PARIS - Day 1 Attack of the Cabbage Smelling People

Well arrive via the Eurostar – what a amazing train within 30 minutes of leaving the station in London we were in France … We are some nice seats too with some food included all very posh …

We arrive in France but unfortunately our Transfer car was not booked in properly so they said they couldn’t pick us up. Alan had looked at trusty old Google Maps and found out where the hotel was and said we would be able to catch the Metro train to the hotel.

And so it begins …

We ended up walking about half a click to the other train station that we had to catch. On really bad side walks or what you would loosely call sidewalks, dodging shady looking characters, then end up at the train station and try and get our bags through the narrowest turnstiles in history. Make it on board the train and finally find a train that is not full to the brim with other passengers.

We were on our way to the hotel or so we thought …

Alan will pick up some of this story for accuracy…

Yo, The-A here.

We finally make the ‘destination’, Point Dauphine station.  But about 20 minutes after breaching the surface once again we realise we’re well and truly lost until a wonderful French Samaritan offers help from his Mazda 6; we’re a good 15 mins from ‘where’ we ‘should’ be.

Thank you, Google-Maps.

The ensuing trek through the beautiful brick-road back streets of Paris’s 16^th ‘Arrondissement’ was a nice, unanticipated, site-seeing tour until we finally made the Plaza Tour Eiffel, where it all changed.  Our hotel for the next 4 nights was a stunner especially compared to Cramptopia of our London stint.

After the two VERY helpful concierge gents got us settled, we made ourselves at home in the top-floor, Eiffel Tower-views, room. Bliss.

Now we were excited.  Things were looking up.  It was early on a Saturday eve in Paris. The night was calling. So we headed out.

The luxury of hindsight is a wonderful thing…

After trekking the short distance to Trocadero we spied the sparkling wonder that is the Tower at night. 

Stunning. 

Though the wind lashed at us like an angry, drunk, pimp beating his two disobedient whores with ice-whips, until our flesh yearned for a naked flame, it was magical.

Thus, still fuelled by the moment, we sucked it up and ventured forth – further under the steel behemoth then decided we needed a feed.

Many, many, blocks later we finally decided on a quaint looking site were the outside menu was also in English.

This wasn’t the case inside. So we did a mini-MacGyver and chose what we wanted from a photo of said outside display.

With great surprise, it was out in about five, maybe 10 mins, and was delicious. Particularly the moans emanating from Nesh suggested such.

And things were chipper. Two lagers and two wines each on the go with a good feed. The Boys were cheering.  And then ‘it’ happened.

Just after ordering desserts… well, let’s just say… Nesh decided to donate his phone to the local gypsy-cause. Involuntarily, of course.

Yep. Three young youths, seemingly not washed since the last time I knew the touch of a woman, came up to us placing a piece of paper on the table with some illegible scrawl upon it. Instantly, the waiter leapt at them and started herding them out, not without a course in unpleasant French, I’m sure.

Moments later, the manager approached us wondering if we were cool – we nodded, not too fussed; thinking they were just beggars, but alas, we were true naïve tourists. A statistic.

Nesh’s phone was gone. The new sexy iPhone 4G has done a Houdini. All it took was 12 seconds.

There isn’t an application for that.

Therefore, it doesn’t take long to do the math; we were pissed. The night, place, and potential holiday was seemingly ruined.

Yay.

The rest of the Parisian session had up and downs, but did end up being another Top Deck adventure in awesomeness.  Bring on Toulouse!

Back to the Sharmdawg.

Yes as Al has mentioned we did have some moments of elation but not all … Grrrr damn gypsy benevolent fund.