The Monkey is in the Tree

Christine (with Liz falling asleep in the bunk above):

Well we have arrived in Paris. We got to see Dublin late Saturday night and and a much more subdued Dublin early Sunday morning. As we walked to the airport shuttle at 5:30 in the morning we saw some hard core partiers still making their way home, barkeepers sweeping out the broken glass and lots of taxi drivers who seemed to be the only people awake.

We made the mistake of bringing our recently bought duct tape (for fixing rips in shoes and backpacks and more) in Liz's carry on. Apparently we could use the duct tape to hold the plane hostage. Ryanair took it away and we spent the plane ride sleeping instead.

We thought it was cold in Ireland, it is freezing in Paris!! It is deceptively sunny, but it is so freezing we had difficultly taking pictures because our hands were so numb.

We successfully bought some tickets for the metro despite the French directions and made it to our snazzy hostel St. Christopher's Paris. We have a huge room with 8 beds built into the walls (so no more being swayed terrifyingly to sleep).

We walked to the Moulin Rouge (of course) for our first stop. There were some shady shops on the way. I am trying not to be offended that most of them were advertised in English. We arrived at what turned out to be Moulin Rouge, but I insisted that it was just some Las Vegas style rip-off and the real Moulin Rouge must be somewhere else near by. After wandering in the cold Parisian streets for a while, we decided that Moulin Rouge has clearly done some updates in the last century and I have too romantic a memory.

We stopped in a French cafe and managed to successfully order food in French and pay for it! Then braced ourselves and headed out into the cold.



French Lessons from Eddie Izzard.