My French Adventure 8 Final Thoughts

On our final morning, we did what most people would do…pack and boy…we all know how stressful it can be when it comes to how much your bag weighs…I think I repacked my bag about five times that morning to make sure it was good enough for the flight…I didn’t want to pay extra but I had bought quite a few memorabilia to take home…that and I realized that I hadn’t booked a taxi to the airport so we decided to use the Metro one last time and get to the airport that way, as long as didn’t get lost in the never-ending tunnels to the platforms that is… 

It always sucks when you board your plane and go home after a good holiday because you know life will go back to normal and your next holiday could be anything from months to years away…before I met Emma, I hadn’t been abroad for seven years! Since we’ve met, we’ve been abroad six times and each time has been amazing and I know the next holiday will be as well.

I’ll miss Paris a lot, it’s a great city to explore… The Louvre, the Eiffel Tower and Arc De Triumphe were my three particular favorite places to see but in truth…all of it was wonderful, a great explore for anyone coming to France. For years, I’ve always thought about seeing Paris at least once but it never really came to anything as other destinations would come first but this year, it was finally the top one for us so we went and it was a fantastic holiday…so much better than I was hoping for and to think I could have only spent two days here if I had gone travelling around Europe by train, I would have missed so much if I had done that!

From Euro Disney which by the way is like a puppy compared to the American one…was nice actually because we got it all done a lot quicker than we did in Florida, all the way to Sacre Coeur…what a mad rush the past seven days were…so many steps walked and foods tried…snails taste like mushrooms and yes, FROG LEGS TASTE LIKE CHICKEN! one experience I’ll never forget and considering in the past few years, I’ve been to Amsterdam and Bruges as well, I wonder which Northern European destination I liked the best….Paris is right up there with them both, although I had a week in Paris so I saw more so I don’t want to be biased and say Paris is a million times better, I can only judge on what I saw in all Three places but if I had to rank them, it would be like this

1. Paris
2. Bruges
3. Amsterdam

Paris is obviously first because I saw so much more of it compared to the other two but if I had seen more of Bruges, I would actually put that on top because it has special significance to me as it’s where I proposed to my fiance with My Proposal and I really hope I get to go back soon and see what I didn’t have time to see the last time I was there. However, today…Paris was the first holiday me and Emma went on with friends and it was fun…busy, exhausting, stressful and expensive but fun and full of memories and that’s what a holiday is meant to be, to create memories that you will have for the rest of your life, ones you can annoy your kids with when they want to go to these places!

So yeah, My French Adventure was one that I’ll always remember and I would recommend a visit to this great city to anyone, go and see it…it’s worth every Euro and trust me, It’ll cost you many of them…worth it though although I have some advice for anyone who wants to go

• Don’t give money to Beggars in the streets or on the Metro, they just follow you and ask for more
• Always keep your valuables secure and don’t forget to check on them every hour
• See as much as you can!
• Bring plenty of Money
• Watch out for rats on the Metro
• Use the Metro, worth the money as you get around the city much faster 
• Be prepared to give extra Euros for Tips at cafes, restaurants etc 
• Learn some French, it’ll make life much easier 

Au Revoir and thank you Paris for being awesome…10/10 for everything! Hope I go back someday and see it all over again…minus the speeding scooters mind you! And the group of Rats on Metro platforms but apart from those two minor things…I’ll have to go up the Eiffel Tower and in the Notre-Dame next time! No matter how many times you go somewhere…there will still be something you haven’t done yet so there is always a reason to go back

Goodnight Everybody!

My French Adventure 7 Eiffel Tower At Night

Today was a nice day, we decided to get some things done that we hadn’t done before hand, such as the day before we had attempted to try and see the Pere Lachaise graveyard…no idea why at first but why not…although after yesterday…Emma wasn’t so keen because of the big hill we had climbed up as we walked around it’s walls…bless her, a holiday and I think you should go and see as much as you can…she would prefer to relax most of the time…we don’t share the same ideas when it comes to holidays…should be a good honeymoon next year!

          We ventured to a graveyard to have a look about it at Pere Lachaise, a place to have Oscar Wilde’s grave which was quite interesting to see, however…the most interesting part was the part just before we arrived. We left the Metro station and attempted to cross the rainbow road…it had many colors across it but as we did and we had the right of way here…a big man on a scooter came flying through and was about to go through a red light when he saw us, I pulled Emma back and he skidded to a halt, although he lent forward and his scooter went into the air, after a brief moment, he began to shout at us in French but we just finished crossing the road and he drove off shouting in French…we couldn’t help but help because he was being unreasonable, the light was red and he should have waited but no one was hurt and that’s all that matters.

