Paris je t'aime

We finally met with our Contiki group last night, and it felt like going to summer camp. Everyone is shy at first, but by the end, we've all made good friends. It looks like Contiki isn't as popular in Canada as we originally thought because in a tour group of 52 people, there were only 6 Canadians, and surprise! we were the token Asians! The only other Asians was a couple from South Africa (wicked accents!) It's a good thing we got our rice fix the day before because we wouldn't see Asian food again for a loooong time.

We woke up early that day to catch a ferry at Dover, home of the famous White Cliffs and an old castle. Thinking we had more than enough time to take pictures of the White Cliffs, Tracie and I got excited trying on perfumes in the Duty Free shop of the ferry to France. Unfortunately, by the time we dragged ourselves out of the shop to check out the White Cliffs, there was so much fog, all we saw were seagulls. *sigh*

All was not lost! I did get a blurry picture of the Canadian monument Vimy Ridge as we were passing by. Our Tour Manager told us the story of how the Canadians troops were able to capture it in 3 days when the American and British troops had been trying for 3 years. Go Canada!

When we packed for this trip, we assumed it would be super warm so all we brought were shorts and capris. How wrong we were. Whereever we've gone, there has been dark clouds and thundershowers. We were actually freezing at some points :(

But that didn't take away our enjoyment of Paris! Contiki took us on a night bus tour of the city and it was absolutely gorgeous! I think that's when we both fell in love with the city. The Eiffel Tower looked amazing with all the thunder clouds around it and our crazy ride around the Arc de Triomph was exciting. But the real fun was the next day.

After going up the Eiffel Tower, we walked down the Champs Elysees singing.... "Ohhh, Champs Elysees, da da dadada" (I don't know the rest of the words) and did everything a Parisian would do. We sat on a sidewalk cafe on the Champs Elysees and had a cafe au lait. I was blown away! Food and drink are soooo much better here and I can't explain it. We kinda got confused on the bill though and forgot to tip, so there's probably a French waiter shaking his fist at us yelling "stupide Americans!"

The highlight of the day was spent shopping on the Champs Elysees. I noticed that the part that excites us most in any city is the shopping part :) We must've walked up and down that thing for 3 hours. At one point, we figured we should do real touristy stuff like go to the Louvre. I'm really ashamed to admit this, but by the time we got there, the ticket window closed just two people ahead of us and we never got to go in. Sooooo, we never got to see the Mona Lisa because we were too busy shopping :( (astute readers will notice that this will be a theme on our trip). So instead, I bought a postcard of the Mona Lisa (its ALMOST the same) and we ran around trying to see the Notre Dame, Place de la Concorde, etc before they all closed.

That night we were supposed to meet the rest of our tour group in front of the Moulin Rouge so that we could watch a Cabaret show. Once again, we got lost and ended up in a really shady part of town full of XXX shops. But we found it eventually and saw a cabaret called "Paris, Je t'aime". The show was awesome, with acrobats, comedic acts, jugglers, annnnnd .... topless dancing ladies. I don't think I've ever seen so many breasts in one room. To be fair, the boobs were all tastefully displayed AND the male performers were topless as well, but not as much :(

Joan