Been a few days since our last diary entry. Haven't been too thrilled with developments. In Paris, city of love and where every pretentious 'bohemian' wanna-be-writer/artist with a B.A wants to spend extended time to write a book or paint. Seems like the whole city is bursting with flawlessly groomed people in designer clothing paying exorbitant prices dining at the million or so sidewalk cafes and restaurants.....baaaah, would love to instantly relocate these people to camps in the Sudan or Congo.

Yesterday, we spent the day getting our heads around the workings of the Metro light rail system. We started the morning by walking to the Gare (main railway) du Montarpasse, thinking that if we try and organise our seat reservations as soon as we arrive in a city or town, we won't have future problems. Instead we are told that all Eurail Pass allocations have been exhausted for the train from Paris to Carcassone, so we will have to buy tickets, only available in 2nd class(which is not the issue, even though we have 1st class Eurail Passes). 2nd class still ends up costing us $124 euros, $160 Australian. Look.... the Eurail Guide did say we might have to make advance reservations for high demand International trains, but this was an inter-France booking and we are travelling coming into winter, not exactly European peak travel time. When Jesse travelled on the same pass, he apparently made his reservations the day before travelling. It seems that the main issue here is that Eurail haven't negotiated enough seat allocations with the respective railways, particularly TGV and Thalys. THERE ARE EMPTY SEATS BUT NOT FOR EURAIL PASS HOLDERS. Anyway, all this has left a really bad taste in my mouth and I am now worried about the seat reservations for the other 25+ Eurail destinations we are going to.

OK, yesterday we went to Eiffel Tower, as you do when in Paris....stunning from the base and a great 360 degree view of Paris from 1st, 2nd levels and the summit. The summit actually turns out to be anti-climactic, with the much greater height not really generating the wow response we were anticipating after spending 90 mins queuing for the lift from the 2nd level....(collectively, we spent around 4 hours in queues, but I guess that this is one of the most popular tourist sites in the world). The highlight ends up being crossing one of the adjacent bridges over the Seine and sitting on some of the steps at the Palais de Challot and viewing the Eiffel through an array of fountains throughout the transition from twilight to darkness, accompanied by the traditional Eiffel dusk light show.

Afterwards, we catch the metro back to Vavin metro stop, near our hotel, stop for a drink in an alluring pub and check in for the night.

Day 3 in Paris and we are out walking the Parisian rues and boulevards from morning to evening: Notre Dame, Pantheon, St Germaine etc etc, 'connecting' with Paris in a more relaxed and much less cynical way than the 1st two days and taking essential stops along key vantage points to recharge and watch Paris life go by.