Thurs 16th April - Sat 18th April

Artistic Paris

I woke this morning to have a little mid trip mental breakdown. I think my brain was telling me that it had had enough. We'd been going so full on for almost two weeks, and I just wanted to relax. So instead of relaxing, Dan dragged me to the most full on place in all of Paris. The Louvre. We got organised and headed to the centre of Paris and made our way into the Louvre and the famous glass pyramid. We had to join another queue, yet again, just to go down to buy tickets. Once finally inside, we made a mental list of the things that we wanted to see and we would go directly to them. No stuffing around looking at every piece of art that hung on the walls. We walked through numerous rooms, looking at the big and weird pictures as well as the numerous Italian sculptures. Saw lots of girl bits and boy bits. We found the room where the French Crown Jewels are kept (although half of them were out someplace else) with all the fantastic painting and gold leaf and decoration. We followed the crowds and went and found the Mona Lisa. Tiny little picture that I managed to push my way to the front to take some photos. It was really quite underwhelming. We walked through lots of other exhibits, and eventually found our way to the Venus de Milo. Again we had to fight the crowds to get a picture of the armless woman. And the whole time I could only think of the Simpsons episode. I'm completely ignorant when it comes to art, but it doesn't bother me. We then explored through the Ancient Egypt section. Dan enjoyed this, but I couldn't quite figure out how it fitted in to the rest of the art gallery. We finally made our way out through some more sculptures to the exit. My brain was still ready to explode. We grabbed some lunch and decided that an easy afternoon of reading or games at the apartment was needed.

After several hours rest (sleep for me) we got showered and prettied up for our night on the town. I was finally going to claim my birthday present - a night at the Moulin Rouge. It was only 2 stops down on our metro line, so we thought we'd grab some dinner before the show started. The area didn't really have many restaurants in the area so we had to settle with a Buffalo Grill place. It wasn't very nice, but I managed to down a couple of cocktails. With half an hour still before we could go in, we went to a bar recommended to us by Matt and Jodie. They also told us to order the large beer. We did, and boy was the beer large. I think it was like 1.5litres. So we sat and drank our beers. I drank all but the last inch of mine, I was proud of my effort. The Americans sitting at the next table were also enjoying the show, but I think that was because of Dan's burping and sculling.

We walked across the road to the Moulin Rouge and checked the camera in - not allowed in the theatre at all - and took our seats off to the side of the stage. Our free bottle of champagne arrived so we continued to have a few more. The other couple on our table didn't even touch their bottle (The ordered two cups of tea????) and I was tempted to ask if we could have it.

The show was very good. Lots of half naked ladies, a few men, some quarter horses, an extremely good ventriloquist and his dog, and a pool filled with snakes makes for an entertaining. It was definitely worth seeing, although I was a little disappointed at the lack of can caning, considering the Moulin Rouge was where it all began. I was also disappointed I did not see a large elephant house, Ewan McGregor, or Kylie Minogue. I loved it though - maybe it was the alcohol that had increased my senses, but it was good. So much music and dancing. After we left we took the customary photos with the red windmill and jumped on the metro and headed home.

I thought I might as well put the last few days together in the one entry, cause it is now the end of May, and I really can't be bothered or remember all the fine details. It sucks that I like to give all the details.

So the next day we thought we would take it fairly easy again, and we'd go for a stroll up to the Sacre Cour and explore the Montmartre area. We took the metro a few stops to where the Sacre Cour sits high above on a big hill. This is right near where we stayed our first night in Paris before heading off to the countryside. We climbed all the stairs to the top of the hill, and took in the view. I enjoyed this view of Paris as much as I enjoyed the ones from the top of the Arc and the top of the Eiffel tower. We sat with the crowds of people for a while, and I was waiting for a group of Brazilian Cappowera (or however its spelt) fighter/dancers to kick into action. That never happened though, so we went for a look inside the church. We didn't bother paying to go up into the dome of the basilica, we just looked in the actually church part.

From here we walked down the big sloping path through the park, down to the streets. At least 15 more black men tried to stop us to sell us things. These ones were much more persistent and wouldn't let us walk away. They kept trying to put things on our wrists. Dan struggled to shake them off. We walked through the arty area of Montmartre for a few hours and looked in all the tourist shops, until eventually the tone of the shops changed. Peep shows, latex outfits, sex shops, and dvd stores lined the path. We'd found Paris's red light district, and ended up back at the Moulin Rouge. We didn't see all this smuttiness last night, but it was everywhere in the light of day. We scouted out a late lunch and headed back to the hotel to pack. Dinner was the rest of our spaghetti cooked up in the apartment, and then much more sleep was required for worn out Possum.

We woke up early on the last day, packed the last of our things into our bag, and said goodbye to a Parisian apartment. We had to collect our deposit back from Yolande (The landlady who spoke no English), she wished us farewell - I think - and we headed off to Charles de Gaulle airport. This was the only day we had any rain, and it rained just as we were going between two of the train stations. Just our luck. We arrived at the airport with lots of time to spare, so we set ourselves up in the terminal. First I found a bookstore and secured the last one in the twilight series - written in English - and then we found free playstations set up. Dan beat me in a game of NBA 08 and Formula 1 racing. The time passed quickly and we were on our Air France flight back to London.

France was a great trip, but I felt as though I could've slept for 3 weeks when we got back. The last thing I felt like was turning up to work on the Monday. I want my holidays to last forever!!! (And soon they will - well not forever, but a long time)