France

Day 54 France:



Rise and shine! We left the hostel and made our way to the train station at 8am. Usually this would look normal to morning commuters, we found however that we were drawing more attention to ourselves – what looked to be two small mountains of luggage navigating their way down the London streets were really just Totti and I trying not to take people out.


So we finally made it to the train station and stole some free wifi while waiting for our train. We dragged ourselves and our 40kg in total luggage past the FAST train passengers to our dodgy SLOW train where we boarded only to be told we were actually on the FAST train – so back we went to join the richeys! 2hrs later and we arrived in Paris – to some sun-sun-sunshine, lollipops and blue birds!


A big shout out to Papa Totti who navigated us to our hotel via Australia – yeah we suck, don’t judge us! After briefly getting lost and realising the Frenchies DON’T speak English but will try to give directions in French (helpful!) we made it to Hotel Malar – literally around the corner from the gorgeous Eiffel Tower. YAY!


Now before we go on, we’d just like to mention that we absolutely LOVED Paris and this city has by far kicked the arses of every other city we have visited thus far...to find out why, read below :p


After a quick clean shower, with fresh towels (don’t ask) and a proper leak free shower-head, we headed for the metro – destination....unknown! A big shout out to FILIA for donating her Lonely Planet pocket guide to Paris to us – it became very helpful! We jumped on the metro and headed to the Latin Quarter – after reading the Lonely Planet’s creperie recommendation...we kinda felt obliged to test taste these crepes and provide our own analysis. We indulged in the ‘chef’s recommendation’ – full of roast veggies and fresh feta cheese. Yumo! We also marvelled at the many jars of Nutella stacked three jars high and two jars back...this time we both died and went to food Heaven.


So....the latin quater :p The Latin Quarter is a student hub – it is named so because way back when, in ye olde France, the university students used the traditional Latin language to communicate among one another. It now harbours great night life, cheap but delicious food, cheap shopping, cute lounge bars and pubs and easy going, laid back atmosphere. The main hub is a roundabout with a fountain middle surrounded by cute little pubs and cafes. Get the picture, good!


While strolling down the streets (well rolling – two fat ladies again! Well actually, Totti just eats and I put on the weight for both of us :p I blame the Italian genes) we have discovered that European guys are NOT shy – we were casually strolling past a bar looking at cocktail prices and were wooed inside by a cute Parisian, who spoke French, Spanish and some broken Italian, somehow they just seem to get more perfect. And so we were forced to drink, again. Sigh. One tequila sunrise and one strawberry daiquiri, thankyou!


What to do...what to do....Eiffel Tower by night? YUP! We strolled around the masses of people lounging around the lawns of the Eiffel Tower enjoying their picnics. The were never ending lines up to the observation decks, so we entertained ourselves trying to talk down the Ethiopian salesman for his little flashing/flying thing. Don’t get the wrong idea, and get your mind out of the gutter, it was like a little neon helicopter which you flick up into the air with a rubber band. Totti managed to talk him down from 10 euros to 3, then got bored, so we left – guess you had to be there. We people watched for a while, and took one too many photos – we have become really obsessed with taking photos of the Eiffel Tower, and of ourselves near the Eiffel Tower, so we did that, along with enjoying the atmosphere, being in amongst the people and the perfect weather.


Day 55:


After a schmelting shit of nights sleep in our non-air conditioning rooms (fail Europe) – we peeled our melted faces up from our sweaty pillows, cold showered and off we went to meet up with the Fat Tire Bike tour.


For anyone going to Paris, we HIGHLY recommend, in fact it’s really a MUST when you come to Paris to do the Fat Tire Bike tour – day or night, they are both awesome.


We were on the 11am day tour and met up with our guide Scotty at the Eiffel Tower. The bike tour went for 4hrs and covers most of the main attractions – the Louvre, Ecole Militaire, Eiffel tower, Napoleon’s tomb, Alexander III bridge, Musee D’Orsay, Tuileries Gardens (where we stopped for lunch).


Two things:


1. BIKE NINJAS live in the Tuileries Gardens...yes, ninjas on bikes. We kidd you not, we saw the ninjas – they exist. The story is if you ride your bike through these gardens, the NINJAs come and judo-chop you to the dirt...literally. We were well impressed by ninja employment at its finest. Totes.


