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Paris (29 - 31 May 2009)

That time of year again - Aaron's birthday, ugh! Canada last year, Belgium the year before, and this year: a weekend of cycling around Paris - sweet as! This was planned a couple months back, and Katie was to be joining me but she's currently stranded in New Zealand due to UK entry visa issues. The train company (Eurostar) wouldn't allow me to change the name on her ticket because they're a pack of pricks, and it was too late notice to invite anyone else along and expect them to pay the train fare so it was just me and me. However, neither in London nor Paris did anyone actually check the fucking tickets anyway, so I could've brought anyone along for the ride! Paris was the first mainland European city I ever stepped foot on almost three years ago, and I made it a point to spend most of my time outside of the central city (where most of the touristy stuff is that I've already done).

End to end, the Eurostar trains are about half a kilometre long - that's a lot of train! My bike got stuffed in the middle somewhere, I got stuffed up the back, and this is the view I got for my £100 ticket. Pricks.				For most of the trip we were hurtling along at around 250-300km/h, running non-stop from London to Paris in just over two hours.

The Channel Tunnel runs 50kms under the English Channel between England and France. Not much of a view in there except for my own reflection ;)		Only the bare bloody essentials in my hotel room, including a bed that may as well have been a slab of concrete.		With the concrete-like bed and the noise of the traffic below, I didn't get a lot of sleep hehe.

The things I remember of Paris from my last trip here: The cool artwork on the sides of buildings...				(Some just have pubic hair growing on the side of them)...

More 'artwork' on the side of trucks and vans parked in dodgy areas hehe...				And dodgy black fellas (very black) selling bullshit at tourist attractions.

Cycling is just as popular in Paris as it is anywhere in Europe, but although there's the odd cycle-lane here and there it hardly compares to the Netherlands.		A good scheme they do have is these automatic cycle hire points which are all over the city. Put your money in the machine, grab a bike, and bring it back later (preferably with its bits still attached). The Mayor of London is an avid cyclist and is pushing to have these installed throughout London. That's one way to thin out the population numbers - cycling in London!		Skateboarding down the middle of the street in busy traffic seems to be another popular method of getting from A to B.

Within ten minutes of leaving the hotel I quickly discovered that Paris has London-like traffic problem of its own, but worse. In London there are at least some rules that get followed and some courtesy to fellow drivers, but in Paris if you're not blasting your horn or cutting off the guy next to you then you're not going to get very far hehe.
Apparently it is perfectly acceptable here to literally park your shitbox in the middle of the road too if there's nowhere else to put it hahaha!
Cars, trucks, scooters, skateboarders, pedestrians - oh how I do love to mingle with the traffic (more on that later ;)		And if you think the back-streets would be safer you'd be wrong, as here you're getting cut off by cars pulling out of nowhere, and bloody pedestrians stepping out of nowhere!
Several of those pedestrians needed a change of underwear after meeting my air horn hehe. Look at them all - just asking for it ;)		Paris loves roundabouts, but most every other intersection is controlled by bloody traffic lights (which always seem to be red). As a rule of thumb I don't run reds, until now. What ever happened to the good old Give Way (or Yield in America)?!

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