Euro Tour 07

02/08/07

6 in the morning, and I was up. Alarm wasn't set to go off for another hour, but i had this horrible feeling in my stomach. In a couple of hours time, we'd be in Paris. Alone. What the hell was i thinking? I couldn't do it. Nah ah. Not possible. OK Ruby. Dont freak out. I had to go speak to dad. He reassured me as always. Said it was now or never. Still had the feeling in my stomach, but the nice wad of cash he handed over helped. Just a bit.

Surprisingly the kids were all up. The look on their faces made me feel even more nervous. I'd promised them I'd dedicate this summer to them. Obviously i didnt keep my promise. I felt bad. But it had to be done. Reminded them i was only away for a month, and i'd be back before they knew it. With loads of goodies.

That put a smile on their faces.

That was it. Said bye to everyone and shut the door behind me. Station wasn't too far away from our house. A 2 minute walk was all it was. It was a hell of noisy 2 minutes. I couldn't control the bloody suitcase! I knew then i was going to be in a bit of trouble.

Waited for Faye at Waterloo. It was wierd, sitting there on my suitcase, watching tonnes of people check in. Everyone seemed so happy. Faye arrived late, as usual. She was as nervous as I was.

We waved our goodbyes to the station (we got stared at for a bit, but we had to say bye to something!, not like our parents were bothered to be there). Checked in just in time. Jumped into our seats. Welcome to Eurostar.

Arrived in Paris at about 11ish, and went looking for our hotel.

I swear we walked around for ages!!! But, we had no luck finding it! All we got was wierd men trying it on with us! Not a great start to the trip! Eventually i decided to use the limited french i know to get directions. Best idea of the day! The man drew out a map for us and we got to Hotel Altona in no time!

It was a small hostel in comparison to all the others we've stayed at, but at the time we were satisfied with it. It was the first time i'd stayed at a hostel, so i didn't really know what to expect. We went up to our room and was pretty surprised. It was a really nice room, double bed, en suite, t.v, balcony and we had long mirrors!..woot!

We decided to have a quick shower and get ready to go exploring. I don't think Faye knows what a quick shower is because she seemed to take ages!

Finally at about 5pm we got out.

We decided we weren't in the mood to see the main tourist sites, so we would just walk to whatever was next to us, that being Opera Garnier. On the way we bumped into a few parisians, who we randomly spoke too. I cracked a tampon joke at one of them. He wasn't too impressed.

Opera Garnier was nice, to look at. It was being refurbished or something, so there was a lot of scaffolding around it, so you couldn't really see all of it. But we were satisfied...well distracted actually as right opposite Opera Garnier is the Diesel store!..woot!

After a touch of shopping (one day in and it already started!), we decided to randomly walk some more and ended up at Place Du Carrousel! They had the Ferris wheel up and this whole fair malarchy going on, so we decided to get involved.

Faye was begging me to get on the Ferris Wheel with her, but being scared of heights, i was reluctant in getting on. I gave in eventually (only because she promised me a bottle of Vodka afterwards!). It was the scariest experience of my life! It was so unsafe, i swear that Ferris Wheel is a health and safety hazard! Or Faye being on the Ferris wheel is breaching a heath and safety law, as she wouldn't stop rocking the carriage we were in!...i actually screamed through the whole 3 times 360degrees spin. It wasn't nice at all. Got some goodd pictures though!, well Faye did, i couldn't move from where i was sitting and my hands were glued to the barriers!

After that horrific experience i refused to get on anything else, so we headed to the Louvre seeing as though it was close by.

We got there and managed to take a few pictures, but then the skies opened up and it started pouring down with rain! I was wearing shorts, and got completely soaked. We stood under some arch waiting for the rain to stop, or slow down, but it didn't seem to want to do that. We decided it was our fate, for wearing next to nothing, so we ran back home ias fast as we possibly could in the pouring rain.

We had just about got to Galleries La Fayette, when we were stopped by this guy and his bitch (I'm actually referring to a female dog here). We thought he wanted to ask us something, but as soon as we stopped to speak to him, he wouldn't let us go! He didn't know a word of english ad was babbling on in french while his bitch was barking away like a mad dog at us! It was late, dark and pouring down with rain and there were hardly anyone on the streets.

He had us cornered and we had no idea what to do!

In the end, Faye and i decided to just run! He actually ran after us, but we managed to get away from him eventually, but ended up on a street we had never heard of! It took us abother hour, in the rain, to fins our hotel. Faye was so annoyed when we had got back. I eventually found the funny side.

We spent the rest of the evening glued to the TV (and the vodka bottle i was promised!). At one point i went out onto the balcony for a smoke, and there were some spanish guys opposite us on their balcony. I spent the next hour talking to them by chucking paper aeroplanes at them with notes inside. Pretty childish, but it was funny!

03/08/07

Got up quite late after annihilating a bottle of vodka between us.

It was our last full day in Paris so we had to make the most of it! Needed to see the Eiffel Tower at least!

Spent the whole day sightseeing. Started off at Pont Nuef and did the boat cruise. It was great to get a feel of central paris. It was so different from Pigalle, where we were staying. After the cruise we headed to the Eiffel Tower. It was a really nice day so we decided to chill at Champ de Mars (and being lazy we didn't want to walk anymore). We were there for quite a while, and then headed back to our hotel. Decided we wouldn't pick up any alcohol on the way seeing as though we'd have to be up early the next morning. However, we were craving ice lollies for some reason? We spent about an hour walking up and down Pigalle looking for a store that sells ice lollies! We did find some eventually, and cleaned out the whole freezer!.

.mmm..freeze pops!...soooo good..

We eventually got around to packing in the early hours of the morn!

Paris is amazing. I always knew i'd love it. Amazing sights, good food, and the people weren't too bad either. Missed home. But i knew i weren't that far. So it was ok.

It was off to amsterdam the next day. Was more worried about meeting nick than anything else. I didnt know what to expect. I'd never met the guy, and was going to do most of the tour with him! I do crazy things sometimes.