Paris

Buonsoir, mon ami!

Wow... I haven't seen enough of it yet, but Paris is the most beautiful city I've come across in our travels. As usual, we didn't quite organise ourselves well enough, and actually arrived at Gare de
Lyon station with no accommodation booked. First mistake! Actually,  it wasn't... We have discovered that although train travel through Europe can be cheap, it almost never is if you book it a couple of days before travel. So, about $700 to travel from Budapest to Paris for the 4 of us. Oh well... You live and learn.

I've given up on trying to keep the blog in chronological order, as I've realised I'm too slack to post every day... Notwithstanding the flakey Internet we've had from time to time.

We arrived in Paris with no fixed plans, then proceeded to wander the streets with luggage in tow for about 2 hours, with no Internet access to book somewhere to stay... Thank god we found a friendly receptionist at a hotel who, although she couldn't give us a room, agreed to look one up for us on the internet and book it over the phone. We trudged through the 5th district until we found the place in question, and checked into our 2 bedroom apartment, for the princely sum of €314 (abt $400 a night)
It was ok,and the neighbourhood was cool... Rue Mouffetard was a very funky street with heaps of restaurants and action, but the room wasn't quite right. We talked them down to €250 when we realised we wouldn't be able to find somewhere for the next night, but eventually found a funky apartment on the Boulevarde of Saint Germain, from which I write this post. Thank god! Part of the reason we found ourselves in this dilemma is the antiquated system thatVodafone UK use for recharging PAYG phones... If you don't have a UK credit card,forget it. While you're in the UK, no probs... Go down to a shop and recharge with cash, but otherwise ... Bad luck. Doesn't seem like a very sensible system from a commercial point of view... Let's see, we want money, but we'll make it really difficult for people to give it to us... Someone please sack the finance department of Vodafone UK!
Anyway, in France it's almost as much fun!
I went to SFR (mobile carrier) who told me it would take 5 days to activate mobile data, as I'm a foreigner. Hmmm... Walked next door to Bouygues, who did it in 10 minutes... Ummmm... Yeah, ok. Good luck with that business model too. To be fair,the guy from SFR did suggest I walk down the street and ask another company!

So... Now we are here for at least a week, I plan to update the blog. Watch this space.

Much love from gay Parise...!

Steve