That graveyard was peaceful yet kind of creepy at the same time, it looked like a little village really and we left after about an hour I would say, the girls were creeped out so let’s move on…I thought I’d mention it really because of the scooter incident, that and Oscar Wilde…I had no idea before I came out here that he was buried in Paris so it was really cool to see his grave and all that, an unexpected surprise really, so that’s wonderful.

We decided to venture towards the Eiffel Tower towards night time because we remembered on the first night, we saw the Eiffel Tower from the distance from the Arc De Triumphe and it looked really good so we decided to go along and view it. After dinner, we made our way to the Metro (We used it an awful lot) and when we arrived it was still daytime and making our way down the bank, we sat down and relaxed a little bit as the sun began to set and we saw in front of us, a little pool of water that had people swimming about in it and as it was quite hot, Myself and Ben decided to to go in as well
As you can imagine, it was quite cold and as we were quite tall, we pretty much just walked about the pool side as Emma and Evie relaxed on the hillside and as we ventured about, I saw many people sliding down one of the slopes into the water so since I was on holiday and had some time to kill and being dared to by the others, I gave it a go myself, not sure it was a good idea now but at the time, your like ‘I’m on holiday’

 Well, don’t I just look silly, not my proudest moment ever as I went down the slope and didn’t go into the water, I stopped before hand, much to the laughter of the group! my shorts and shirt were soaked…then again…I had been walking about in a pool so I really should have known the chances of water splashing me were very high! Anyway, it was a fun couple of hours to waste away as night time set in and before long, the Eiffel Tower would begin to light up and it was worth the wait if you ask me, it looked great, not something you see everyday so had to take advantage of that.

    Paris is such a different sight to enjoy at night compared to day, all lit up and that. One thing we noticed was how many people were trying to sell us flowers, bottles of champagne amongst other things that we didn’t want and they kept coming back every say ten minutes and we would keep saying ‘No’ each time but alas, they would always come back and try again!

Oh well, never find, The Eiffel Tower was amazing, so much that we found ourselves staying for many hours, talking and enjoy the sight, also taking many pictures as well, a holiday wouldn’t be complete without pictures of it so you can look back and remember one day!

I honestly can not remember a better time that hours have flown by at night time and I’ve had that much fun…a long time but that night I really enjoyed, it was peaceful and relaxing and in front of a well known tourist attraction that has history…what more could you want?

Only a couple of days left until we go home, I’m glad we were able to see this sight before we went back home! It’s at this stage of a holiday that it sinks in…it’s soon going to be home time…not much time left.

My French Adventure 6 – The Louvre

This morning, Me and Emma had decided to do a little something by ourselves for the morning and since we didn’t go inside either the Eiffel Tower or Notre Dame, we decided to look about the Louvre, a famous art gallery and of course we used the Metro to get there! albeit surviving a homeless person’s attempt to beg for money on the train…that was the only time I was glad I didn’t know that much French!

Me and Emma fancied looking about the world famous Louvre and yes…the one thing I wanted to see more than anything else was the Mona Lisa but as we arrived, we saw the massive queue that went all over the place, it took us ten minutes to find the correct queue…there was two of them, one for bag checks as well as people who didn’t already have a ticket and the other for those who already had tickets…we didn’t have tickets so joined the right queue and saw a 110 minute wait sign up…it was boiling hot and I had left my bottle of water at the Hotel…wonderful?!

However, after a long whine and twine around so many corners in a single file where many people tried to push in ahead of us which included a group of girls from Austria who disappeared when I wasn’t looking! a 55 minute wait which was amazing, we made it inside the building! approaching that glass pyramid was cool, especially after staring at it for so long! So much to see and the place was packed, we both knew that we were going to be exhausted after getting around it all so to save some time, I’ll just put up some pictures I took

I love this Blue!

There was a ton of stuff to see in just the Egyptian wing! I think me and Emma spent about 2 hours in here going up and down floors, going into crypts and walking down endless corridors and we were shattered just after this part when their were many more wings to see! How do people do it, you’d need half a day to see everything completely, it’s that busy in here! So let’s look at Sarcophagus’s!

