A little repeat (sorry) and Paris.......

Firstly - sorry for lack of photos and all text, but time is limited and in maccas atm (thankyou for free wifi - needed for couchsurfing)

So after a hectic morning – and a ‘stress filled’ few days as I will explain later. We are on our way to Bordeaux ( A semi large costal town in the south west of france).  Last time I left you we were on our way to meet Xavier and his friends – living in a sort of college house with 4-5 bedrooms (3 stories). The day of the tour was very interesting, we were going do three or four things. I can’t remember if I wrote about the DDday beaches or the tour or not, but I will write it again, maybe there will be a story that I tell you that is different. We left latish to go and see a few WW2 battle sites. The first was brecourt manor. Famous for the textboox assault on a fixed position they destroyed 4 guns that were firing down at Utah beach, the guns were silenced allowing the troops to capture Utah beach reasonably easily (200 men compared with 4000 at Omaha beach) One interesting fact is that the beaches have American names, sword, Utah,Omaha etc, - named after some of the higher ranking soldiers in the US army. It was mentioned about what the names were before the battle.. So venturing along Utah beach, you could understand what happened there, although since primary school and the story of gallipolli, I have always stood on beaches in Australia – with much higher cliff and wondered what it must have been like to storm up the beach saving private ryan style. As I continue to write this, I think that I have written about it… but oh well. I remember now – we were heading back from the tour and we were going to see an Irish band! Check..

Ok, so the Irish band was excellent. Pure Irish music – well not pure, because it was sang by a Frenchman, but it was certainly the Irish style – bagpipes – tin whistle, and a violin. Nice. It was very infectious, almost coerced you into dancing – like the sandman of music, you may not want to dance, but you have to. But it was very fun. We went there with Xavier, David, and 3 of the other people that were living in the house, we got home reasonably early for a night out – about 1-2.00 and slept for a fair bit. IT resulted in the next day being a boring day, although a highlight was finally getting cuth to get skype (kinda) Maybe subliminally this is working.. This resulted in us talking to cuth for the first time in about 4 months. A phone call that would have cost about 200 euro was compeleted for free with an internet connection – and we got to see the big CB in the flesh again. After this mark and I took to the beach – with Andrew enjoying his sleep time again and not coming, we walking along the beach and went in for a freezing dip in the English channel.  – 15 degrees. We then went home and had dinner with Xavier anmd the boys who had cooked for us (capsicum stuffed with like a mince meat type material.. (prob was mince). We chatted for a while, they helped us out with where to go, and then went off to bed. Still struggling with sleep times here, the sun goes down so late – about 10.30 and rises at about 4.30So it is difficult to adjust to. Consequently we have been getting progressively more tired as the week goes on. I haven’t been to sleep before 2am for about 6 days in a row now – with maybe 1 night being before 12.

We took off to go to Mont sint Michel – a castle on top of an island – not bad, we went on a tour, got screwed by a museum that was only in French, unless you have time to burn, I would suggest not going to the museums unless you can speak French. We got into the museum for under 25 price, and that cost us 9 euro each.  So 18 euro to see things and not understand them is a bit rich for even the most enthusiastic traveller. The famous thing about this place was the tides that come in and out, apparently the tide comes in and can cover the car park there, and when it recedes, you get a par aroma of sand flats. (see picture) . On our way out, ( we got up at 7 to avoid the crowds and make it to paris by 5.30) there was people everywhere… If only we knew this was just a taste of things to come in Paris.

We then went to Boredex (spelt wrong) where we wanted to see a museum with a 68m long tapestry showing the story of the norman invasion of England. (I hope I got that right…) It was pretty impressive with the commentary that comes with it – not so busy, no line really. That was a stop off, and the next stop was paris. A 5 hour drive away. Should we drive in paris… well… We arrived to the boys hostel (oh we were meeting my parents there , and the boys stayed in a hostel somewhere else) And I got my usual opening friendly welcome from the French. (I parked in front of a car garage while I waited for the guys to drop off their gear.) Now, in my defence, the guy that told me off could get past with his car – and did, but he decided to give me a spray of some French choosables on his way past, to which a few Dutch ones flew back in his direction from somewhere… J  
So then off to the station to pick up my parents… we picked them up with a little work, it was nice to see them, and nicer to see them in paris, and we headed off to their(mine too) hotel. We then went to the Eiffel tower (we had tickets for 7.30) – we arrived at 8.00ish – but it didn’t matter. Now, the line for the Eiffel tower down the bottom was not so bad, but this was taking into account my experience the last time we went which we arrived at 8.10 for it to open at 9.00. My major mistake was the line going from the 2^nd level to the top level. – Around 50 minutes I would say, 50 difficult minutes with all types of tourists bumping and clicking everywhere – I wasn’t phased really, but mum and dad.. hmmmm. So we got to the top – it was still nice.
Hint – don’t go to the Eiffel tower in july.  A quick meal at a street near the Eiffel tower, near the hawkers that need to go to indo to learn how to hassle somebody properly left us satisfied but annoyed as the waiter wanted a tip for bad service. Not a chance. Bed finally, and a plan to see the lourve in the morning at 9.00.

