The trend of crap weather continued he we arrived in Paris, and, for the first time in a long time, it was cold! Andrew met us at Gare du Nord train station, so we wouldn't get lost getting to his place (not that we would have anyways), and after a couple metro trains, we were perched up at his apartment.
Sly knew of this authentic French restaurant in town - good food and cheap-ish. Awesome place, they scribble your order on the table top and work the bill out from that. Pretty impressive, as the writing is nearly illegible! We hit that up for dinner, then hit up one of Sly's old locals - awesome little pub/bar with massive pints.
Bastille's day, France's national day, was the next morning. We had intended on getting down and watching the procession, but that took a definite backseat when we woke up the next morning. Ended up watching some of it on tv. By lunch time, we thought we shud stop being lazy shits and do something, so we went for a bike round the town during day time and then had a good perch in the Luxembourg Gardens.
We boosted outta the station, jumped on some bikes and boosted towards town. A puncture to my tyre juted us getting anywhere close to a good view. Nightmare! We ended up just metro'n to the champs élysées for the festivities - luckily, we managed to catch the end of the fireworks. The rest of the night turned out pretty messy - we met up with a few of Sly's friends and headed out in Grand Boulevardes.
The Eiffel Tower, built in 1889, stands around 300m high. If you plan on getting the elevator to the top, you need to line up way before they open, otherwise deal with a 2+ hour long wait... We found out the hard way. The way better option (that we took) is to climb up to the second level and take the elevator from there. We only waited about half hour, but got to climb up around 500 sweet stairs - apparently the equivalent of 43 floors. It actually wasn't that bad, so if you plan on going up the tower, stop being a fatty and climb the stairs... or get up early... It's pretty chilly up top, but the views from there are awesome! I can see why people propose up there. I didn't see any proposals when I was up the tower, but gutted bout that. Also, didn't receive any proposals... Haha.
Another site worth getting up early for are the catacombs. If you don't get there well before the opening time, you will wait over 2 hours. Asty was feeling bit under the weather, so I headed out solo dolo. I got there round 10:10am, 10 mins after they opened and waited in line for one and a half hours and made it halfway down the queue to the door. Time wasn't on my side tho, as I had to get back to to catch the train back to London, so after 2 hours had to call it quits. Guts.
Sly knew of this authentic French restaurant in town - good food and cheap-ish. Awesome place, they scribble your order on the table top and work the bill out from that. Pretty impressive, as the writing is nearly illegible! We hit that up for dinner, then hit up one of Sly's old locals - awesome little pub/bar with massive pints.
Paris has these rental bikes scattered across the city, where you pay €1.70 for 24 hours and you can pick up a bike from any station, ride it round for half hour, then drop it back at any other station. Awesome system, more cities should implement it. We ended up using these pretty often. Anyways, after a few beers, we jumped on the bikes and went on a bit of a biking mission through Paris - was pretty buzzy biking through Paris at 2 in the morning, especially with sly leading us out in front of cars!
At 11pm there was going to be a epic fireworks display at the Eiffel tower. We left with a decent amount of time in hand, but didn't factor in the jumper on the metro line, so that threw a spanner in the works.
We boosted outta the station, jumped on some bikes and boosted towards town. A puncture to my tyre juted us getting anywhere close to a good view. Nightmare! We ended up just metro'n to the champs élysées for the festivities - luckily, we managed to catch the end of the fireworks. The rest of the night turned out pretty messy - we met up with a few of Sly's friends and headed out in Grand Boulevardes.
Sly is signed up to some car rental scheme where he gets car rental for €9 an hour, with no fuel or mileage charges. The only catch is you have to specify how long you will hav it for, and if you run over time, you get stung. We decided that we'd grab a car and head out to check out a Chateau outside of Paris. The chateau (Fontainebleau) was awesome - epic buildings and gardens. We didn't end up headin out til mid-afternoon, due to the festivities of the night before, but it was still worth the trip out there.
The Eiffel Tower, built in 1889, stands around 300m high. If you plan on getting the elevator to the top, you need to line up way before they open, otherwise deal with a 2+ hour long wait... We found out the hard way. The way better option (that we took) is to climb up to the second level and take the elevator from there. We only waited about half hour, but got to climb up around 500 sweet stairs - apparently the equivalent of 43 floors. It actually wasn't that bad, so if you plan on going up the tower, stop being a fatty and climb the stairs... or get up early... It's pretty chilly up top, but the views from there are awesome! I can see why people propose up there. I didn't see any proposals when I was up the tower, but gutted bout that. Also, didn't receive any proposals... Haha. 
Another site worth getting up early for are the catacombs. If you don't get there well before the opening time, you will wait over 2 hours. Asty was feeling bit under the weather, so I headed out solo dolo. I got there round 10:10am, 10 mins after they opened and waited in line for one and a half hours and made it halfway down the queue to the door. Time wasn't on my side tho, as I had to get back to to catch the train back to London, so after 2 hours had to call it quits. Guts.
And so with that concludes 4 and a half EPIC months on tour. Pretty mixed emotions about it. gutted to be at the end of it, but looking forward to set up in London.
I'm back in London now... Back to the real world... If anyone knows of any jobs, let me know, I'm down. Prob should go on a massive detox to sort out the last 4 and half months, but we'll see how that goes... Olympics and all... haha
I'm back in London now... Back to the real world... If anyone knows of any jobs, let me know, I'm down. Prob should go on a massive detox to sort out the last 4 and half months, but we'll see how that goes... Olympics and all... haha
I guess this will be the last blog for a while... but i'll still post the odd thing about london and any random trips that happen.