We found the Greek section next and amongst other ones as well, a wide range here indeed but at this point…Emma was getting slightly bored….so uncultured! I wanted to see the Mona Lisa more than anything else though and wandered aimlessly looking for it and there was plenty of signs pointing towards it which however at first led me towards something else, something I didn’t expect to see for some reason.

Wow, that’s quite the statue collection, kept us entertained for a few minutes I’ll admit and lord help anyone who gets lost in this maze…it’d be quite easy to do so if you weren’t paying attention to any of the signs…wander about for a few minutes not paying attention and your lost! Now…where is that body from the Da Vinci Code…I saw the ending to the movie…buried at the Louvre right??? I swear I didn’t go looking for it…was just a movie…right?

Finally, after marching down the busiest corridor in the entire building, we found the Mona Lisa but I didn’t know I would have to go through a WWE Royal Rumble Match in order to get near it, the main hall which it was in was jam packed with photographers and others looking at it, the most famous painting on the planet and I was so close to it…even though it was behind bullet proof glass and heavily protected, not surprised because you see how crazy some people get as they elbow, shove and attack others to just get a good picture of the painting…I remember been shoved many times by so many people who wanted to get where I was standing, even though it took me twenty minutes to get to that spot, I wasn’t going to give it up so easily and I managed to take some pictures but I don’t think they are that good but you be the decider in that…here they are…hope at least one of them is good.

What do you think? Mind you, I had many people around me, shoving and moving me about all the time so it wasn’t easy to get as many shots as I did without getting too annoyed about it all. Eventually I met back up with Emma who was at the side of the room and we made our way back down the hallway, albeit jam packed with an army of tourists or people who couldn’t work…I saw before hand that if you were unemployed in Paris, you could see the Louvre for free somehow…something about a document you could show but anyway…I could have shown a lot more pictures but you’d be here all day, Me and Emma were glad we got to look about a Paris Attraction, unlike the Notre Dame or Eiffel Tower, we saw one of the major ones, although I think most of them are Major…Sacre Coeur was well worth the climb and the view was stunning! But I’ll remember the Louvre, it’s one of a kind if you ask me…glad I came to see it and I can see why it’s so jam packed all the time…even if the building looks like it was once someone’s mansion or something…looked really fancy and elegant…if it wasn’t a museum, it’d totally make a great place to live, bet it’d be easy to lose the bedroom though.

My French Adventure 5 So Much Climbing

Moving away from the Notre Dame, we were able to find a souvenir store and before long, we ended up both wearing…Berets! Does everyone buy these when they come to France? What can I say..I’ve always wanted to try one on…would have preferred Blue but the shop we went to didn’t have that colour…Burgundy is just fine with me!

Well we had to do some shopping at some point during our holiday and we needed something French! We always go for something unique from the place we go to and a Beret seemed perfect! Although I din’t think I wore it right for the first day…practice makes perfect! Next, we thought about where to go to next so retrieved the little book about Paris I had purchased before we came out here…I knew it would come in handy! We took a quick detour to look for a Obelisk and it was nice, a change from looking at buildings and it was next to a very refreshing fountain as well 

Very nice but no time to rest, we got the handy book back out and once again, went to the Metro and …

We found the Sacre Coeur and before we knew it, boarded a Metro train wearing our new Berets and after say ten minutes…emerged into the sunlight, man the Metro is a life saver…makes traveling around Paris so much easier! If you can stand the smell, and the rats, and the failing ticket barriers and people begging for money and broken vending machines but hey, trains every few minutes! After we got off the train, we found ourselves looking upwards and all the way, it was hills and steps and at the top was a very impressive looking building but God! So many steps to the top…although I seemed to be getting up them faster then the others in the group were as we began our climb up. Mind you we had been on our feet all day up to this point so I can understand why Emma was so tired, I’m just more used to walking than she is so I can go for much longer and as I expected, I got to the top before they did, in fact, Evie and Emma waited a floor bellow as me and Ben got drinks for the group, trust me you’ll need one after all that climbing and I have a Fit Bit…so many steps done on that day.

