After my 3rd sub 4 hour night’s sleep in a row (sometimes considerably so ‘n all) I’m looking (and feeling) like a good candidate as an extra for ‘Shaun of the Dead – Part II’. So I feel like just hanging around the hostel until I need to leave for my flight at about 14:00ish but this would be quite the waste when considering how much of Paris I’ve still to see. This means I’ll head off to Montmartre for a couple of hours trundling.
While on route to Montmartre some obnoxious middle-aged man had the dreaded ‘turbo folk’ blaring from his phone while swigging a can of lager with his wife next to him. Cretin.
To take my mind off the cretin and his cretinous tunes, I listened to the latest episode of ‘Matt’s Today in History’ which covers the D.B. Cooper case, an incident I was already familiar with but was glad to learn more on. I hope he is running a bar in South America somewhere with no one any the wiser.
My first stop was to the flea market that the girl on reception at the hostel had recommended, though I can’t think what possessed her to do that as it was bobbins. Maybe I was just at the wrong one though.
Then I grabbed lunch at a little bistro La Dolce Vita grill. I had lasagne and it was crap, it was actually cold in the middle and as the plate was very hot I suspect it had just been bunged in the microwave. I
didn’t have time to complain and couldn’t be bothered either. But it was a pretty disappointing €9 spent when the place looked quite nice.
After that I paid a very brief visit to the Sacré-Coeur which was nice, all very crisp and polished. It wasn’t as big as I’d have expected though.
On the way down the steps at the front of the basilica I was greeted by 7 or 8 African scammers. I knew what their game was straight away as I’d heard about the same thing in Milan. They walk up to tourists and try and place a ‘friendship’ bracelet on their wrists, then they try and demand payment for it. Anyway one of them walks up to me and starts giving it “Excusez-moi” and I just said “Not interested” several times while still walking, I could even see the bracelet in his hand. He straddled to the side and in front of me though with his hand on my chest all the while trying to block me, he had seriously overstepped the mark in terms of personal space. I wanted to give him a whack and leg it but I don’t think that would have been a very wise move with 7 of his pals behind me. He eventually got the message as I just pushed past him. They really wind me up though, get out of my face and do one.
I wasn’t overly impressed with Montmartre as a whole, I was told to expect a cool bohemian vibe and I didn’t get a whiff of it. I had very little time there though and didn’t get a chance to explore so I expect I just missed the good bits. As I often say, for another trip.
Nearly €10 to get to CDG airport on the light railway when it only takes half an hour if that. I’ve found that a lot of cities like to exploit their tourists with this sort of thing but plenty more don’t (Manchester being in the latter category). I should make a name and shame list.
Bugger, my flight is delayed an hour. All is not lost though as there is a PS3 demo unit in the departure lounge.
Ah, maybe it is as 2 annoying posh kids have caught sight of me playing it. I’m now trying to teach the pair of them FIFA 2009 but the poor sods are clueless and have no aptitude whatsoever for video games, I blame the parents. I’ve given up and left them to it, total lost causes who should never be let near a console again.
Actually my flight is delayed an hour and a half, flamin’ budget airlines. It’s not too bad I suppose though.
I take that back, what a bag of shite. The flight is now cancelled altogether apparently, though they are being pretty quiet with the information. They mentioned something about another flight at 20:35 (3 and a half hours after we were supposed to leave) but if it’s an already scheduled flight I presume they will have to source a much bigger plane. Now I’m stood in a large queue (and have been for half an hour) and I’m not really sure why.
The queue was to issue us a new boarding pass and they also gave us a €20 food voucher, that’s something I suppose. I made sure I got every cent’s worth out of it (in fact I actually went 50 cents over) and had an Italian salad with mozzarella and parma ham, a large bag of crisps, a chocolate chip muffin and pint of Heineken.
As the new departure time was approaching things weren’t looking promising as the plane wasn’t even in, one fella waiting had a WiFi connection and was checking the Manchester Airport site which was showing a new arrival time of 23:00 (which would turn out to be correct). He new more than the bloody staff who weren’t saying much at all, what a joke.
There was another FlyBe flight to Birmingham going out from the same departure lounge so I took on a few young Brummie lads on FIFA and gave them all a lesson they won’t forget for a while. Awe struck they were.
I’d been through belt off, wallet and phone in the plastic tray, security malarkey 3 times in the end as the toilets (and the cafes) were outside the lounge. “You again” said one of the officials to me at one point.
We eventually took to the skies at about 22:15, around 5 and a half hours after we should have done. Oh well, it could have been a lot worse.
So there we go, another trip reaches it’s completion. I’m now back on the ever faithful Blighty soil and ruddy glad to be so. Let’s have a look at a couple of stats for the duration of this European expedition to finish off:
- 27 countries visited
- 40 magnets collected
- 19 magnets missed (boo!)
- 2 live football matches witnessed
- 73 pizzas eaten
- 1439 pints of lager drunk*
- £15.04 AdSense revenue generated
- 8400 hits direct to this site
- 11206 hits on Lonely Planet site
- 0 Frenchmen with good sense of humour met
While you’re here you may as well have a look at my fully completed old skool analogue map below. Quite the route eh.
I’ll be back in STBB HQ at some point in January for my New Zealand jaunt, I hope you will join me. I’ll post the occasional update on my travel plans here so feel to check back in and leave some comment abuse every now and again. It’s been emotional.
* Including 1 courtesy of this lot.
