Today I had the most enjoyable day of my stay in France…I left Paris. I really wanted to see some of the French countryside and as I hadn't done my CouchSurf in the Loire Valley I decided to jump on a train and head out. My tour organiser (Hayley) had suggested Giverny, the village where Claude Monet lived and painted. The seventy five kilometre trip to the town of Vernon took forty five minutes by train and once we were out of the city and in the country the scenery was picturesque, little villages here and there, farmlands…just beautiful.

Once in Vernon I hired a bike to cycle the five kilometres to Giverny and it was just wonderful. For a start, to be able to ride without a helmet was so good. Once I had crossed the Seine River and was through the town area (mind you I pushed the bike along the footpath, there was no way I was putting my life in the hands of the crazy French drivers by using the road) there was a pedestrian/cycle lane which ran behind the last row of houses and thankfully there wasn't a hill to be seen. It was so peaceful riding along, nodding and "Bonjour"ing the people I came across, mind you I'm sure the locals thought "bloody tourist". In no time at all I arrived at my destination, the pretty little village of Giverny.

A quaint little cafe caught my eye not long after I arrived and I thought I'd like to come back there for lunch so I checked out the prices…it was a little expensive so I decided to think about it as I rode around. It's not a very big village so after about an hour I'd covered most of the little streets and lanes. I was in a dilemma, should I go into the Monet Museum or go to the cafe for lunch? I guess it would have been good to say I'd seen some of Monet's work and the house he lived in, but it would have only been for the "bragging rights" as I didn't come to Giverny particularly because I'm a big fan of Monet or any artist for that manner, I'd come to check out the French countryside.

So I decided the cafe was a better way to spend my money and I'm glad I did. I ate al fresco on a gravel floor under some lovely trees. To my left was a beautiful view of the hills with trees coloured a variety of autumn tones and to my right was the main building of the cafe, a pretty apricot/pink colour. I ordered a Salad of the Sun and a glass of Bordeaux, total cost €18 ($36) but it was worth every cent, I was doing just exactly what I wanted to do in France, eating in a little cafe in the countryside. The salad consisted of fresh tomatoes, boconccini (mini mozarella cheese), sun-dried tomatoes, artichoke, zucchini, eggplant, ham (but not like ham as we know it, more like a proscuito) and parmesan cheese with, of course, olive oil drizzled over the top and the obligatory baguette…I was in heaven. The only thing that spoilt it for me was a damn dog that appeared expecting to be feed. Obviously being a French dog it had no idea when I said "Go away" that I wanted it to leave. I tried "Allez" which I thought meant 'go'...but it stayed. It took about fifteen minutes of me ignoring it for it to get the message that I wasn't about to feed it any of my expensive lunch, and it wandered off in search of someone more generous.

I headed back along the lovely laneway to explore some of Vernon until my train back to Paris arrived at 5:32pm. I discovered a pretty little park with a tumbled down cottage to one side of it. Behind it was an area where people were teams rowing and sailing boats. I discovered that the cottage appeared to be part of a tumbled down bridge, perhaps the tollkeepers house. As I rode back around to the park a bride and groom followed by a crowd of guests were walking into the park, down to the tumbled down cottage. I thought that this was probably THE place to go in Vernon to have your wedding photos taken.

As I rode across the bridge the rear tyre began making a funny noise. I looked down and it was almost flat! I decided to avoid wrecking the tube/tyre, to push the bike back to the hire shop…I was almost back into the town so would have been walking with it anyway. Then it was onto the train and back to Paris.

When I walked into the hostel, Emile the night desk person said to a lady sitting at one of the computers in the foyer "See, here is your twin sister...you have the same father, non?". He had apparently mistaken her for me when she came in earlier and while I guess we did look a little alike I certainly couldn't see any family resemblance...but we humoured him anyway. We got talking and I found out she's from Australia…Brisbane in fact…Kangaroo Point in fact...such a small world. And guess what else...she'd been a teacher and had taught at Saint Mary's Catholic College in Kingaroy at the end of the nineties...now the world had become even smaller. We exchanged phone numbers and promised to catch up when we were both back in Brisbane, then went on to discuss the seven month trek she was in the middle of. We discovered the other guy at the desk had checked her into my room!

My other roommates had moved out and along with Helen 'my twin sister' there was a mother and daughter from Bavaria who'd arrived without luggage after an impromptu decision to come to Paris for the weekend??? While I packed for my 4:30am departure in the morning, Helen and Claudia debated whether 911 actually occurred or whether it was a cover-up for the building being demolished by explosives as it was soon to become the centre of a multi-million dollar class action because it was full of asbestos.

I also learned that amongst other things Claudia had owned a business in New York and the office was in one of the Twin Towers which she had the inexplicable urge to visit a week before 911, maybe due to the fact that she's also a clairvoyant (damn shame she didn't see what was going to happen a week later and warn everyone). She's been a journalist, a radio announcer, a pyschologist, knows people in the secret service in Germany, has a father who before he became a priest was a structural engineer and had assured her that the towers had in fact collapsed just as they would if they had been filled with explosives. This could be verified by watching a YouTube video. I was intrigued as to whether any of this could be true or whether she in fact needed pyschological help herself.

I set my alarm for 3:45am, strapped on my eyemask, stuck in my earplugs and tried to get some sleep in preparation for my big day ahead.