The view from up here is great, you can practically see most of Paris from up here! Apart from the Eiffel Tower, well I couldn’t spot it! Never mind, I think I saw the Arc Di Triumphe but I could have been wrong…great view…worth it after all of that! We stayed here for a while and soak in the view before deciding to head back down the hill…no one moaned about being tired in this direction! Back to the Metro and weirdly…when we emerged from the station once again…we managed to find this. Moulin Rouge…wow, Emma and Evie were very interested in this, although to be honest, I wasn’t that fussed…didn’t see the movie so…yeah, as long as Emma’s happy though!

So today, we had seen the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Sacre Couer and also seen the Moulin Rouge place which by the way looked so expensive! Not in a million years thank you! about 200 euros to get in I think it was…thanks but no thanks

To finish our day off, we went out for a evening meal and went to a place we had seen on one of the Metro station advertisements and as we went along a street, I saw a man walking in a very odd way. It had been a great day, full of sight seeing and a nice change to constant Disney, still had so much more to see tomorrow and a good nights sleep was needed!

More Soon!

My French Adventure 4 Let’s See Paris!

Today we awoke and as per usual, the sun was shining…you could feel the heat, I could have mistaken myself being in Tenerife rather than Paris! Today we would venture away from the land of Disney and go into the the center of the city of love which would be quite the change in some sense but at the same time, it would require just as much walking from monument to tourist site etc Emma was never one for getting up early, she would prefer a lie in, even though it’s a holiday! We had a Donald Duck Tsum on the bed as we woke up today which was cool, it looks like a Disney inspired pillow in my opinion but just look at that face, how can you not cheer up when seeing that?

As we hadn’t paid to have breakfast as we stayed here, we ventured out from our hotel to the nearest supermarket and I purchased myself a giant chocolate macaroon which was amazing! I have noticed that the French have a particular sweet tooth, bakeries and sweets all over the place, it’s awesome! Paris would be a great day out but we just needed to get out there first and to do so, we would go onto the Cities Metro line once again (yey) although we first needed to renew our train tickets so we could do so which is easier said then done when your French is limited and the Ticket Saleswoman at your station barely understands English…great success! Eventually finding someone else who understood us, we renewed our tickets and headed into Paris, albeit going from train to train along the way to meet up with Ben and Evie before deciding what to do first. We would often get stations mixed up as well as lines…we got lost from time to time which was annoying but amusing as well because we found the different kinds of trains somewhat amazing…the ones at our station had hook like doors that we had to open ourselves whereas on some other lines, the doors opened automatically, were we in the bad part of Paris or something? Gallieni…is it?

We had many sites that we wanted to see and Three days to do them all in which to be honest, was more then enough time although we wouldn’t think this at first! Well their were so many after all that I think we assumed that it would take us all Three days to get through them all. Our first stop would be of course the Eiffel Tower, well what else would you expect?   it was boiling hot at this point, I think around 33 degrees, well I wasn’t expecting that…we walked across the park towards the famous French tower and what did we see once we got there, apart from long queues of people, millions of steps up to the viewing platform or many little set ups for food stands??? tons upon tons of selfie stick users…as far as the eye could see, everyone was using selfie sticks to take pictures because lord knows how hard it is to take a picture using your phone in your hands! Just saying! And no I didn’t take a picture of any one using them…I honestly think people will believe me because I am certain that Paris ain’t the only place on the planet that has selfie sticks in it…their everywhere…taking over!

Since neither of the girls wanted to wait 2 hours to go up the tower and considering my fear of heights, we considered that seeing the tower was enough so ventured off to the next popular tourist location that we could think off, which was the Notre Dame Catherdral and once again, the place was packed….the queue far behind the corner of the building and beyond…well I shouldn’t be surprised, it is August, prime time of the Summer Break so of course prime holiday destinations are packed with tourists! I was a tad disappointed by this building…oh no, not because of the queue or anything, that was fine but because I didn’t see this guy anywhere!!

What a rip! I was looking forward to it as well but oh well….that’s Disney for you…getting your hopes up when you go to the actual real places! I kid but it would have been cool to see someone sort of dressed like him! We looked about and eventually came across a bridge nearby that had many locks upon it! See, look at all of those locks! Some people have more time than sense, I joke I know what they are their for but with my fear of heights, I just think it’s silly…you could fall in and everything!

Paris is a big place and still have plenty of places to see and the Metro is a great way of getting about, a great tool to use if you want to see everything! So next time, we get to many other tourist destinations and such but there is so many of them!

