Finally in Paris!

At last, we’ve arrived in Paris!  It’s been a lifelong dream of mine to come here, so we scheduled nine nights in Paris, which worked out well because it gave us time to chill and do some more trip planning (for our next segment, the UK) when we arrived yesterday, without having to worry about not having enough time to explore Paris.  We’ve decided it’s a good idea to have an extra day in as many cities as possible so we can take a break from sightseeing without having to skip stuff, and our upcoming schedule has been modified accordingly (we’ve also noticed that from Barcelona till now, when we move from one city to another, the travel day is pretty a write-off because we’re too tired to do anything).  I don’t know how some people can hop from city to city without any breaks in between – we get tired after three days of running around sightseeing!

Today, our second day in Paris, was spent exploring the area we are staying – the 10th arrondissement, by the Gare de l’Est (we’re at an Ibis hotel again because we got a pretty good rate of 59 euros per night).  We walked over to the Place de la République, a large square on the border between the 3rd, 10th and 11th arrondissements, where a peaceful demonstration was happening about the events going on in Sri Lanka.  After roaming around the area, we found an alleyway that had a number of restaurants and decided to eat at a Vietnamese place that mainly did phở.  I was impressed by how good it was (although I have really low expectations when it comes to Asian food in Europe) and, compared to the last time we had phở in Geneva, this was dirt cheap – 7 euros with a drink!

After eating, we had to go back to the hotel so Paul could do some work, but in the evening we checked out a nearby street called Rue du Faubourg Saint Denis – considered by some to be Paris’ red light district.  The north end of the street is mostly just Turkish and Indo-Pakistani restaurants and lots of small convenience and grocery stores, but towards the south you will find lots of sex shops and prostitutes soliciting clients.  While the Turkish pizza and kebabs we had here were delightful, I would say the south end of the street was kind of scary and the ladies there were, uh, how shall I put it… less than desirable!

So, after two days in Paris we’ve yet to see the major attractions here, but there’s still another week!  I’m just glad that we’ve found some decent food, even if we haven’t eaten anything French yet, and we’re all rested up and ready to do some sightseeing again!