Paris and beyond

Well, after loving Barcelona I wasn't sure what I'd think of Paris... two very different cities in a lot of ways (well thats what I would have assumed anyway, yet to really decide if thats true or not, to some extent - in the words of Paul Kelly - 'every fucking city's just the same')

But I had one of those great moments when you realise where you are and how bloody cool it is that I am able to do what I'm doing... just sitting in a train station, having a coffee and a croissant and watching the destination board clacking through all these places... not sure why, was very happy about being there at that point. And I love the old fashioned traintable, the ones that clack as they rotate around... they're much more satisfying for some reason than electronic lights or voices.

Met a wonderful woman yesterday at Notre Dame - she's a volunteer explainer there and after the others all left, she asked if I wanted to see another church she'd talked about so I said sure. Then she showed me a whole heap of cool things, like the hotel that Mozart stayed in and the oldest house in Paris. And she showed me how to find the most famous ice-cream store in Paris. Hooray!

Then I had one of the best dinners I've had in Europe in a cafe by the side of the road. I will try to reserve judgement on Parisian food until I've had a few more meals (maybe it was a fluke) but its damn promising :o)

So I guess to sum up, am enjoying Paris. Even though its raining (just like in the Hunter Valley, although not so many emergency beer drops here), its still pretty nice. Tonight I get free entry to the Louvre and then I think I'll jump on a night boat and then head out to the bars in the Latin Quarter, which I found yesterday and is a cool little maze of cafes, turkish/italian restaurants and bookstores. Reading 'Canidide' because I figured I should read something vaguely relevant to the country... it's actually quite funny (still think Voltaire was a grade-A dickhead but anyway...)

Love you long time