More Soon

Arsenal Fans Behavior Unacceptable

Arsenal fans were caught tearing up pieces of White Hart Lane and have a jolly good time of it but is this acceptable? No! we just spend the last week protesting against Mike Dean and his horrible refereeing in the game against Chelsea and the behaviour of Chelsea Fans because they saw nothing wrong with it…then we go and do something like this a week later to Spurs…I know they are our rivals guys but come on…what does this prove?!

Here is a video clip of the incident in question that took place on the night before kick-off

It’s not acceptable behaviour at all guys… with vandalizing the stadium just sends wrong messages to the rest of the world about Arsenal…we don’t do that kind of thing of thing or at least I thought we didn’t! I know that every club has it’s set of trouble makers….you can’t tell me that one club doesn’t! it’s just sad to see a great night end with this news that some stupid Gunners vandalized a part of the stadium and gave the club a bad name! Arsenal fans and Spurs fans naturally don’t like each other, that much is clear but we don’t need to try and hurt one another over a game of football…you win some and lose some…don’t ruin the beautiful game with behaviour like this.

Not saying that Arsenal fans are the only ones to have done something silly in recent years, here are a couple of other examples of Football fans taking it a bit too far over the game.

Look at this shot of Marseille fans destroying parts of Amsterdam! what was this for?? No real good reason to disrupt other people’s days when they had nothing to do with Football…just immature and childish really

Obviously, theirs this video of Chelsea Fans in Paris, we all remember this one! unacceptable as well

And I added this one because this guy is just…unbelievable…oh no, we lost to Sunderland….I feel like punching a Horse!

And pretty much anything Steve McClaren has done for Newcastle this season which I think is an embarrassment!

COME ON ARSENAL!

My French Adventure 3 Beggars, Musicians, and Queue Hoppers!

Another long exhausting day today for us both, well they all would be right? It’s a holiday! my feet were still very sore after yesterday…being constantly being on them from dawn to well after dusk.  and I had forgotten my money card at the hotel…whoops, luckily I had some with me or I’d have starved all day! We went to buy our tickets for the train and the woman had no idea what kind of ticket we wanted, and we kept telling her, showed her the kind we wanted but she had no idea and shooed us away…quite rude as all the others have understood and been very helpful but their were others about who helped us get the rights ones…thank goodness

One thing that we noticed was certain people would hop over the ticket barriers at most stations and nothing was ever done about it…we even saw a couple get a baby pram over one! not one person said anything about it, weird…another thing that I had seen every day so far was the amount of people that got on Metro trains and pleaded for money in French then get off and go to the next carriage at the next station…at first I would think ‘You had enough to get on the Metro…’ But then thought that they had probably hopped over the barrier….why not, 4/10 people I would see were doing it. Another thing I saw and thought was pretty cool were the few people that played music on trains. From violins, guitars and even accordions, it made the journey more entertaining…don’t think I’ve ever seen that in England before…might make people more relaxed!

We didn’t meet Ben and Evie this morning, we had a little alone time in Disney and went at our ‘own pace’ that and Emma wanted to go and see some Disney characters instead of going from ride to ride all day so it was different, more Emma’s thing but I didn’t mind…we would go to Fantasy Land and ride the tea cups, venture into Alice in Wonderland’s Maze and see many Disney Characters like

• Donald Duck
• Daisy Duck
• Winnie The Pooh
• Tigger
• Eeyore
• The Incredibles
• Cinderella etc

But we then came across a tent, a rather big one where we would have the chance to meet Mickey Mouse, it was a 40 minute wait but we went for it and were able to watch some Mickey cartoons as we waited! French then English and so on until we went into the room where Mickey was and had our picture taken with him, like this one

Very friendly, gave him a high five and all that, Emma seemed really happy and in the end, that’s all that mattered to me! she left with a huge smile on her face and to be honest, so did I…their can be more to a park than just the rides.

After quickly grabbing lunch…which was expensive, well it was Ben and Jerrys as everywhere else had queues a mile long! we met up with Ben and Evie at Thunder Mountain, although they were already in the queue but we weren’t to far behind them….and it was the longest queue I can remember being in, it seemed to go on forever…it was about 70 minutes in the end but it was just so boring, going around corner after corner to realise that you still have another 20 to get around before you even go around the corner that leads to the stairs that take you down towards the ride…messes with your head! The ride itself was quite good, although Emma screamed when we went up a big hill and when we got to the top, the drop was so small…I think she felt rather silly afterwards! I couldn’t stop laughing to be honest, she’s never been a fan of Roller coasters before but she seemed so determined to go on some here, it was nice but funny.

