Dave and Teneille's Excellent Adventure

GOD HELP THE OUTCASTS

We finally managed to explore our neighbourhood last night after the debacle of getting into our apartment. We are based in the second arrondissement and our area has quite a nightlife. There are restaurants, bars, bistros and everything in between wherever you look. You can't swing a well-groomed dog without hitting a sex shop or strip club and you can't swing a sex shop without hitting a well-groomed dog. It all seems quite trendy - we like it.

Best part of last night's exploration was the Lego shop we found. A shop just for Lego. They had giant Lego stuff everywhere. It was amazing. We ended the night by stopping at a supermarket and buying some wine and toasted sandwiches for dinner. We were buggered after the journey over so simple was good. One good thing did come from not being able to get into the apartment until late: We were so freaked out about the possibility of not getting in that we were wired on adrenalin. It meant we went to bed late and slept through to morning - no jet lag so far.

All Lego.

Our first full day in Paris dawned - well not really seeing the sun doesn't rise til almost 8am! - with some bad news from home. My grandmother had died suddenly the day before. I had a rough morning before we headed out to see the Arc de Triomphe in a bid to take my mind off things. We gave ourselves a couple of hours to walk the distance because the Arc and the Eiffel Tower are the biggest distances from our apartment at about 4.5km. Teneille was impressed with the cleanliness of the streets considering she thought them dirty the night before and I went hungry because every time we saw a boulangerie she decided she was too nervous to try and speak French to French people. We found a bar with alcohol bottles lit up in the windows. It was seriously A LOT of alcohol. Four bottles deep in some places.

Mmmm... alcohol.

We found the Arc without too much hassle because, you know, it's freaking big. There was no line to get in which was amazing so we climbed that sucker to the top - all 300 stairs up the spiral staircase. On the terrace Teneille got her first look at the Eiffel Tower and you couldn't wipe the smile from her face.

First stop... the Arc.

Wide screen lenses are awesome!

We hit the Champs Elysses after the Arc and got very excited when we found the Disney shop. We have a day at Euro Disney next week so if this shop was any indication we'll be flapping around like excited little children for the better part of a whole day. My mother will be pleased to know we took her advice and didn't buy any expensive anythings on the Champ Elysses.

Did we mention we loved the Disney shop?

The reason for heading along the Champs Elysses was we had a 2pm tour of Notre Dame we were making our way towards. This gave us our first glimpse of the Seine as well as the Louvre (which we visit tomorrow) and other assorted monuments. We found the Pont des Arts or the padlock bridge as it became known. Fun fact: All the padlocks were removed for fear the bridge might collapse under the added weight and fence panels replaced with perspex so no new padlocks could be attached. Fun fact two: People didn't give a shit about the perspex panels and began attaching padlocks to anything they could find.

The dude in the centre was the first Bishop of Paris. The legend goes he was beheaded but walked 6 miles carrying his own head... hence him carrying his own head in his sculpture at the Notre Dame entrance.

We found Notre Dame easily and commenced our tour which was quite educational and interesting. I lit a candle at the cathedral for my grandmother - she would have loved that. The only downside of the tour was this pompous man who thought he knew more than the tour guide. He definitely didn't know how to dress...

Lighting a candle for Nanny.

Fashion...

We finished our sightseeing off with a cruise along the Seine. There were two awesome things about the cruise. 1: The cloud layer had evaporated which meant we saw the whole Eiffel Tower - we only saw the bottom half atop the Arc earlier that morning. 2: Our river cruise guide was a French Andy!

Teneille with the French Andy!

We walked about 13km today so that's 18kms so far with yesterday's panicked 5km. The song title for today's post comes from the Hunchback of Notre Dame. We chose it because we spent a good chunk of the day at the cathedral but also because the song deals with the gypsies in France and today we were approached by a lot of them!

Fun on the river.

Pretty...

And finally, Teneille's observations so far:

• Public toilets have a universal smell regardless of country - except here you have to pay for the privilege of smelling it.
• Police walk around in threes. Always threes.
• There are a lot of attractive people in Paris - both genders.
• No-one faces each other while seated at cafes - all chairs face out to the street.