Paris

I arrived yesterday on the Eurostar train. It took a little over two hours. I sat next to this French girl who had been working and studying in London for a year, and she told me lots about Paris. She also got me to write "我的名字是" on her hand (like a tatoo) cos she likes Chinese characters.

It took me a long while to get from Gare du Nord to Bastille, where I live, because I waited in line for nearly half an hour to activate my Eurail ticket (which I didn't end up doing) and book my seats to go to Bern next week. Then getting to the Metro station was another challenge with my masses of luggage and unending stairs. Luckily there were some men who were willing to help (one was a police man who looked ANNOYED as he approached me to take my bags, he was sighing and shaking his head!!). But....eventually I made it to my accommodation. It's 1 minute away from the Place de Bastille.


I was quite exhausted so I just explored the street I lived on. Also, significantly, I had my first baguette. It was nice...but very hard, by the end of the stick my teeth were hurting from the incessant chewing. Also had a croissant - it was so soft and sweet, just biting into it, knowing of all the buttery goodness inside makes me happy.

Today I went on a walking tour. (I had three different breads for breakfast - a cheesy baguette thingy, pain au lait and pain au chocolat. talk about carb overload!!) It started off at Place de Saint Michel and we walked westwards towards the Place de la Concorde, stopping at numerous signficant sights such as the Notre Dame Cathedral, Louvre, Tourilles Gardins, a bridge where lovers put their locks on, Royale Palais, Shakespeare & Co bookstore (the only bookstore in Paris that sells English books), Pont Nerf (which means New Bridge, but ironically is the oldest bridge in Paris. It's so called because at the time of being built, it was the first stone bridge.

Concorde...significantly, this monument was not stolen by France, but was a gift

Upon conclusion of the tour, I walked along the Champs Elysee towards the Arc de Triomphe, looking for one special store. Then to the Eiffel Tower (apparently it glistens everynight at 10, 11, 12 and 1 but I couldn't be bothered staying that late), THEN made my way back to the Concorde (and catching some wonderful sights along the way like the Hotel des Invalides and Pont Alexandre III.

Pont Alexandre III, a really beautiful and ornately decorated bridge.

Hotel des Invalides

This was my dinner, I bought a big one (the raspberry one in the foreground of the first pic) and 8 little ones. Major sugar overload!! but it's SOOOO beautiful, especially the big one I got, it was rose-petal macaroons with raspberry in between: the macaroon was soft and fluffy with a nice cross between chewy and crunchy (just a tad bit) and the raspberry was so juicy). FYI these were from Laduree, the special store I was referring to before.

Some realisations of Paris
- it's hot and traffic is loud, people like to ride on motorbikes and the police like to sound their sirens when they reach a red light
- Parisians are not as mean as their reputation, they do speak English when they realise your French is...well non-existent.