2014 Travels: Paris

There was no "easing" back into reality, I was thrown in the deep end a few hours after my plane landed back in Australia. And, well, since then I've been teaching myself how to swim. Now that I've sort of have gotten the hang of treading water again, I can continue sharing photos and stories from my trip! I think now is a good time to mention that I lost about 800 photos because my SD card decided to die. Needless to say, I'm super devastated about that, but there's nothing I can do but work with the ones that remained.

Where were we last? Oh yes! Lucerne! It's the 1st of January - post New Years Eve. I woke up, put on a singlet and shorts, went outside and sat in the middle of the road. Please keep in mind, we're in Switzerland at roughly 6.30am. Switzerland is cold. In fact, it would have been around maybe max 5°. Can anyone see where I'm going with this? No? I was hungover. Probably the second worst hangover I've ever had. Fun fact: I can’t throw up in front of people. And being cold, for me, helps with nausea. So after sitting on the road for about half an hour, I had a sip of orange juice and headed for Paris. Going to be completely honest, it wasn't one of my finest travels days, but we got there in the end.

Paris, the city of love. If I were to live somewhere outside of Australia, it would definitely be here. I spent just over two weeks exploring the city and I still feel as if I've only touched the surface. A lot of people told me Paris was dirty, the people rude, and the whole place was completely overrated - I could not disagree more. I dare say perspective has a lot to do with this. For me, I saw so much beauty, romance, lust, and love, all of my favourite things! The only thing that frustrated me was the obvious language barrier. My French is limited, a few lessons will be in order before my next visit. If you're traveling alone, and have a history of getting harassed, learn how to politely say "go away" and then not so politely, for the persistent ones (French men are EXTREMELY persistent). So, in French you say s'il vous plaît aller loin or if they've been following you around for the past half hour asking if you're a prostitute (and it wasn't the first time) foutre le camp (s'il vous plaît is optional). Apart from that, Paris is just awesome.

The Louvre is my happy place. If you're in Paris, go. Dedicate *at least* six hours  - more if possible - I spent two days there and it wasn't enough. Now I'm just going to say it, the Mona Lisa, is overrated compared to the other pieces of art on display. But the entire place had the most insane ambience.

Do I even need to explain why I went to a cat cafe?

I'm going to share a completely different post for this, but it was my birthday when I was in Paris. So what does one do when one is alone on ones birthday? The only thing that is logical of course - go to Disneyland!