After taking the tiny rickety lift to my room in Paris, I was excited to be staying in building which I guess was probably a couple of hundred years old. Why did I think this? The ceiling had crooked beams which look like and optical illusion in the photos, but they really were that crooked…and the doorway was so very low. I loved the black and white wallpaper, bright green paint and purple curtains. And turns out I was sleeping, not only in the same room, but in the same bed as Hayley did when she stayed here.

So many things to do in Paris, where do I begin? As I only had two full days I decided a walking tour was a good place to start. I'm not going to quote facts and figures for two reasons, firstly because I've forgotten most of them and secondly I don't want to bore you to death. Thinking back it would have been good to have written down some of the things our guide told us as they were really interesting...but that would have looked a little nerdy I guess.

Our guide Luke, was an American who now lives in Paris, he had a great sense of humour and talked about the "short guy, with one arm longer than the other and a bad case of indigestion" (Napoleon) and his (and many others) influence on Paris. We were to have walked to Notre Dame to begin our journey but the police had cordoned off the area and no amount of talking and arm waving between Luke and the Policie (French police) was going to get us through. We found out they were transporting prisoners through the city. (I remembered seeing a police van with bars in the windows and sirens blaring about half and hour earlier, before the area was sealed, and thinking, that looks likes prisoners in there...perhaps one of them had actually escaped.)

Luke pointed out the Police headquarters just across the road and told us the Nazis set up headquarters there during WWII. There are bullet holes on the facade still today, but not from a battle (apparently the fighting didn't make it into Paris itself) but from a group of drunken youths with bad aim, firing on the building. They didn't manage to kill any Nazis and only broke one window.

We wandered along the Seine River, admired the Pont Nerf (which means New Bridge, even though it's the oldest bridge in Paris), until we stood front of the home of The Immortals. It is the life tenure of The Immortals to keep France's enemy, the English language, out of the French language. While they weren't able to replace 'weekend', the French still say "Bonne weekend" at the end of the work week, they did manage to successfully replace the word 'computer' with 'ordinateur'. They are also charged with updating the French dictionary but haven't produced a new version since 1942.

We crossed the first iron bridge in Paris (Pont Des Art), where artists paint and musicians play, to Le Louvre. I had no idea it was so big. Luke told us if you were to walk past every piece of artwork you would walk twelve kilometres and if you spent just thirty seconds looking at each piece it would take you four months to see them all. I totally agree with most Parisians that the glass pyramids (which were completed in 1989) are an eyesore and totally detract from the majesty of this grand building. He also pointed out orange dots on some of the windows around the Louvre, these are to indicate to the fire department which windows don't have important exhibitions behind them, if they ever need to break into the building.

It was then time for lunch. Luke took us to a small cafe where I ordered my first baguette, a dry sausage (like salami), walnut (actual walnuts not a paste) and salad, well two tiny cos lettuce leaves. It was really quite delicious.

After our lunch break we walked past the Palais Royale (Napoleon and Josephine's former home) and on to Le Jardin de Tuileres (Tuileres Gardens), where I got my first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower. At the end of these very beautiful gardens is the Oblisk of Luxor and the beginning of the Champs Elysees where we began our walk towards the Arc de Triumphe. Fom the Oblisk a left turn took us to the Grand Palais (Big Palace) and the Petit Palais (Small Palace) where our tour ended four hours after it began.

I decided, as I was this close, to continue along the Champs Elysees to Napoleon's Arc de Triumphe. Knowing he wouldn't get to see it completed, Napoleon had a wooden replica constructed so he could march triumphantly through it, then had it burnt down. After all the previous walking I'd done there was no way I was going to walk up the 284 stairs to the top so I cheated and took the elevator, though I was a little demoralised that it had a wheelchair sign on it.

The view from the top was amazing; I could see all the boulevards which radiate from this central point. Luke told us was that originally the roundabout around the Arc de Triumphe had nine lanes of traffic but because some cars became stuck in the inside lane and caused accidents trying to get out, it was decided to do away with lanes all together. Now the cars weave in and out at random and on average an accident happens every thirty minutes. If you're involved in an accident on the Arc de Triumphe roundabout and it's named in the police report, your insurance is invalided.

I had my first full view of Paris' most famous landmark, the Eiffel Tower and many other Parisian landmarks. In every direction and as far as the eye could see there was city, old and new buildings mingling with each other. I really was in Paris.

It was back to my Parisian home via the Metro, which I'm really enjoying that now I've mastered it. You just can't go wrong once you know which line you need to be on and where you want to get off. I'm thinking of having a t-shirt with "I ♥ le Metro" printed on it...but it's probably already been done.

To continue with eating local foods, I decided to have a crepe (what could be more French) in a creperie across the road from the hostel. Here I encountered my first unfriendly Frenchman. In my best French I asked could he assist me to order a crepe. With a very dour-looking face he told me the fillings I could have and that I could also have a meal deal which included a sweet (but no more than €2) and a drink. Thankfully another smiling little Frenchman cooked my cheese, chicken and mushroom crepe or who knows what the sour one would have done to it. I only managed to eat half of it so wrapped it up for dinner tomorrow night and saved the almond biscuit for my travels tomorrow. As I left the sour one asked me if I'd enjoyed it, I answered with a big smile that yes I had but it was far too much, he laughed and bid me "Au revoir".