I survived the soul-searing terror of Paris!

... Otherwise known as the Eiffel Tower. OK, I wussed out before I got to the top, but I made it to the second level. Those of you familiar with my issues with heights will understand what an achievement this was for me. And the view was spectacular - we went up just after sunset, and everything was lit up. You can see everything, just looking out and seeing the Les Champs Elysees, Sacre Coeur (which looks magical at night), L'Hotel des Invalides - Wow. And as we walked home, it SNOWED! I got snowed on in Paris! Very cool (literally - we were freezing by the time we got back to the hotel).

Yesterday we went to Versailles. The Palace itself was amazing (although Louis the 14th was a little too into the gold gilt for my tastes). The highlights were definitely the Chapel and the Opera. We went out into the gardens, and while they would definitely be better in summer, they were still pretty spectacular.

Afterwards, we went briefly to Notre Dame, just as the sun was setting. As we went in, they were starting a service, so we sat in. The mass was in mostly in French, but the singing was in latin. Since I love sacred music, it was a pretty amazing experience. I want to go back to have a proper look around, and hopefully climb the bell tower.

The whole thing is kinda surreal - normal buildings, then suddenly a world-famous landmark smack bang in the middle of a city block.

Dealing with the French is... interesting. They only seem to come in two extremes - either very nice and helpful, or completely arrogant. As a general rule, the guys seem more helpful than the girls. The hotel is nice, but kinda cheapskate on the extras - for instance, there is no iron in the room, and they charge 30 Euro to hire one. I even got into a argument with the girl at reception because we ran out of toilet paper, and she was insisting that I should wait until the cleaning people came to give us more - on Wednesday!

OK, kasneeze's computer is alternating between trying to lock me out, and loosing the connection, so I'm going to end this before I loose the entry.

Brass monkeys ahoy!

It was 2 degrees today. Bloody freezing. Went to the Arc de Triumph (but not up the top - I'm saving that for an evening, hopefully a slightly warmer one), and then wandered down the Champs Elysees, where I picked up a French stalker, who followed me around for a while, said I was 'very, very beautiful' and thought I was Spanish. This is the second person so far who's thought I was Spanish - really not understanding that, unless my French has some kinda Spanish accent or something.

Anyway, after I got rid of my stalker, I ended up at Les Hospitales. Didn't go into the museum, just wandered around, and took a lot of pictures, until impending frostbite made me put my gloves back on. There was some sort of ceremony going on when I got there - people lined up with flags, and then other people walked through the middle of the flag people after shaking hands with some religious-type people. Yeah, you can see I had no idea what was going on - I hadn't really planned on ending up there today, so I hadn't read up on the place at all. I'm not sure if it was a regular thing, or a special occasion, but given they had called out half the French armed forces for event, I think it was probably a one off.

And speaking of photos, I'm up to something like 400 so far... there will be a mass photo dump when I get back and have had a chance to cull those unworthy of saving.

Have I mentioned that you can see EuroDisney from my hotel? That's kinda cool. The hotel also only has two english channels, BBC world and Eurosport. In the last few days, I have learnt more out curling than I ever wanted to know.

Tomorrow I'm planning on going to La Defense, and then I plan on spending the rest of the week hitting the museums, as well as going back to Notre Dame and heading over to Montmartre. Might be a while until the next update, depending on the availability of Internet.

I need a 'cold' icon.