It's 10 in the morning now, I've had no sleep 'cos a guy in my room snores like an angry bulldog trying to eat a rock and there's nobody interesting here, so I'm finishing the email before I go to meet Wendy for lunch.
So I left Barcelona and cruised back up to Tourouzelle to see David and Nancy Wood. They've got a great place, three floors in a tiny little village that makes wine. It was great to see them and to have a bit of a relax after all the craziness of the previous weeks. I was supposed to go to Paris that night to meet Elodie, but I wasn't feeling very well. I'd gotten up late and didn't feel like a 7 hour drive to Paris, so I told her I'd see her on Saturday. She told me she had been planning to take me to see the rugby with some of her friends.
Hmmm, watching the rugby in Paris with a bunch of Parisian girls, or reading my book in Tourouzelle.
So then it occurred to me that I could probably just take the car back to Europcar in Toulouse and then catch a train. I called Europcar and apparently I had to ask the Biarritz office if that was OK but they were at lunch until 2, so I had to wait. David made me lunch and I raced off at 3 for Toulouse. I made it to Toulouse by 5 (diesel Renaults start to have trouble at about 185km/h), but by the time I'd gotten to the front of the ticket queue I'd missed the last fast train to Paris by 15 minutes.
So I'm standing there in Toulouse at half past five with no car and nowhere to stay, so I called Pauline again and she said "Sure you can stay! We can go out and watch the rugby!". So all in all not a bad result. We went to a park, Prairie des Filtres, next to the Garonne river, where they'd set up a big screen for the rugby and along with 10,000 Frenchmen we watched the first half of the rugby. It was massively overcrowded so we went to a bar for the second half and met a bunch of Pauline's friends. It was a good game, good company and good beer, so I had a great night! Thanks Pauline!
Thrilled to be rid of the Euro-eating car, I set off in the (late) morning for the station and jumped on a TGV for Paris. Those things are cool. It took a bit more than 5 hours. I had two seats to myself so as I was sitting there reading I'd periodically hear the engines whirr up and think "Oooh! It's a fast bit!" and sit plastered to the window to watch the world fly past at 320km/h. It's great going through France at ground level. With the added bonus of actually taking you into the centre of Paris, not some airport an hour away, it's a good deal.
Elodie was kind enough to pick me up from the station, which I thought was fantastic given that driving in Paris is a nightmare. We had a picnic on the Pont des Arts, which spans the Seine between the Louvre and the Institut de France. You get an awesome view of the middle of the city and the lights and boats on the Seine. It's a popular spot on a Saturday night, so there were lots of people doing the same thing as us. After that we dumped my stuff at Elo's and headed out to the Frog & Princess for some more drink and a bit of a dance. That was an awesome night. Thanks Elodie!
On Sunday I went to a picnic with Elo and some of her family and friends in a park outside Paris of which I've forgotten the name. I got to play a guitar for the first time in 3 weeks which was very therapeutic. Afterwards we went up to Scare Coeur, to see the view, and sat on the steps while some guy did a weird show inside this little curtain thing in front of the view of Paris. I have no friggin idea what that was all about. Some kind of interpretive dance thing, I guess. It was spectacularly underwhelming, in stark contrast to the view which is beautiful. We went to a bar in Montmartre and happened upon some more of Elo's friends, and I strained my French to follow what they were talking about in between the cool music and the beer. We had dinner with some friends who lived in a flat directly opposite the Sexodrome in the red light district, just down the road from the Moulin Rouge. (I have photos) They played me some French rap and good fun was generally had by all.
When I got up on Monday I was feeling pretty lazy, 'cos I still wasn't feeling well. I knew I had to do some shopping so I went off for a wander around Paris. I've been before, and I know I'll go back again (I need more French practice!), so I wasn't too fussed about seeing all the sights properly and once the rain stopped I spent a goodly proportion of the afternoon reading in the park. I'd left my camera at home, too, which I didn't realise until I was getting out of the Metro near the Louvre. I bought 4 pairs of socks, some shampoo, a razor and some toothpaste and my Paris shopping experience was complete.
That night Elo and I went to see a movie called 2 Days in Paris which is about a very American guy and a very Parisian girl trying to have a holiday in Paris. It was a good movie. I managed to decipher most of the French, more than the American guy in the movie at least, but it was about 60% in English anyway. Nevertheless, I think Elodie and I saw entirely different movies that night... I might have to watch it again when my French has improved.
On Tuesday, after packing, and brunch in front of the Arc de Triomphe on the Champs Elysées, I flew off to Budapest and met Dad and Wendy for dinner. We had some pasta priced especially for tourists. The currency here is Hungarian Florints, which are alternately abbreviated as HUF or ft. My brain always translates that as feet, so I'm not fighting it. The Sprite I'm drinking as I write this cost me 195 feet, or 195 huffs, depending on how you look at it.
Today (it's now 11:41pm) I met Wendy down at the Central Market Hall and we had goulash for lunch. I had a fank donut for dessert and then we met Dad and wandered up to the national gallery at the castle, which has a gorgeous view and some excellent paintings. I have a thousand photos which will eventually materialise online.
Budapest is a gorgeous city. I haven't really done its night life, and I'm not really expecting to because the hostel is completely devoid of interesting people for some reason. I'm understandably disappointed about that and if I get to come back with some hooligans one day I'll jump at the opportunity. But anyway, yeah, the place is beautiful. It's touted in all the guide books as the hub of Central Europe and you can see it's capably rising to that challenge. Just about everyone speaks at least a bit of English and even those that don't are pretty good at doing the whole sign language communication thing. It's fairly clean, although there are construction and restoration projects going on everywhere. It's great at giving the tourists places to put their disposable cash and on the surface it's got a pretty friendly vibe even if the metro is filled, like any city, with solemn faces.
In next week's instalment: Skydiving in Switzerland.
Hope you're all keeping well wherever you are, and send me stories! Not having stories is no excuse! Have stories! As you can see, even stories about parking fines can be quite interesting.
A la prochaine fois,
Tristan
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