doing something processor intensive, such as, I don’t know- looking through my photos. Needless to say, when I get home it will be checked into a participating Apple Store before you can say Surprise Shutdown. At least it looks sexy.
I’ve begun wondering what I’ll do with this site when I’m back home. It’s been too fun to wrk on, so I’ll have to give that a bit more thought over the coming days.
Anyhow, that’s it for now! I’m off for some Banksy spotting.