2. 2. HOLD THE PHONE – we stopped for lunch at about 1 pm – we were all well dehydrated, sunburnt and sweating like pigs so needless to say we were starving as well. We sat with some people from the States who were riding together. Shortly after we ordered, they got their food – delicious sandwiches and such. They were also presented with a bowl of fresh bread to accompany their meals – THEIR bread...not OURS. Ela...quick off the mark, as soon as the waiter put the bread down, she leaned over a STOLE (yes....STOLE), a piece of their bread. I quickly said “uh...Ela...pretty sure that’s not our bread”, to which Ela responded “oh..well...that’s awkward coz now I can’t put it back”. The Americans were not impressed by my friends sloth-like behaviour and didn’t speak to us for the rest of the lunch. Fail.


And so we continued on our ride...Les Invalides, Grand and Petit Palais and Place de la Concorde followed by our grand photo finish at the Eiffel Tower.

 After 4hrs riding bikes in the stinking hot, we headed back to our non-air con room and passed out.


We went on the 7pm night tour the same day – fail in planning! We decided that we had learnt some things from the day tour – we could get away with wearing thongs (to avoid stinky feet) and we didn’t need to take our bags (to avoid sweaty backs). This plan turned out to bite us on the butt (like most of our plans). The night tour took us to various landmarks – one key place of reference would be the best ice cream shop in the WORLD – Berthillion Ice Cream. Well...fail to us, because us dum-dums left our wallets at the office so we had to sit on our bikes and watch everyone else lick their frickin ice creams in front of us. We were well salivating and didn’t speak to anyone for the rest of the tour – it was all their fault! The night tour also took us to Notre Dame, Latin Quarter, the Islands (Johnny Depp’s house), the Louvre (action shots in the sunset), St. Chappelle, Academie Francaise, Pont des Arts.


The highlight of the night tour was the wine cruise – we parked our bikes and hopped on a massive ferry-like boat with hundreds of people. The ride went for about an hour – up and down the Seine river and the tour group received all-you-can-drink red wine. Now you all know that we just don’t do wine...well folks, now we do! We were all pretty tipsy as we left the boat and jumped back on our bikes – drink driving anyone. The trip home was quite hilarious – there were people running into each other, one girl sliced her toe open, one lady stacked it massively (we had to try and contain the laughter) but we made it home, however we have LOTS of mysterious bruises.


TIP: we have found that wifi in Paris is limited...however, Fat Tire Bike office offers FREE wifi. We literally sat in there for a good couple of hours and got in touch with technology. They also let you print. Get on it!


Day 56:


To the LOUVRE...yay! We love museums and art and stuff. Everyone has to go to the Louvre...so it was more of an obligation than a ‘want’ but anyways. We went and saw Mona, she was pretty cool – heaps of Asians taking photos – we wanted to pick her nose but we couldn’t get through the 6inch bullet proof glass. Venus had no arms, but Medusa had a pimped raft with heaps of dudes (boats n hoes). The Sphinx had lion properties – we made her roar and scared some kids. Totti found a ranga statue (well at least we envisaged him to be ranga) and fondled his beard. We admired numerous mini-genitalia and took photos. Ela liked the feet best. A fun day at the museum – we are all about making education fun.


One thing we did learn was that the Louvre was once someone’s house – it was kind of the running joke all day as to which room would have been mine. The place is effing huge – it would be way cooler if they turned it into a giant enclosed zoo – think of the possibilities.


So...missing out on the famous ice cream last night soon got the better of us, so we decided to ditch the Louvre and head to the ice cream shop. We got a little lost and ended up at a delicious Boulangeria (bakery type place) – we decided we should have savoury before sweet so we purchased some yummy quiches. Totti felt the need to sit on the river bed, I stayed on the bridge. Two seconds later, I checked in on her to see a random Frenchy sitting next to her – Totti looked well confused and seemed to be using a lot of hand gestures. I decided to watch on for entertainment value. Soon enough, Totti and her Frenchy boy come strolling up the stairs – “he doesn’t speak English”...great. Soon after, Totti pulled out the lonely planet book (thanks Filia) which we knew had some translation help at the back. The guy seemed to want to take us “touring” (I guess that’s what they call it these days....I thank you). Totti ended up telling the guy he was too expensive and that he looked like he was 40. Language barrier fail. Lol.


Back to the ice cream, we waited in line for about 5 minutes – but oh my, it was well worth it. The Berthillon ice cream spoils quickly so they make it fresh everyday which is why it is so distinct to France; they can’t export it anywhere. Now we have both eaten our fair share of ice cream during our years....let’s just say this ice cream SERIOUSLY is the best ice cream EVER. Even Ela admitted that it shat all over Italian ice cream – and that’s a huge statement from a wog.


