I have to make an apology to you few friends who actually read my blog. I had the "wonderful" opportunity of reading through a couple of my blog posts recently and.... how do I say this? They were a little boring... okay a lot boring, so I've decided to just write about the highlights. Hopefully this will be a little bit more interesting, even though I know you guys just love hearing about my trips to the ATM.
So now our awkward little chat is over I can move on to our next destination: Beauvis/ Paris.
Wow.
Just... wow.
I've never been to a more surreal place. Every head turn and you are looking at the next famous monument. Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triumph (funny story coming about this), the Louvre, Love Lock Bridge and Notre Dame just to name a few. We actually didn't stay in Paris itself but rather Beauvais which is a city a hour out of Paris. Our host in Beauvais definitely counts as one of the highlights of our trip. Agnes is this wonderful french lady who we stayed with via AirBnb and she was almost motherly. She picked us up from the airport, drove us to the train station and even came into the train station with us to determine how to get tickets and help us communicate (Amelia's high school French failed us a little). She washed our clothes and made us breakfast and suggested good tips for our journeys into Paris. We were thoroughly spoiled.
One our first day in Paris we started with another Sandeman's tour. These have been so helpful in orienting us around the cities we've attended. On this tour we met some other young people, one Brisbane girl and two Brazilian guys whom we "bonded' with. Bonded means we stood in the pouring rain together listening to our tour guide and ran around the streets of Paris to find a cafe that was open on a Sunday, wasn't too expensive and had a table free. We ended up losing our Brazilian friends in the end as they wanted to go to the museum but for anyone who was concerned we found a crepe place.
The tour started at Saint Michel's Fountaine and toured near Notre Dame, across Love Locked Bridge, the Louvre (which is enormous), through Catherine Medici's garden and finished with a view of the Eiffel Tower. As I mentioned before it rained the entire time and by the time it was finished we were soaked and cold, but we were in Paris!
In the afternoon we wandered over to the Arc de Triumphe and saw the Eternal Flame! As I promised there was a story that that made us Australians giggle when the tour guide told us it. Apparently the eternal flame has burned steadily since the initial lighting apart from two occasions. The second and most recent time included some Aussie blokes. These two wonderful representatives of Australia had a little too much to drink and decided to have a BBQ over the Eternal Flame. Unfortunately for the lads one of the sausages fell off their sticks and onto the Eternal Flame which promptly extinguished it. The French weren't too excited about this as they quickly deported the boys back to Australia and banished them from the European union for the rest of their life. Turns out the French government can't actually ban anyone from the ENTIRE European union but the lads did get banned from France for five years.
Love lock bridge
After gawking at the incredible structure the Arc de Triumphe is we decided to wander over to the Eiffel Tower for a peek before we took the long journey back to Beauvais. Pizza in France completed our day.
Day two: The wait.
The next day we headed back to Paris, forgoing our plans to go to Monet's garden as it would take us 3hrs each way. So we decided to climb the Eiffel Tower instead! Which really consisted of waiting in lines for about 2 hours. But in other proud moments I managed to bump my head on the Eiffel Tower. I've always had a problem with my height. Just kidding, but I really did smack my head on the Eiffel Tower and it hurt. Wouldn't suggest it as a tourist attraction.
View from the top
We also saw a proposal at the top! It was super cute but then we were just awkwardly staring at this couple not really knowing what to do...so we left.
After the Eiffel Tower we wandered over to Notre Dame to have a looksie. There was also a massive line to look inside but we contented ourselves with admiring the outside and eating our typical icecream. 
Amelia was a little distracted
After sitting in a park listening to to live school band music we headed back over the Seine to visit Shakespeare and Co. which (surprise surprise) had a massive line. So we looked on the outside and then headed home.
When we arrived back in Beauvais we asked our host to drop us off at a French restraunt as Amelia really wanted to try some Escargot. We found a French restraunt that was open and sat down to eat. Unfortunately for me the menu was completely in French and the waitress didn't understand much English so I decided to go for a safe choice and chose the option that sounded like salad. Out came our meals and Amelia has the escargot in sauce and I have this interesting looking salad with mystery meat on it. The meat looks a bit like corned beef but it is not, nonetheless I eat it and we move on to desert congratulating Amelia on finishing her snails. We finish up our meal by awkwardly thanking the waitress in our dodgy French phrases and head out to explore. We then come across this:
So interestingly Beauvais has this massive cathedral! And it is beautiful, one of the most beautiful buildings I've ever seen! Incredible.
The next day we head back into Paris with our bags saying goodbye to our wonderful hosts. We find our train station and we are sitting there perusing Facebook when a comment on Amelia's snail eating pictures comes up. It suggests we try this other French food. We look it up and it's horse meat. We then look up pictures of what it looks like and my mystery meat from the night before no longer was mystery. I was horrified to find out that I are raw horse meat and sat there in the train station shaking my head for about 10 minutes.
I'm still horrified.
However, the bonus is that they saying: "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse," takes on all new meanings for me now.
Au revoir mon ami!
Erin, I need to let you know that I have not, in the least, been bored by your blog entries. They are fabulous and have given me several laugh out loud moments. Honey, you are witty!
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