Hi Humans,

After my three-day stint in Dublin I flew to London to meet up with Rach. The idea was to meet her in town with both of our friends and have a few lemonades. Unfortunately, I thought we were meeting in Covent Garden and that's where my mates went. While I was in Ireland the plan changed to Richmond but I did not find out until the tube ride in from the airport and my mates were already in Covent Garden - spanner number one. Spanner number two was the next call I received. Rach had been taken by ambulance to the hospital as she had lost the feeling in her leg from the flight from NZ. So our planned day of getting drunk was spent waiting in A&E for the best part of the day only to find out that they did not know what had caused the lose of feeling in Rach's leg. Rach being a nurse along with the general feeling lead us to believe it was solely due to her not moving around or drinking water on her flight over. Our next concern was the multitude of flights she had planned for the next three weeks.

We were booked onto the Eurostar for 06:00 the following morning, which meant Rach didn't get much time to unwind from her flight. Thankfully, we were able to snooze on the journey. Our plan was to see the major sights and than catch the last Eurostar back to London. Rach has been to Paris before but it was my first time there, and I hope it won't be my last. It is a beautiful city. There is so much art and the streets are so wide that you don't feel crowded even with all the tourists. The plan of seeing the main sights of Paris in a day showed its flaws fairly early.

We wanted to see; Notre Dame, The Louvre, The Arc de Triomphe, The Champs-Elysees, The Eiffel Tower, Museum d'Orsay, walk along the Seine, and generally experience the city. I have to saw that we did see all of these but did not go into either museums or up the Eiffel Tower. The reason for not going into places was to do with our lack of time and the size of some of the queues. We decided that there was no point rushing something that could take all day and therefore put ourselves under pressure and not enjoy things.

Everything was spectacularly beautiful. Paris is definitely one of my favourite cities. It is interesting that Buenos Aires is called the Paris of Latin America. Having seen both cities I can see the similarities between them but the feel of each city if totally different. To use a metaphor, Paris is a fine old wine, full of character and depth but just a little aloof. Whereas BA is more of a classical cocktail, it has some fine distinguished spirit in it but also has a spice and a fun vibe. Both are thoroughly enjoyable but one is more edgy than the other.

After we went up to the top of the Arc de Triomphe and took in all the beautiful views we decided to have an al fresco picnic by the Eiffel Tower.So began our treasure hunt for bread, cheese, and wine. The hunt for plastic glasses and a bottle opener was a little more challenging. We had our picnic in the sight of the Eiffel Tower by some large well known building and fountains both of which I can not remember the names of.

Once we had our fill of fine wine, bread and cheese we strolled down to the Eiffel Tower and took some snaps. Neither of us were bothered to go up as the views from the Arc de Triomphe were brilliant and there wouldn't be that much more to see from the tower. Plus the queues' were huge. So we had a nice kiss under the tower and chilled out under a tree. Unfortunately, we chilled out for a little too long and ended up missing the last train home!

Although we got to the terminal before the departure time the train had left as the immigration people stop 10 minutes before the train leaves so basically the train can leave once everyone has cleared immigration. And this time everyone was on the train straight after immigration so the train left early. One of the guys at the station was decent enough to stamp our tickets so that we could travel on the next train in the morning. We had booked the cheapo "no changes allowed" type of tickets and they would have been within their rights to make us buy another return ticket. Thankfully, they were cool about it and just stamped them.

At this stage it was about 20:00 and we had to figure out where to stay and all the tourists offices were closed. This was the one time I was truly glad I had a Lonely Planet guide. After a couple of stressful calls we found a place with two beds left in a shared dorm. The hostel would not hold the rooms for us so we had to race over in the hope that no one else had taken them. You can imagine the levels of stress at this point. But we were great, no raised voices, no anger, we were cool - a couple of travellers on an adventure.

When we got to our hostel, Peace & Love, we checked in at the reception which was in fact the bar. It was nice to get checked in and relax a bit. Obviously we did not have anything with us for an over night stay. Thankfully, the hostel gave us extra sheets which we used as towels and somebody left their body wash in the shower.We ended up in some local pizza joint and had a couple of well earned beers. Neither of us were feeling up to a night on the town, so we had an early night.

The next day we put back on our "I walked around for 10 hours in the sun" clothes and headed for the train station. When we got back into London we had to get ready for our next journey onto Bratislava in Slovakia later that day. So, a bit rushed and tired we headed for the airport.

Next stop, Downtown Backpackers. Em