Paris, Italy and a great train ride. Part two.

So I was headed to paris, on Ryan air for a whopping 39 euro... plus taxes so it ended up being about 50... not bad. Only hang up was that the plane lands 80kms out of the city at the cheap airport. But considering airberlin was charging 200euro at it's cheapest flight, it was a no brainier. So I sat next to this french guy who was well - a rude prick. The girl and guy next to me across the aisle were far from rude, even though I couldn't speak french, they chatted to me and the guy - "max" helped me find the bus, buy a ticket in the subway, and also laughed with me about the sardine like fashion that we were in with the Paris metro. So after some directions on how to get to the station that I was going to, we parted ways and I found it quite easy to get to the station I was trying to get to and try and meet up with the traf high kids :-). One of the things that it is hard to get used to with the Paris metro, is trying to get orientated with where the heck you are, and where you have to go. A little look on google maps does a massive difference we found out. Anyway, so walking through paris with the odd phone call from robbo telling me where to go, and I found myself in the middle of an intersection with nat and robbo waving crazily at me saying hello. It was cool to meet them, albeit the crazy looks we were getting in the middle of a busy road. haha. So we were meeting the rest of the students at a bar called "the australian"  Initially I thought that it wouldn't be such a bad place, but in hindsight, it was just a bad australian bar located in Paris. But the time went well there, and it was good to see some familiar faces, other then the funk and tarkmister. After we left the pub/bar we walked back to the hotel, I checked in for 3 nights @ 59 euro and came back down to see the students and chat a bit more. It was a late night. So that ended a day that I thought was clearly headed for disaster, but ended up fine. Oh - and a joke that typifies the jokes that were openly given by the english skipper "Why are there so many poles in Australia" - " Because they need things to hold their power lines up...." haha - bad, but he always had jokes for us.

Day 2 in paris was a trip to the war fields... One of the best/moving days that I have had so far. Mainly due to the fact that Australia was so prevalent in history in the towns that we went to. The museum that we went to only contained australian things, with the state flags, and there is two pictures that I wanted to share with you. the first made me so proud to be australian, the second sent a shiver down my spine. See below.

This picture is depicting the move of "Australians" that went to war in WW1, in their droves, and without thinking about their own demise.

This was on the assembly area of a primary school opposite the museum. I can't describe the feeling that I felt when I saw it, so much so I haven't told the guys here about it - I will take them to it for them to see for themselves.

Anyway, we then went to the big war cemetery that was huge, but contained only australians in it. The amount of money and the size of the area was mammoth. We had a few other stops along the way, the windmill site - where a small mound of dirt that we saw was the site of 60,000 casualties in one battle alone.. Hard to fathom really. So we had an interesting moment with our bus driver. Apparently it is common place to give a schoo group a driver who has absolutely no idea where he or she is going. Luckily for us Colin had brought his GPS so we could find our way. We headed back to our hotel, with the bus driver falling asleep, and veering into lanes, but only 2 of us saw it because everyone else was asleep - maybe he was just trying to fit in haha. - I thought that only south east Asia had bad drivers.. But all in all, a good day. We got home to our hotel, pretty stuffed, had a bit of a chat around and then I had a look with colin on the internet for a 'last night' restaurant with frogs legs and snails - the latter we found, but not on the internet. We also found out the the Eiffel tower is booked solid for months in advance and that we would have to queue up for it. This changed the plans for the next day a little, and had to get there 1 hour at least before it opened. Which turned out to be a master stroke of forward planning.

Anyway - I must go again. Part three will be tomorrow probably. Stay tuned - I know I am currently 5 days behind, but there hasn't been much going on since I got back, so it's a good thing :-)


Nanti..