Soooo... looking back on the whole day, we spent a majority of it eating :p So we decided to continue in that fashion and shop up a storm in preparation for our Eiffel Tower eating extravaganza. Which really was just Totti’s smoked cheese, ham, the best baguette in history and our A-MAZING desserts. One raspberry macaroon filled with custard cream and fresh raspberries (party in our mouth) and one strawberry/custard mini tart. Oh France, how we love you....along with our hips, and thighs, and ass. Food. The Eiffel Tower has to be #1 on any picnic destination list. We spent the evening feeding our faces, watching people eat yummy food, taking way better action shots than the girls next to us, laughing at people getting their pose on. Getting our pose on. Taking photos of us, with food – this has become a recurring theme in our ever growing photo library. We ended up spending a good few hours enjoying ourselves and our food, and decided it was time for more food; Nutella Crepes. After hearing me whinge about how amazing these are for about two years, Totti finally got to sink her teeth into this hazelnut delight. All she responds with, when I ask her how it was, is a squishy drool/ lip smacking sound, followed by a long satisfied sigh. That is all. With our bellies well satisfied, we attempted another schmelting sleep, before our super early rise the next morning .


Day 57:


FML. 6am. Moving luggage mountains through Parisian streets. Empty subways. Hungry. Tired. Hot. Thirsty. Feel sorry for us! We were making our way to the train station to catch our train to Nice. Totti reaffirmed that Pigeons (now known as Terrorists) really wanted to take her captive and hold her for ransom; they had somehow managed to invade the subway...which is underground. WTF! Thank god Totti had a mountain of luggage armour to hide behind – totes incognito. I see you pigeons, and challenge you to a duel!

 5 hrs later and we were tired of playing shit head and listening to our ipods, we finally arrived in a schmelting hot Nice, which is actually really nice. I thankyou. See what we did there. We taxied to where we thought our hotel was...Rue Biscarra 18...FAIL. We finally found our hotel and were greeted by the friendly Pierre (how French!). Now...We’re really not sure how to describe this fellow – he was sitting at his little wooden table.....with documents.....NO COMPUTER....in a white killer outfit. He was erm.....a little too enthusiastic for someone sitting at a wooden table......with documents....and NO COMPUTER!!! WTF! He insisted we sit down, like really insisted, like drop your bags, and sit the fuck down. Ok. Please don’t hurt us! Totti later informed me that she thought we were going to be chopped into little pieces and fed to his poodles. To add to the oddity of this entire experience, she wanted us to pay cash, because he didn’t have a credit card machine..... WTF man, it’s 2010 – get on it! He actually did have one, just not plugged in. Well plug it in, ay! So it worked and we paid with plastic – THEN, yes there’s more, you will not believe this – leave your bags and follow me.......................................so by this stage we were both sporting worried/nervous/anxious/ trying to be casual facial expressions. We got finger printed – it’s the only way to get back through the hotel door. For someone who doesn’t have a computer or a plugged in credit card machine, this was a little too advanced for our liking. We were finally given permission to gather our bags, and we were escorted to our room; complete with a walking tour of the entire 2x2m space. It was a rather educational experience – did you know that there is a table in here, did you know it comes with chairs! And wait for it, we also have a fridge, to keep things cool! Don’t even – and air conditioning too! Do you know how to work it? And a television (which P.S doesn’t even work). Our couch that turns into a bed, that turns back into a couch. Now “zis is ‘ow you do eet – use your knees and you pull ‘ere, like zis, and zen you wait fore ze noise. Yes, zere it is, ze “click”, and viola! Ze bed!” Once he left we absolutely pissed our pants laughing . Ahh Pierre!


After our grand tour – which Pierre also explained to us on a map, he pretty much circled EVERYTHING and told us to go see it. Thanks. So we opted to go at it ourselves and just wondered off in the direction of the beach. Now, we are all for freedom of expression, but we feel that Europe needs to enforce some sort of breast etiquette, because we were forcefully reminded of Something About Mary at one stage. Supple and perky only policy, thankyou. We also noted that the French really do not like to remove hair. We have come across hairy face men, this time we came across hairy back man. I was like – nice t-shirt. So we took photos. We also noted that they enjoy wearing toight flamboyant budgie smugglers. Sooooo, we took photos :p We are yet to see a beach with sand – we are over these pebbles scraping our feet off! They are mighty comfortable to lie on. Not. It was a ‘Not’ Joke.


