Paris

So the plan was to man up and hitch hike to Paris from Berlin. Just a sneaky thousand or so kilometers. I got a kilogram of waffles, three blocks of chocolate and a litre of water and caught a local train to a service station on the edge of Berlin. I then proceeded to ask people where they were going and could I tag along...

... 15 minutes in a frickin awesome old French dude told me he could only take me as far as Dijon... only Dijon I think? I check my map... and bang.. its 200kms from Paris. Holy moly. I thought this has got to be the best ride ever.. but it got better! He bought me breakfast (all you can eat!), lunch, dinner and a french coffee at 3am. We had to make a detour to Munich to pick up a load of timber (I helped load it and got a free jacket!). Holy moly. So I was sitting under this....... only 27 hours after I left Berlin. If that's not the dream, then I don't want to live it.

Paris is super awesome. I feel much the same about Paris as I did Italy. It would be a cliche to fall in love with Paris, but I guess its a cliche for a reason. There is so much history, architecture, museums, pubs, awesome french people and Rugby that its hard not to have fun. Here are some dudes smoking a cigar outside the Louve.. I hope they are living their dream.

We did a sneaky day trip out to Versailles a day before a massive transport strike bought the city to a stand still. You can't really say you have been to France until you have experienced a strike. Versailles was awesome, the gardens were amazing (some of the most impressive box hedges I have ever seen, I love box hedges), and the palace itself was really beautiful. This is me in the galerie des glaces (Hall of Mirrors) where the Treaty of Versailles was signed to end WWI. Wow.French food is indeed rather good. Word of advice though: Never mix camembert and pate in a baguette in front of a french man.

We did a lot of exploring in North Eastern Paris where a lot of North African immigrants live. It was awesome, such hustle and bustle. Such cheap food. So much fun. We also found this basketball court... a fully fledged cage court built under a railway line.


I shall leave you with a picture of Paris in the evening. This is the last chapter of this part of my life. The next is a return to the motherland to seek work and settle down for a while... something I hope I am capable of.