Discovery Land was next and me and Ben went straight for Space Mountain, single rider queue because it was only 15 minutes long…it was a bit longer than that but one thing that made me laugh before I got on was how 2 people were in that queue and assumed they could ride together, only to be told that they could not but still kept trying again and again…it got rather silly to be honest and one of them just gave up I think and waited outside. I was sat next to a French Lad that did nothing but scream in fear, all in French right in my face…lovely but to be fair, it was pitch black for the whole ride and it even had a loop in it, terrifying, or it was to him anyway, if he kept going any longer, I’d probably understand it all.

After a quick stop to Buzz Lightyear Blast, me and Emma went off on our own for a bit after I had a small rest outside a store but didn’t tell them where I was…whoops! Ben and Evie went to the Star Wars ride as me and Emma went to a relaxing boat ride in Fantasy Land which went through fairy tale land….anything so I can relax for 5 minutes! Then as we queued up for the Pinocchio Ride, Emma decided to go and see the daily parade so we went early and managed to get a seat in a very packed area outside of the castle! couldn’t move without bumping into someone else…eventually, the parade came through with a song you will really struggle to get out of your head, I still am to this day!

Great show, it really was but as we were watching this, Ben and Evie were hopping from ride to ride…all because most people in the park were at the parade…when we all met up again, we went for the dreaded Peter Pan ride, I say this because me and Emma once went to Disney Land in Florida and never got on the Peter Pan ride…the queue was 3 hours long! I ain’t waiting that long for it! so we went into the queue which was an hour! and a part from a kid constantly blowing a loud whistle the whole time and a family cutting in halfway and refusing to move…the ride was ok….just ok but I was relieved that I didn’t have to think about that stupid ride anymore, thank the gods that it’s behind me now! After a quick ride on the Pinocchio ride which Emma didn’t like because it told the story in the wrong order (she’s a Disney Geek) we decided that we had almost done all of the best things in Disney Land so went into the shops for the first time and me and Emma purchased a Disney Tsum Tsum…101 Dalmations one I think called Lucky!

                         Terminator

Emma loves it! then went to a Planet Hollywood and had a great dinner, although I regret the Terminator Cocktail that I had! Not the 4 Cheese Pizza I had though but I then realized that I didn’t have enough money to pay for my share! WHAT A NIGHTMARE! but Emma gave me 10 Euros which I would repay her! (I love her so much) was scary but I would later find my card, woo hoo! I was really enjoying the holiday so far, it was fun to share it with other people for a change and see a country like France…ok so mostly I had only been to Disney so far but I had seen a bit of Paris as well but that’s to come in the 2nd half of the holiday where we explore the actual city of Paris from top to bottom! We decided that we would come back to Disney for one more day and do all the things we hadn’t done yet, do our shopping then after that, see Paris! With that decided and a long debate about a music video on the restaurants TV..we headed back home and guess what…we had an guitar player on the train, a man came on begging for money and I saw people hop the ticket barrier and on the bonus side…many Metro stations had Mice all over the place…tracks, gutters, platform….lovely!

My French Adventure 2

Well I am exhausted, I have been on my feet all day today…since eight in the morning in fact! today we went to Euro Disney, well after a quick breakfast at a nearby McDonald’s! we joined up with our mates and headed along the Metro Line towards a rather different kind of train, it was a double decker train? like the double decker buses you see in London, you could sit either downstairs or upstairs on this particular kind of train…looked rather cool at first if you ask me, we should have trains like this in Britain! you start to get used to the quick stops at stations along the way, that it only takes a few seconds from stop to stop on some lines, then your off again! it took around half an hour to get to the station and through the barrier and as we stepped outside into the blazing heat…we saw a giant crowd of people at both gates to the parks…it was going to take a while to get through all of that but we went and got our tickets and their was no issue! (massive relief) and we then queued up in the massive sea of people with the excited kids…screaming ones as well…seem to be more of the latter to be honest…noticing the ‘no selfie sticks’ signs all over the place…they don’t work, I saw loads of people with them in both parks…you get your bags checked so how do they get through? Food as well when you think about it, loads of people take drinks, crisps and sandwiches in…oh well.

