Gay Paris

1st October

• Our French breakfast friends had gone so we had petit dejeuner with a German/Indonesian couple. Everyone in Europe speaks multiple language, the Indonesian woman was a German citizen and spoke German, Indonesian, English and French! Unbelievable.
• We drove the car back to Dijon, which was much closer than going back to Lyon. I performed a set of musical hits along the way, the most popular of which was definitely I Will Survive. The audience (ie: Ben) was most impressed.
• Our GPS, which had been such a good friend to us throughout our French travels, failed us at this final hurdle. Coming into the Dijon train station we wanted to fill up the tank. Our GPS told us 5 petrol stations... 4 of which didn't exist!! Finally found one but it wasn't staffed with human beings, just credit card machines, and it refused to take my credit card (and, as regular readers will no doubt recall, Ben's credit card was eaten by a machine in Rome!). We finally gave up and went back to the train station, which was being renovated, so we couldn't go into the normal carpark. We eventually found the Avis shop, but we arrived at 1:05pm and they had gone to lunch until half past! We couldn't even get into their carpark, we could only sit in the taxi zone and get yelled at by French cab drivers. Stressful. We got into the carpark when the Avis woman came back and handed over the keys with pleasure. When they charged us for the petrol we ended up paying $400/day (for 3 days).
• Bought train tickets to Paris. Train was leaving in 15 mins. Thought it was Platform 1, but there was no Platform 1. Turns out it was Platform I.
• Arrived Paris. At a hotel in a great spot, in the St Germain district, but there was a demolition job going on outside our window! I kid you not. From 9am til 6pm. Jackhammers on concrete. And the heating in the room wouldn't turn off.
• We had some crepes (naturally) and went to meet my friend EH and her boy R, who had just moved to Paris to study at the Sorbonne. Speaking of annoying people who speak numerous languages, EH speaks 5 (English, French, Portuguese, Spanish and Mandarin) and R speaks at least 3 (maybe more, we didn't ask!). Hung out in a cool Parisian jazz bar. Felt uber urbane.

2nd October

"How many nutella crepes can a man eat in a day?" This quest underpinned our final day in Paris and the last day of our European Honeymoon. Ben did find out the answer.

• The cafe we went to for breakfast charged €5.50 for a coffee!! That's $8! And it wasn't spectacular coffee either. Ben's order of a crepe was actually 2 crepes. So 2 so far.
• Went to Gard du Nord to buy Eurostar tickets. Eurostar in chaos. After a fire a fortnight earlier and a train stopping in the tunnel a week later all their services were disrupted. Huge queues. When we finally got to buy our tickets we couldn't get the time we wanted and it cost twice as much as we had expected. Crap. Another early morning tomorrow then.
• We were tired but couldn't nap at the hotel because of the construction!
• Ben had another crepe after lunch. 3.
• We walked around the island in the Seine. I sat down and read the paper while Ben went to Notre Dame, I was a little over old churches! I just wanted to relax.
• Ben had another nutella crepe. 4.
• We hoped the demolition work would have stopped by 5pm. It hadn't. By 5:40 we gave up trying to relax at the hotel and went to get a beer.
• After dinner (with a very grumpy Italian waitress) Ben had another crepe. 5. He felt ill, but the answer to the day's question is 5.