Looking for Work in London....

Well, as you can all tell, I have been very slack in filling in my blog and keeping you all updated. Now that I am back in London - looking for work - albeit slowly - will use this time to bring you up to speed about my travels.....

I think the easiest way to do this will be to break it into each city I visited. I do have some vids of each place which I will eventually upload to you tube and can then pop the links in the blog. So, without further ado, lets talk about Paris!

PARIS
We caught the bus to Dover from London - alas the white cliffs were covered with white fog, so the views were not that great. The ferry ride over was pretty cool - serving beer at the bar! I did not realise how far away Paris was from the coast line - about 6 hours after touching down, the bus pulled into the outskirts of the city. We rocked up to our hotel - and were a little disappointed with the size and quality of the place - but given it was our first day on tour, we were excited!

We did a bus tour of the city on the first night - got to get out at some of the major land marks and see them in their lit up glory. We ran into a heap of black conmen - referred to as “string men” - they try and grab your hand as you walk past and tie a friendship band to it - they then make you buy it.

The next day was ours to spend doing what we wanted - we climbed the tower - ie walked up to the second platform, before catching the lift to the top. Great view from there! After that, Mark and a new girl we met called Rachel braved the Metro train and went out to the catacombs - there is an ossuary (a display of human bones) in the cavern as well - which was awesome to see. The catacombs apparently spread for hundreds of kms under the city - only a little part of it is open to the public. You walk through a series of tunnels with dripping water (and very cool temps) before you come to the first part of the bone displays - unbelievable to think the whole display is made up of bones that used to be humans that lived their lives! Read more information about them at this link!! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catacombs_of_Paris

We left Rachel and we went into the back streets to a tapas bar - yeah - I know - why eat Spanish in Paris?? Had a great coffee though! We then headed back to the Arc de Triomphe - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_de_Triomphe
This sits in the middle of one of the craziest roundabouts I have ever seen - when I get my camera charged, will put some vid of it online - we climbed it and stayed up there for a while watching the city traffic.

We then walked down one of the lardy-dar streets - and saw a riot - students laying in the street causing traffic chaos. Within a few minutes, the French riot police turned up in about 8 big paddy wagons - they looked like imperial storm troopers - with a few swings of their batons, the rebel rousers were soon moved on. We followed the riot march to the Arc - again I got some vid footage of the paddy wagons - so will put some on line when I get a chance.

Had a champagne picnic in the evening under the shadow of the tower - pity it had been raining though, since the picnic was outside!! Was pretty weird to watch the French military guarding the base of the tower, walking round with machine guns.

Six of us made the mistake of choosing to do one of the optionals the tour offers - it was to see a cabaret show - very much aimed at tourists - and was certainly not authentically French. We left it very disappointed that we wasted our money - we voted this as the worst optional when we filled in our end of trip survey.

Well, I have about another 10 cities to blog about - so stay tuned! In the mean time, we are looking for jobs - and then it will be looking for a unit to live in.

Adios!

Matt