I saw a guy in a pink shirt offering to sell tickets for a cheap price (yeah right, scam right there!) no way in hell you get Disney Tickets on the cheap! yet I saw a desperate man purchase some for his family! I couldn’t believe it and guess what…they didn’t work, he was many euros down and the guy in the shirt was nowhere to be seen, so please people…no matter the situation, never buy Disney Tickets from anyone apart from the Ticket Office at the park, you will lose your money and have no tickets otherwise….it’s hard seeing the look on a man who realises he has been had!

Today, we chose to go into the Disney Studios park since it was the smaller one and the queue didn’t look quite as long as the other park did, that and we could probably get it done in a day! Can I just say that Disney is just amazing, one of the most beautiful places I have ever been in my life! hear me out, you can feel the atmosphere here, the excitement and the happiness that most people feel being here, the magic of it all as you see the scenery, buildings, characters and rides but of course their is the overpriced merchandise, food and other things that will leave your wallet weeping for many months after! e.g A reasonable sized Mickey Mouse Plushie cost 30 Euros! That’s a bit of money!

The first ride was Crush Coaster, a Finding Nemo Ride…the queue was long, I call it a maze of steel! it took about an hour to get on the EAC (Eastern Australian Current) it, got to see the Mine birds though! it was a great ride, full of twists and turns that made Emma feel shaken up after the ride, bless her. A very fast paced ride but next we tried to go onto the 3D Ratatouille ride but it had broken down so we though…try again later so we walked to the Tower of Terror!

Emma and Evie didn’t fancy it so me and Ben went on it, he thought we would have to be stood up as we went up but no, we had seats and belts to wear…this ride has always been good but it still always surprises me when it goes up and down, every single time! one of my favorite rides really, the images and story are always good, no matter how many times I see them! afterwards it was the Aerosmith Rock and Roll coaster which was one of the fastest things I’ve gone on so far, although the loop in the dark took me by surprise! I almost lost my glasses! it is a most if you like loops and fast speed!

Getting lunch in a Disney Park can be hard sometimes, mainly because the queues last a lifetime, everyone goes around 1ish but we were able to get some sandwiches but the annoying thing were the wasps circling around anyone with a drink…they never leave you alone! stupid things but never mind because                 after wards, we went to go and see a stunt show which was really good, although the line to get into the seats was massive, people sat behind you kick the back of your seats…squeezed in but the show was good regardless, many good stunts to see, even Lightning McQueen showed up!

The ending was quite explosive, literally, fire everywhere…it was great! now after this, we went back to Ratatouille and it was open but the wait was 70 mins and after a brief argument about the ride, we decided to go on but in my opinion…it wasn’t really worth that much of a wait!

A simulation ride really where you are the chef rat in the kitchen, it only lasts a couple of minutes, not much to write home about to be fair…oh well if that’s your kind of thing then go for me, it just isn’t for me…sorry. With that done though, all the best rides were done as were the shows so with some time left, we went into the other park for a while and I always love walking through Main Street USA! all the shops and how busy it gets…it’s great! the queue for the Train was way too long so we walked into Adventure Land and me and Ben decided to go on the Indiana Jones ride, again…Ben and I only went on as the girls didn’t like Loops and it was a very long wait, more than they said it would be and I had to take my glasses off and hold them as we went around the ride and I could see why after we set off…they warn you to sit back with your head against the seat but I didn’t do that at first, big mistake! I was bashed about and almost dropped my glasses on the loop and ended up with a big headache!

We decided to head back into Paris and get some food! a place called Le Bis Repetita was our destination and it was really good, I had a steak, medium and it was running with blood still. Emma needs to work on her French a little as she said ‘Gracias’ instead of ‘Merci!’ whoops! end of our first full day, time for sleep…more tomorrow! Night!

My French Adventure Part One!

Bonjour! Well today is the day! we set off on our 6th holiday abroad together, this time, our destination is Paris, France! I am very excited about this because I have always wanted to see this city! Many places to explore in just one week! but these few are the ones I want to see the most out of everything that would be unmissable when coming to France!

• Arc De Triomphe
• Eiffel Tower
• Euro Disney
• The Louvre

I would soon learn that their was so many more sights that were fantastic to see and I would be so glad to discover them.