Phhew. Writing this is difficult. I will try and keep it interesting. Well the lourve. I really really enjoyed it. Now, I am no art lover, or art umm… liker even, but with the words of cuth ringing in my ear from the previous day“ You are standing in front of a painting that is 500 years old and it just jumps out at you – BOOM”  and the comments about getting an audio guide from the net. I bought and audio guide for 6 euro. If you go – buy it. (very good decision from SP there) So I made a beeline towards the mona lisa, and my first impression was – wow it’s small – and is that it, but from closer attention to the audio commentary I could see why it was famous. What I did enjoy about the Lourve was seeing paintings that introduced things never before done in art – now I did write down the name of this painting but I lost it, but there was a picture of a indian man and an old man holding a girl with the light engulfing half of the painting highlighting certain parts – apparently the first man to paint like that – it was pretty cool to discover – something that would have been lost within the hordes (cliché, but there was so many tourists) of camera clicking tourists. What was the most disappointing thing was that my parents and the other guys didn’t get commentary and therefore I think didn’t pull as much from it as I did. A short mention to napoleons apartment (amazing) and I really thought I could have stayed there all day.. but alas, we had to go. We didn’t really have a plan to go, dad was tired from walking, and the guys didn’t want to spend 30 euro (ethier did dad) on a bus tour – see previous blog about money. I really wanted to see the catacombs, (but they involved walking up ladders, stooping and sloshing mud I heard – not suitable for my parents) so I sent them to river to get a boat tour and we went off the catacombs. Big mistake on two fronts. Not only did we get the catacombs and find out the line was 3 hours long (no exaggerations) we arrived at notre dame (the meeting place) and mum called me annoyed that they were very bored and stuck on the boat… Oh my.. Bored from the Lourve, and the boat tour.. (the tour they went on had no commentary.. no wonder it was boring) The two things I liked most so far in paris. Oh dear. We went into Notre dame without them on mum’s request, and I bought a commentary about it also – very cool to see – although I almost done with churches now and cathedrals now. (the count would be about 15 by now) when mum and dad returned from the boat they were visibly annoyed – about the boat, notre dame, the exchange rate from the money exchanger, (1 swiss should = 1 euro) I totally agree with that concept – being the accountant that I am …. I took them on a short (long) walk around the city – I bought a souvenir or two and we went to dinner at the same restaurant that we went to in Paris with the school group – and yes I had the duck, but no it was not as good. Boooo. But mum and dad tried some snails – and while not loving them – they did pass the test! We saw the arch de triumph and walked down the famous street ( I can’t spell it) although I wasn’t that impressed. The arch was good though. Go there if you go to paris. We didn’t climb to the top, but we would do that in the morning if time permitted.

We got home early enough, although we were all tired, mum and dad had to catch their train to Amsterdam in the morning at 10.25. So we arranged to meet at 9.30 to drive to the station.

The next morning we packed and went downstairs.. now.. Reason number 400 why not to go to paris in july. It is full to the brim with tourists… Americans mainly we found, and driving was so so busy. We Crammed into the car as the boys arrived at 9.42 and hoped we would have enough time. We were counting down the time on the GSP 10.08 – 10.11 10.15 and you guessed it, it ticked over 10.25 – 10.30 before we got to the station. We walked in – no need to hurry and set about trying to fix the problem. I managed to get a new ticket for mum and dad after a little bit of story telling and they got a train at 12:25 instead. So it all worked out fine. J I did try and show them a good time, but I don’t think I succeeded.  I hope that my parents have a good time on their boat – it did sound fun, but I think I can all but rule out next year’s family holidays to Paris!!  On a very generous note – thankyou to mum and dad who took my bag and some clothes that I didn’t need home for me, that will be a great help when we finally ditch this car and head onto the backpacker trail.

We took to the road and after 4 hours got out of paris (not really 4 hours, but it was really busy.) and headed off towards Bordeaux. Paris is a big country,  it is 500kms not even to the coast – stupid france, why can’t you be more like liberty bell number 1 (I mean Netherlands).