Paris! and castles and food in france and wifi and la tomatina and quiche etc

We are in the city of romance, Paris, and there are no internet cafes anywhere. I am freezing to death in the basement of mcdonalds leeching free wifi and trying to pay off my credit card bills in the next few moments before the internet drops out again, so I'm gonna blog some photos while I wait for the net to reconnect


These past few days, I have been exploring the streets of paris with my lover, the french king, the french god and the greek goddess who wears ed hardy - we danced our way to the Louvre and L'arc de triomphe, skivvied along to see the Eiffel tower at night (MAGICAL).....! Sadly I have few pictures to show for it because my camera got owned at la tomatina.


La Tomatina was insane. Sweat, piss, sangria, half-naked bodies crushed tightly against you, 40 degree spanish sun beating down on your head, and then the OVERWHELMING SOUR STENCH of hard, rotten tomatoes as the five trucks roll towards the centre of the mass of people, everyone's pushing forwards and back, and jets of cold water come spraying down every few moments. In about five minutes after the tomato trucks come by, you're standing in a river of tomato slush but you can hardly see it for the people, there were a billion people, apparently it was a festival of 40,000 this year - don't go if you're claustrophobic, but my god if you go it's an experience you won't forget in a hurry


Getting clean afterwards is another story. Apparently most people go down to the river to bathe, but eden and I couldn't find it so we trailed from the home of one hospitable spanish native to another to stand under their hose as they helped cleaned up off all the gross, smelly tomato bits. I don't know what was more disgusting - my hair or walking around afterwards in those red squelchy sneakers, it was like we were carrying the rotten-tomato-piss-sangria soup around with us

I have hundreds of photos and videos but most of them are blurry-awful because my camera was wrapped in layers of plastic wrap and scotch tape to keep it safe. And then my camera died anyway, rage rage rage =(

So I discovered Barcelona without my camera. Caught an exhausting fever at the same time so I took it slow for a couple of days - wandering the markets in a pleasant daze, lying on the beach receiving coconut-scented massages for 5 euros, visited the picasso museum with alice from wonderland and watched flamenco dancing (dodgy phone photos later), downing sangria and pringles instead of seeing the houses of Gaudi. Met some fab people at my hostel, travelling from all over - from netherlands to austria to france to manchester to melbourne, we went down to a beachside nightclub altogether the first night, I was totally not expecting this and had no clubbing clothes, had to turn my beach dress into a top and borrowed a skirt off sarah.

Got far too much exercise yesterday walking through the super luxurious chateau de versaille, wow the royal gardens and palace chambers







Last night the french lover took us to a dim french bar in 'Luxembourg in Paris'. It was an interesting bar. Voluptuous nude women were painted life-sized around the entrance, very inviting, inside were old park benches and stolen train seats, we sat in a corner on indian cushions and wooden planks, the toilets were dark and papered with music posters, egyptian tiles, street signs and blue graffiti.....
ze monsieur maxime was also there with his big french smile, and met some of their french friends. Tried 'sex on the beach' - malibu orange juice vodka and grenadine, was pretty sweet. Hard liquor is cheap in europe so all the drinks are very strong. Learnt lots of terribly dirty, "important" french phrases and forgot them all right after. Afterwards, went to mcdonalds to feed the frenchies their greasy double cheeseburgers and fries



tiny little boulangers (patisseries) line the streets of paris


our diet in paris can basically be summed up by a bakery window display

beautiful tarts and pastries

filled baguettes


omg tasty-looking croissants?



Found this cafe for brunch today, there were muchas personas, it was tres populaire



hoping for wifi?? but noooooo


The croissants so far have been disappointing
but the muffins and mochacinnos are utterly divine


As the french would say... Paris n'est pas si mal... Paris is not so bad!

Okay the internet keeps dropping out so i'm leaving this mcdonalds
the air-conditioning here is like malfunctioning cos it's like the arctic circle in here, or maybe they designed it this way on purpose to make sure people eat their burgers and get out

So I will leave you with this.... walking home from the chateau de versaille, I took a photo to see what was happening behind me and got the shock of my life

shock of my life

And because that is a terrible photo to end a post with, here is one of the greek goddess, also from the chateau de versaille..........

leaving the gardens of versaille