Day 1: London to Paris
Day 1 started of with the first of many early starts on the tour to meet the group at 6am. We had breakfast and met our first friend Maree. We got on the bus to Dover, then a (delayed) ferry to Calais where we jumped on the bus that was going to take us around Europe. We learnt a bit about Paris, had a bit of a sleep, and got into Paris at around 7pm for dinner. Of all the cities on the tour, Paris was the one I was least excited about, because I've already been there twice. Dinner was onion soup, a snail, and beef Burgundy. Then we went on a city lights tour to see all the sights in Paris lit up. That was awesome because I didn't spend much time wondering around at night in Paris.
We had an early night so we could get up in the morning, as did most of the tour (bar Toby).
Day 2: Paris
Today we had a delicious breakfast at the hostel of baguette, cheese and ham. The bus dropped us off at the Eiffel Tower and guess what? The top was closed again. One day I might get up there. Toby and I went to see Napoleons tomb and the war museum at hotel de invalides. Napoleons tomb was spectacular and over the top.
We then went on a cruise of the seine river, which was ok but took a bit too long and I almost fell asleep. We found a creperie at Musee D'Orsay where I spoke some pretty good French. I'm pretty fluent now (not really). We went into the museum, because it was free for Eu citizens under 26 and we want to make the most of that while we can. We saw some Van Gough (Starry Night, the one with the hay, the one of him, and the one that was in Doctor Who) but got bored because we don't actually like art. Then we walked over to the Louvre, to use some free wifi at the Apple store, and we got some macarons too. We walked to the nearest Sephor, and Toby didn't want to come in with me so I had a quick look around. We walked over to find our favourite creperie near Notre Dame but they didn't have any crepe batter!! There are a lot of cheap crepe places around the Latin Quarter so we found somewhere else easily enough. We headed over to Notre Dame to meet the group a little earlier than our meeting time so we looked around it again. Tried to find a public toilet, failed. A tip for Paris, if you're in a museum or anywhere that you see a toilet, use it! You don't know when you'll next get a chance.
The rest of the group turned up and we walked down to our restaurant for dinner. I had warm goats cheese salad, duck confit and creme brûlée. All were very delicious, especially the duck.
We had some beers and laughs and then got on the bus to the Cabaret! This was an optional for the tour that neither Toby or I really wanted to do, but kind of got persuaded because it was something we'd never done before. I'm so glad we went though because it was fantastic! There were topless women, but the dancing was interesting and they had a guy on a trapeze who was amazing and another guy on a unicycle which made the night so much fun, and has us gasping many times.
We went back to the hostel bar after the cabaret and had a fun night drinking and talking which ended with us leaving the bar when they had to kick us out. Got to bed at 3, and was really not feeling well.
