Lost in Paris

Tim: Wrote quite a lot about our first day in Paris at the Eiffel Tower, but deleted it. Hmmm. I'll try and find a copy...

...ah, here it is:

Tim: So we wake on the train, rushing towards Paris, to find the world outside dusted with snow - and a little snowdrift inside the carriage where the door doesn't close properly. It's cold. But as we get closer to Paris and transform the cabin from crowded beds to crowded seats, it gets a little warmer and the snow disappears.

Off the train we are met by more soldiers and police; two ragged men are getting their documents checked and it looks bad for them.

We have about €3.40 left and the Metro fare to our hotel is €1.40 each. I love the Paris Metro; there's about 60 stations on 14 lines; it's clean and quick and you only wait 2 or three minutes for a ride in the little carriages. How did we end up with our system - built 50 years later - of 3 big stations and big trains that come infrequently? An opportunity lost.

We check our bags and look for breakfast; it needs to be pretty cheap, sit down, and available. Naturally, we choose a Chinese restaurant - sushi and a noodle soup - and have a look round where we are staying.

When we were looking on-line for a hotel before we left Melbourne, one review of one hotel angrily said 'nothing on your website said you were next to a huge sex shop and that the hotel is the only thing on the street that isn't a sex shop'. Well, we're near there but really only half the shops are sex shops (but, in fairness, they are big) with bars, restaurants, grocery shops etc making up the balance. But it all looks harmless enough in daylight.

We make our way to the Eiffel tower. Lord, its big. It's really big. It's also cold, and there's our first real queue of the whole trip to use the elevators. From the top, the views are stunning but a little hazy, and there is a little warmth in the sun. But last night's crap sleep, a month of walking everywhere and dragging cases and today's queuing in the cold have done Polly in. When we get back to our room at at 4pm, she has a bath to get feeling back into her feet and we both nap. Later, I get dinner for us both; the closest portable meal I come across is take-away Japanese, which is pretty cheap and filling.

At the Eiffel tower today we saw a bunch of Australian boys tricked out in green and gold tee-shirts, wearing the flag, our flag, like capes (and no doubt freezing). In this city of culture, I felt ashamed; how can we be such oikes? How do others make anything positive of this? Later though, Polly reminded me it was Australia Day. Perhaps a bit of national pride - even expressed so gratingly - isn't such a bad thing, even in this city of culture (which, looking around, does really have a lot of big sex shops). Seemingly to settle the matter, I saw some sexual stimulants advertised in a window as being strong and from Australia. Is this how we are perceived - in France of all places - as a source of virility? We could do worse.

Happy belated Australia Day, mates.