We strolled around a bit more and then headed back in the direction of our hotel. Surprise...we have a massive supermarket on the corner of our hotel street. So we decided it was time we saved some money and cooked for ourselves so we stocked up on oil, penne, diced tomatoes, garlic, salami, salt, bananas and OJ and went on our merry way. Ela got straight into the cooking and I sat on the couch, fed my face with salami and payed her out about the smell. We were very pleased with our savings though – 8 euro between us for all this goodness. Yeeyahhhhh! After enjoying a tasty home cooked meal (thanks wog), we headed out to watch the world cup final. So...about those savings...FML...2 rum and cokes later = 14.50 euro. Sigh. We got chatting to a Russian and Austrian boys...they were nice. We were really disappointed with the standard of the final – personally, we would have rather watched Belwest vs ANU. Lol! We did however get free coke horn-blower things to make lots of noise with....and noise we did.


Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....



Day 58:


We decided to see what the Old Town had on offer – well renowned for cheap and delicious food, we didn’t need telling twice. A pretty little village with small streets and crammed with people. Sort of like Venice, but better, and without the smell :p It didn’t take us long to find the sweetest shop in the village - a lolly shop with barrels and barrels full to the brim with deliciousness – naturally we couldn’t pass up the chance, so we happily spent at least 15 minutes selecting each lolly carefully.
 We spent most of the day just enjoying walking around and taking it all in – we strolled into the antique market and enjoyed some slushies, they are the new ice cream.


Well tired and sweating our faces off, we came back to our little hotel room and updated our blog for your perusal, aren’t we kind. It then occurred to us that our hairs were looking a little grey/ranga/ feral, so desperate times called for desperate measures. To the supermarket! We returned with some dessert, some hair dye, nail polish, cookies and effing “Clementine juice” WTF! The carton looked like it had oranges on it – stupid fruity pictures! It turned out to be mandarin juice, vom! Another meal of pasta and we decided it was time for a makeover. Our we totally destroyed our only remaining clean towel, fail. Seeing as we only had enough hot water for one shower, we devised a full proof plan of attack, using our innate cunning survival skills. So, it went as follows. Rise all hair dye out. Water goes off. Lather, shave, scrub, pee. Water goes on - rinse ALL. Mission accomplished. We now have pantene hair again.


With our makeover almost complete, we applied nail polish while enjoying some chocolate mousse and a screening of Inglorious Basterds. We didn’t make it that far into the movie, and passed out half way through. We decided it was probably best to turn in, as we wanted to get an early bus out to the village of Eze.



Day 59:

 Plan to wake up early – fail. Totti got up to pee, turned the alarm off, and we both passed out again. 2 hrs later – “what time is it?” - “9am”. Totally missed the first two buses :p After our gourmet breakfast of a banana and foul Clementine juice, we got ourselves organised and made our way to the bus stop. So we recommend the bus, as it only cost 1 Euro and will take you all the way to Eze, Monaco, Monte Carlo or Cannes. Roughly a 15/20 min bus ride and we were in Eze – it’s a medieval village on a cliff face – it looks like the remnants of an old castle now occupied by modern little galleries and clothes shops. We paid 5 euro to get into the exotic garden and to get to the top of the hill. The views are worth the hike and calf burn, we took lots of pretty pictures (which will eventually get uploaded, we promise!)


We then devoured another delicious baguette and sat down to devise our next plan of action. We some how concluded it would be an amazing idea to walk to Monaco – it didn’t look that far on the map, just a thumb and forefinger space apart! ............. .............................................................FAIL! Sweat, chafe, burn, complain, cramp, wee, thirst, dehydrate, sunstroke, complain, thorny bushes...many disgruntled honks from cars. Why did we walk to Monaco? We did initially wait at the bus stop........ten minutes, still nothing, so decided to take our chances on foot, thinking it would be quicker....not so much!



All we could be bothered doing when we FINALLY got there was having a slushy...Exciting, we know.


We got sick of watching people doing bombs off the diving board in the town swimming pool, so we decided it was time for us to say goodbye, before we strangled someone for their bathing suits and dominated the pool with our amazing bomb skills. Another fail for forgetting our own swimmers. I think we left our brains back at the hotel that day. So upon revision of our little day time hike – the bus option is most definitely safer, less hot, quicker and takes the scenic route :p


We couldn’t have been more grateful to be home in our little dingy apartment – sporting brilliant sunburn, and Totti with some kind of fungal chest growth, we passed out on our sofa bed and enjoyed the air conditioning. We woke up rather hungry (as usual) and decided that a nice steak would go down a treat, so we went to the supermarket and bought ourselves a nice cut of meat and some veggies. We are finding that it really is a VERY small world – we ran into Kelly Grocock from Belconnen United at the local supermarket – WEIRD!



