Off to Paris!

Afer finally figuring out how to work a italian keyboard we communicate with you now from ROMA!

Lets go back 4 days...

We farewelled beautiful Ieper, and began what our main man Richie said would be a two and a half hour trip to Paris...
8 hours later we arived to the beautiful Paris! In Paris Richie had to tackle the crazy French drivers and the tiny streets, clearly no designed for coaches. As usual, he came through. There were great tears as we farewelled our Richie, a great trooper, who headed home with a heavy heart to see his mum, back in England.

The hostel rocked. Cenered around a large communal courtyard, all windows facing each other, the 16th century chateau acted as a communal hub, in the center of Paris. We met some lovely French and German girls and kept Mr Drury up to the wee hours as chatau watchdog.

On our first evening, Mr Drury took a small group of us to do our laundry. Now what an experience that turned out to be! ça alors! Two hour later we retrieved the sodden clothes from the disturbingly vibrating machines to discover Quinnys beatiful, prized woolen jumper, had shrunken to kindergardener size. Many giggles were shared at the laundrete, but have a feeling Quinny pined that night for his lost love.

The next day was a big one, tourist time once again. We rendezvoued in the early hours, after a stunning french breakfast-bread. Yes, a piece of bread. After this, we met up with our eccentric guide, Jenny, an English woman who had lived in Paris for countless years. We were taken around the sigts of Paris, before heading up yo the high hill of Montmartre, and the grand, white, Sacre Coeur. We were besieged upon arrival by the terrifying hawkers, pedalling their wares, among which dwelled the bracelet men. An aggressive gang of con-artists who trapped you in their clutches with promises of friendship, tied a bracelet around your wrist, and then turned, and hounded you for money. Luckily most escaped unharmed, mainly due to the fearsomeness of Quinny, the anger still raging in his eyes from the loss of his dear wollen friend.

Later, after crepes (ordered in very convincing french), we headed to the magnificent Pantheon, and then to the Notre Dame cathedral, which were large, and had many tombs. Like Victor Hugo!

Some tired feet then trudged back to the hostel, for a rest, dinner, and then our big outing to the Eiffel Tower itself. MAny mebers of the group had been hanging out for this event, and were soon dazzled by its height, view, and later, luminous sparkly nightime light show! Mr Drury was gearing up for his weekly base jump, but was sadly denied the oppourtunity due to an eagle eyed security man. Ricky was SO EXCITED by the bright lights, he leapfrogged Mason. FOUR TIMES. (as in photo)(not working ...yet!)