Goodbye England, bonjour France!

I didnt expect to be writing my blog this early but so much has happened i thought i best write it down before i forget.

I left home on monday morning with my life on my back and walked as normal to glazebrook train station. I had the feeling id forgotten something .... I had my earphones, a quick txt later and my dad pulled up launched them over the train tracks to me and the journey began. I got to picadilly station and was waiting for ian cope and noticed the colonel upstairs. It was calling me one last kfc before i went. Perfect.

I met up with copey shortly afterwards with his mum in tow. As all mums do there was the obligitory photo and we were off on the way to london. Pretty uneventful journey apart from some guy kicking copey out of the seat as he booked the window seat!

When we got to london we got the tickets for the eurostar got a quick burger king and went through security. This is when the fun began, i got stopped at security full bag search including a few swabs taken for an explosives check :S. Found out i was stopped because of a swiss army knife i had. Copey had disappeared at that point so didnt have a clue i was being searched when i told him he said i should of said "thats not a knife, this is a knife!" love it dodgy 80's film quotes already.
We then went through passport control which was very lax to say the least, boarded the eurostar and we were on our way. Before we knew it we were in france the sun was shining , we both checked our phones as we didnt believe we were in france sure enough we were.

When we hit paris gare du nord train station we walked out and copey with his inbuilt satnav managed to find the hostel. My first impressions was god the french love their shoes we must of walked past 100 shoe shops selling shoes for €10-20 and they looked better than the ones id bought back in the uk for £45.

Anyway we checks into the hostel regent montmartre, ian had booked us into a 6 bed hostel, the room was clean and so was the ensuite bathroom. Nobody else was there so we made the beds up with the sheets provided then had a quick spray of BO basher and hit the streets. As we were leaving the hostel the receptionists asked where we were from and asked us is wade a guys name or womens , they were trying to work it out. Copey said its a weird name so shouldnt let them stay! After much debate we assumed it was a bloke, too which the receptionist were like what is a bloke? We explained a man then headed out.

We walked 200 yards up the road and saw the cathedral basilique du sacre-ceur de montmartre we wander upto the top walking up several flights of stairs all i could think of was to sing the rocky theme tune! Du da duh du da duh you get the idea.

As we approached the top everyone was just sat on the stairs with a beer or a glass of wine. It was there where we got asked if we wanted to buy a bottle of hieneken from some guy wandering around. We politly refused and headed into the cathedral. Im not a religous man but this place was huge, there were people praying to each saint as we wandered round. No photos inside so sadly couldnt show you the ceiling art which was amazing. After a 10 minute wander we headed down and started our search for a bar. We stumbled across a square with some guys playing the guitar and singing. So we sat down and ordered to hienekans. They came with some olives to which both of us decided to try. Green and black olives, i wasnt a fan of the green ones but the black were bareable. We continued to chat for a bit and got the bill. Mr leah close your ears and eyes , we were both shocked 2 pints came to €15.70 we both looked at each other stumped up the cash and said lets find a cheaper bar!

We wander through a few hilly and cobbled streets till we came accross a restuarant we decided to grab something to eat. I went for the duck with spicy honey sauce. Ian had the chicken with pesto. Mine came with pasta which i ate as there was no sign of tomatos and ians came with chips. The food was good, we then nipped to the toilet only to notice the artwork on the toilet doors. The mens where, mens, Homosexuals and transexuals, the ladys was women, lesbians and one we couldnt work out, i took a picture so check it out! At this point we started to wonder if we were in the gay village. As we wandered down we walked past a drag club and thought yep thats confirmed it. we headed into another bar and looked out the window and the sauna mykonos was other road we both chatted about what was in there but we were both to scared to go see. The beer was getting cheaper now €3.20 a half , we had a 1 beer per bar policy so headed off to the next one.

We wandered past an irish bar and there was a x rated cinema to our amazment or was it blind luck? we had got to the sex district, neon signs everywhere. I quickly took a snap of the sexodrome and we wandered back up the road looking for a normal bar. It was too early in the trip for strip joints.

We stumbled accross a very busy french bar and ordered 2 lagers , the barman was throwing bottles around practising his cocktail skills, he wasnt that good and dropped a few bottles now and again but it added to the atmosphere as when he dropped them the place erupted in cheers. As we were having such a good time we broke our rule and ordered the bottom one on the menu we both couldnt pronounce it so just said the bottom one! It turned out to be leffe and we drank that pretty quickly it was then that our true britishness came out and we decided if we were paying €3.60 a half we were gonna drink the strongest stuff.

We slowly wandered back to the hostel which was closer then we thought. By the time we got in at midnight all the other people where in bed we stumbled around and then hit the sack.