We woke up this morning at 7am and got ourselves ready, spending as long as we could making sure that we had everything we needed before our taxi arrived to take us to the airport. I’ll admit that I am a little scared about this holiday after the night before, reading very negative comments about booking a holiday through Expedia and had a lot of ‘what if’ thoughts running through my head, however everyone has reassured me that everything will be fine and that we will both have a very enjoyable holiday! I hope that they are all correct and that I really have nothing to worry about when we arrive at the airport or the hotel.

The taxi arrived on time for us and we set off but I may have booked it a tad early because it only took us 40 minutes to get us there…so we had to wait a bit longer for our flight. We were able to check in without much trouble…or any for that matter…I was even able to get my case placed into the plane for free, instead of having to put in into the overhead compartments above the seats which was a life saver, saving me from having to drag it about the airport for 4 hours.

You know how you can only take a very small amount of sun cream on a plane nowadays, well we decided to think about going to purchase some from duty-free… it was an offer, 2 for 1, which cost us about £36!!! that’s how they get you though, right? A rip off if you ask me but what choice do you have? We went to Burger King for a quick-lunch before going to the gate and heading towards our Jet2 Plane! The weather was great in Leeds/Bradford, we hoped it wouldn’t be all sun here and rain over in France!

The flight took about 70 minutes, the shortest I’ve been on, the people on the food trolleys didn’t get very far before they had to go back as we were landing. Guess what…it was raining as we stepped onto French soil! I’m sure the weather will improve with time though so I won’t let this affect us so much. We waited for our taxi to take us to our hotel but we had to wait for a while before he arrived and then we had to go to another terminal at the airport to pick other passengers up and it took more than an hour and one couple didn’t even turn up! oh well, at least the driver put on some music as we sat and waited before finally making our way towards our hotel in Bagnolet.

We checked in very easily and went up to our room which looked really nice, big bed, shower and a sofa and television, all that we needed really as we’d be out of it most of the time exploring Paris! we unpacked..or Emma did, I would end up mostly living out of my case! well come on…I thought it’d be easier for me but some disagree with that…each to their own if you ask me.

We set out to find our closest Metro station, Gallieni on the dark green line and after getting our 5 day passes, began to make our way towards the other side of the city to meet up with another couple we were coming on holiday with and had already been in the city for about half a day and were staying near the Arc De Triomphe however, we met them at a place called Villiers where we went to go and find a place to eat which we found a nice small cafe and I had myself a burger covered in blue cheese, lovely! Emma was a little bit tired after travelling so after we ate, we thought about going back to the hotel but changed our minds and headed to the Arc De Triomphe which was easiest to get to on the Yellow line…very confusing on your first day and wow, it just looked amazing when you first see it.

It looks great at night, don’t you think? the architecture and designs all over it make it a must see if you come to Paris, I mean just look at it…I was so impressed by it, even though it just looks like a giant stone with a gateway in it from afar but it’s so much more than that, it has history, it has beauty in it  and around it and you can even go on top of it for a small fee…I didn’t do that though….little scared of heights yet I flew on a plane here…many tourists about and crossing roads with them was fun because some didn’t understand when it was safe to cross because cars coming off the road nearby flew off at a top speed!

But strangely, this wasn’t the best thing to see in this place…that was reserved for the thing surrounding the Arc! it’s roundabout is a hectic zone that looks insane! cars coming on it from all directions and it is said that a bump or some sort of near accident happens every 11 minutes! I saw many cars with dents and even one with a taped on door! people on bikes, scooters…insane, I would be terrified every time I had to go on there, something like that could never be allowed to happen in Britain, not in a million years! it was very entertaining to watch though! Plenty of near misses and one crash that involved the police occurred as we arrived!

At this point it was getting quite late and we had a long day ahead of us tomorrow, we would go to Disney Land but until then, time to get some sleep but I’m already loving France so far, it looks great and I’m so relieved we got here without a single problem happening.

Night till then

Viva La France

Short one but I can’t wait to get to Paris and explore a part of the world I haven’t seen before, I’ve always wanted to see the city and I can’t wait to get there and meet up with friends, I want to see

• Euro Disney
• Eiffel Tower
• Arc De Triumphe
• Louvre
• Paris itself
• Versailles

So much to see and do and much merchandise to buy in little time but I think it can be done and with the use of the Metro, however expensive it is, I’m sure everything will go fine and I’ll have a great time in France!

Be Back Soon