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Sacrea bleau!   

Today was our most difficult one for motivation so far! We didn’t sleep very well and for some reason started feeling dazed again. Any case we had a mission to enjoy Paris and dammit we were going to do that! First up was the Sacred Heart Church, and the hundred or so steps up to it.

Around 20-30 Africans were panhandling/begging at the entry steps, these guys were organised and made sure that no matter what entry you took a couple of them would intercept you. There tactic was quite forward, they come up asking were you are from and grab your hand to tie a string on it. They talk to you telling about the plight of Africa and ask for money to send to their families/friends/etc.
I spearheaded our way through and made it most of the way, until one big guy grabbed my arm and wouldn’t let go asking where I’m from. He was pretty pissed with me that I was non-engaging and I was getting ready with my ‘A’LAAAIDE’ line (french for Help) but they eventually gave up and just looked pissed at us.

After a decent workout walking up the steps we finally made it to the Sacred Heart Church!   

Entry is free to the Church, and you kinda walk around the sides checking out the architecture. A massive church by anyone’s standards, but I was little disappointed with the amount of stuff for sale inside. I guess this is what happens when you have millions of people pouring through the doors all the time, but it just seems to cheapen the Church.

Paris’s Metro system is pretty good, but to supplement it they have these awesome bikes for hire! If you’re a local you can buy an annual card which grants you access to these bikes any time you wish. There are hundreds of automated stations where these bikes are where you can pick one up and you’re off! I wish we had picked up bikes earlier as they’re a fantastic way to get lost in the city.

I really wish I could use my iPhone for GPS here. Global roaming with Optus my carrier in Australia lets me use data here for 0.20c AUD per kilobyte or about a bazzilon dollars per google map. Thinking I’d do what I did in America back in 2004, I purchased an Orange 3G PrePaid card here in Paris to take advantage of local rates. Well turns out PrePaid data here in Paris is about the same here. It cost 30Euro to buy the SIM and then I loaded around 10Euro (around $18AUD) credit on it.
How long do you think 10Euro would last you data wise here? Oh about 100kilobytes….. I asked about three people before I bought the damn thing here what the data rates were before I bought it, but no one could give me a straight answer. Seems like Data over 3G is a ‘new’ concept for the Frenchies, and these sales guys were fathomed on why I’d want to use internet on my phone when I could use WiFi at a coffee shop for around 2Euro for 30 mins….   At this rate it would have been cheaper just to buy the maps on my damn Garmin GPS for every country we’re going to.

Jumping back on our L’OpenBus again we headed to the triumph of Engineering for the 19th Century… the Eiffel Tower. Holy crap this thing is tall. I realise I’ve been on taller structures, but the French have made sure that no other buildings are near it, which consequently made hands sweaty with fear. Unfortunately, the line-up to climb the tower was about as long as the tower is tall!

I didn’t get to see the tower at night, because the sun doesn’t really set here until 10ish! Though I did read you can climb the tower until midnight, and I would think that would be pretty damned cool.

Because our train to ‘get the hell out’ of Paris leaves at 7ish from a station about 30 minutes travel away we made sure we had an early night. I found an awesome hole in the wall Pizza store and grabbed a Salad and PIzza. I managed to strike up a conversation between the owner and a customer which was fantastic! Finally I thought I’ve found some people who weren’t arrogant French bastards! Turns out I was wrong, they were from Canada hehe! In any case they were pretty dang cool and chatted about our travels so far…