After a healthy and cheap feed, we retired to our dodgy sofa bed for a well earned rest.



Day 60:



2 month mark...skiddy woop woop!


Today we are feeling particularly sorry for ourselves – more than usual anyways. Looking like fried tomatoes, we decided to venture to the shops for some retail therapy to ease the burn. Its Bastille Day today – a commemoration of the French Revolution, independence day if you like – so nothing was really open....except for a effing H & M. This franchise is seriously taking over Europe. So as we casually strolled our crisp bodies through the clothe racks....ding dong...it was fucking Andrew Symonds and his misses. Totti was well tempted to ask him where the local fishing spot was but chickened out....so we called him a Monkey instead – jokes!!!

 After spending a good hour in the change rooms, we ended up only buying a couple of t-shirts, body spray and sunglasses. Fail. Damn you Filia and Steph for buying all the good clothes from all the H&M stores!



We decided we needed a nana nap – so off we went back to our dingy cell.


Rash update: the cortisone cream that the lovely French pharmacist gave Totti seems to be reducing the swelling and redness. Watch this space – there is a reason for concern because the information booklet for the cream says “WARNING: This cream may cause excess chest hair, thrush or uncontrollable twitches”. Right............



We decided vego was the way to go for dinner - so we bought a shit load of vegetables, some soup and spinach & ricotta ravioli. Yum...food heaven x2. We had overflow of food so we packed a little take-away box for our train ride tomorrow.


As the night dwelled, we had heard rumours that there may be a “Vunderbar” show in the evening where all the Frenchies go and hang out and sing Frenchy songs. So we agreed that we must attend such event. We walked to the central hub of Nice – about 2 minutes away – and treated ourselves to a delicious ice cream. We people watched for a good halfa before deciding we should ask someone for directions to the “Vunderbar” show!

 Well....Vunderbar my ass. The streets were packed with people as were the pebbly beaches – we came to the conclusion that it had to be fireworks. FAIL. Skyfire shits all over France. The fireworks was literally a little man lighting one firework and then running to the next one to light it. Sigh. No music either. Double sigh. But nevertheless we made light about to situation and made “oo...ahh” sounds to the shitty fireworks.



Day 61:



Packed up and said Au Revoir to our French mate Pierre and Nice and boarded our train back to Paris. FML. We were sitting patiently waiting to board when this fugly, fat, stinky lady (who looked like a man) boarded our carriage and sat opposite us. She stunk like cigarettes, sweat, ass and non-shower-in-1-month....foul. So we both agreed it was our duty to try and out stink her with our butts....mission fail but we tried.



About an hour in, Totti felt peckish so it was time to unleash our package of delicious leftovers for the train people to food stalk. All eyes were on her and she scoffed her face with stir-fry veges and ravioli.


That was about as exciting as our train ride got until we arrived in Paris. This young girl (about 18 or so) was pushing her way through the line of people waiting to get off the train...well she totally pushed the wrong lady. This big black lady gave her a ear full (in French) and lots of in-her-face hand gestures. At one point the black lady’s son was holding her back because she was about to hit the young girl. It was full on – it was times like these we really wish we had subtitles so we could understand what they were saying.



We checked back into our Paris hotel and chilled for a bit before heading to the Eiffel Tower to meet up with our Topdeck friends – Mel and Ilce. It was really good to see some familiar faces and reminisce about the tour which seemed like so long ago. We headed to the Latin Quarter where we enjoyed some cocktails at a little bar. Our night was made complete by a AWESOME nutella crepe from Nico’s Creperia....ahhh...the taste is still in our mouths – so frickin good.





We metro’d it back to our hotel and said farewell to Mel and Ilce again...but we will hopefully see them soon in Mykonos.


Day 62:

 With a sleep in under our belt, we decided it would be best to have some clean clothes to start our Greek Island adventure so we motored off to the Laundromat. After packing and then re-packing, we checked out of our lovely Paris hotel and headed to the awesome Boulangeria for the last time. One last baguette, one last macaron – we enjoyed our last Paris eating experience by our friend Eiffel and his mate Tower. Ah...the serenity.
We parted ourselves from Paris central and headed for the airport in the direction of GREECE.
Au Revoir France


Say hi to your dad


Ela & Kate xx