July 23rd; Our big tour starts today. Up bright and early, as is always the case with these things. I had bought my breakfast the day before. It was disapointing. The people who do amazing things with onions unfortunately can’t do it over the space and time of a day. I guess egg doesnt refrigerate too well.
On the tube, forty five minute ride to the middle-north of the city, checked in and on the bus. Had a quick chat with some of the other people on ours. I stocked up on sparkling water. From what I can tell nearly everyone on our bus is Australian. The tour manager, the cook, nearly every other person (there’s some Kiwis, an American, a Portugese fellow, some Irish… one or two others, probably) is Australian. We were driving for a fair while. Got on a ferry at the white cliffes of Dover, on the English Channel. Lots of things were brought to mind. Fossils, the Battle of Britain, Guitar Hero…
I bought some chocolate on the ferry. It was lame. I wanted maltesers but saw none. I was upset when I spotted them later that day. That was over after about an hour and a half though. Back on the bus, another two hour drive through the country side. France looks quite nice straight off. The tour manager talked it up for a good long while. She went through what we’d have to do each day. Procedures and other exciting things. Our first stop in France, a somewhat exciting one. Even though nearly everyone speaks English, most of them still speak French – it was good to get the language barriers up again. I got a Long Bacon from this stop. It was a big burger. May I say that everything in stupidly expensive in France, it seems. Dublin expensive isn’t even as extreme.
The French do have one thing extremely right though; they sell small goods with knife included. All the trouble I went through to get my salami collection – elusive stalls in the sticks of Greater London, and then I had to buy a new little pocket knife to cut it. This stuff was sitting right there. They had fancy packed lunches, lots of cheese, all sorts of stuff. I settled for a box of pocky sticks and more mineral water. The four of us sat out the front chatting to some other guys from around Australia. We realised it was nearly time to go. We went back to the bus. It was about to take off without us – our clocks were wrong, it seems. Still, we weren’t the first with such an effort. Our Kiwi friend Cham nearly didn’t turn up at the end of the ferry trip.
We did some more driving after that, made it to our campsite just outside of Paris. We set up our tents. Kate and I received a tent with no pegs. It was a struggle to scrounge these up – we were the last with a tent up. Somewhat disapointing. After that we gathered around for pre-dinner. French champagne and escargot. I knew what was coming. One of the camp guys asked for a volunteer. Noone did. So I did! I really wanted to eat a snail anyway. He frenched me up first – put on a beret, drew a curly moustache and goatee, gave me a monobrow as well. I did a great big French laugh, as instructed. It got a clap. I ate my snail – it was quite good. There were some disgusted moans from the group. If I knew them better I would have told them to get over it.
The toast was next, followed by another snail for me, and then proper dinner. Ben and I set up the dish-washing stations for everyone. That’s our job. We ate. It was seasoned chicken of some sort and potato salad. Not bad. We washed up quickly and got back on the bus, since they were going to give a quick tour of Paris, traffic permitting.
May I just say once more; the French have it worked out. The city is awesome. The canals look really nice, unlike the Thames or anything. I’ve always wanted to do a week-long barge trip down the canals. That will have to wait. The buildings are mad, all the statues and museums, Notre Dame looks amazing from the outside. It was at sunset as well, so when we saw the Arc d’Triumphe or however you spell it, the sun was right in the middle and spilling all through the city. It was quite beautiful.
Probably most cool were all the historic sites. I’m all about the French Revolution. I mean, it was nasty, but I think it’s a cool period of history to know about and this made it so much cooler – even just driving past the guillotine square, the prisons, the National Assembly. Tomorrow we do the palace of Versailles which will only add to it.
We got back, I ate some small goods, went for a walk to the bar. Drinks were all over five euros so I gave it a miss. Water for me. The boys and I sat up chatting with some of the other guys at the tents. It was good fun. Sleep time.
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