Travelling with Eloise

Paris/Going Home: Day Sixteen

The last day! So incredibly sad! We were up early as usual. By this time I was so used to it, that it wasn’t even an issue. Bags were packed, so we headed to the breakfast room for our last ‘Continental breakfast’. Everyone was sharing stories from the night before and bloody hell some of it was juicy! Kind of wished I went out on the last night however I would have been wrecked traveling home.

We all hustled into the contiki coach for the last time. Some people stayed behind in Paris and decided to extend their holiday. Most people came back on the coach and more stories were being told. Everyone that was being dropped at Charles de Gaulle Airport(me and Ellie included) had to say their goodbyes on the bus and it was a sad occasion. Everyone would miss the Ellie’s because well why wouldn’t they?

Then began our journey home. Everything on our entire trip was fantastic and incredible up until this point. This is the journey that I was fucking dreading. Almost 35-40 hours. That’s nearly two whole days traveling!! A normal journey back to Australia would take probably around 26 hours max! But no this wasn’t to be.

We waited in Charles de Gaulle with some others from Contiki, however as time went on we all had to go on our separate ways. Let me give you a quick overview of what was to follow.

(all in local time)
Get to Paris airport at 9am.
Flight leaves at 2:45pm. That’s a 5hr 45min wait.
An hour and a half flight to Heathrow Airport.
Arrive at Heathrow at 3:15pm
Flight leaves at 9:30pm. That’s a 6hr 15min wait.
Then a 10hr flight to Bangkok. (thank god we slept the whole way)
Arrive at Bangkok at 3:55pm.
Flight leaves at midnight. That’s a 8hr 5min wait.
Then a 8hr flight to Brisbane.

All together? Meh can’t be bothered to add up. Been out of school to long.

Anyways we landed in Brisbane safely. Greasy hair and smelly. But safely. About 2 hours before we landed we popped on the shirts we got in Amsterdam. I’ll pop a picture up. They said “Good Girls go to Heaven, Bad Girls go to Amsterdam”. So that was fun coming through immigration. The officer just looked at me and giggled and said “So Amsterdam hey? Sounds like you had fun ;)” haha. Then we went through the arrivals gates and there was the family.

All in all this was a trip of a lifetime and I am so glad that I did it with Ellie. I think she is probably the only person that can tolerate me for an extended period of time. We had the most incredible time and will be reminiscing about the trip for years to come.

Paris: Day Fifteen

Our second last day of Contiki. Oh dear god did we pack a heap in. Lol jokes Ellie and I have already done Europe so we had a chillaxed day.

In the morning Marco dropped us at the Eiffel Tower for round two of going up. This time we made it up with success. Everyone was taking little hits at Ellie about the elevator. In a funny way. So she held her game and went up. However when it bounced a little bit her eyes did that whole wide thing. Anyways we were up the top! (not the very top because it was closed for annual construction. Bastards) We all got our happy snaps and perused around the gift shop and by the time we knew it, it was time to head back to the coach.

From the Eiffel Tower we then headed to the secret entrance of the louvre. Ellie and I joined everyone else up until the line as we have already seen Mona Lisa in her tiny form. So instead we went shopping down……..can you guess?? The champs élysées! We made our way through the lovely gardens of the louvre and up the champs élysées via some tourist shops.

We wandered on up without a care in the world. Just taking it all in. Ventured into H&M to find something for Ellie to wear to the Moulin Rouge. Bloody hell she’s worse than me, and that coupled with H&M’s annual ‘solder’ it was like death. We continued up and bumped into one of the guys, Mo, from our tour and went to help him pick out something nice also to wear to Moulin Rouge. God boy shopping is fun. However it’s difficult to figure out a mans pants side in Australia let alone in Europe/France where it’s again completely different. Got a tie and a shirt and he was done. Minus the pants because all of us where sick of looking for them. Then a quick visit to McDonalds and it was time to head back to the hotel on the Metro.

Where back at the hotel by at least 3:30pm so as to have time to get ready to leave at 6:00pm. We stuffed around for at least an hour and then realized we should probably hurry up. Just as I get into my underwear for the evening someone knocks of the door. Fantastic. So I just whipped a towel round and found that the knocker was actually the guy we helped pick out clothes for showing off his new outfit. Well that was and awkward but he looked adorable.

It quickly turned to 6:00pm and we were down in the lobby ready for our night out on the town. Moulin Rouge was incredible! We had the most amazing meal. Smoked salmon on toast followed by a delicious steak accompanied with beans and potatoes. Then ended with the most mouth watering, taste bud orgasming, delicious, layered chocolate mousse thing which was heaven!!! I just did not want it to ever end!! As soon as it spread over your taste buds and started to sink in it was mind blowing.

After dinner we girls had a bit of a dance on the dance floor then it was time for the show to begin. It was a beautiful show. The costumes were astounding and the dances were fantastic. Looking at some of the guys faces was hilarious when the ‘Lion Temptress’ was dancing all over the cage. The other acts in between the typical Moulin Rouge dancers were hilarious as well as incredible to watch. Oh! And at one point in the show there was a woman swimming around naked in a tank of epic proportions with at least six pythons. Even Ellie’s face dropped at the sight of that. But all in all the show was definitely worth a second visit.

Afterwards we were supposed to have a coach back to the hotel however Marco had to leave as his driving hours were nearly up. So Contiki would reimburse us for the Taxi’s we had to take home. My god did our taxi driver take us for a ride. James was sitting in the front and us three girls were in the back with the doors locked. Have you seen Taken for fucks sake. Anyways he drove us around the same spot like three times and because he ‘didn’t speak engarish’ it made it difficult. After like 20 minutes of trying to tell him ‘GO STRAIGHT THROUGH TOWN YOU FUCKING KNOBHEAD!!’ we just gave up and said go wherever the hell you want mate. So he did. TOOKNUS OUTSIDE THE CENTRE OF PARIS!! Then back around on the highway! HE WAS HEADING NEAR CHARLES DE GAULLE AIRPORT!!!! WTF! By this time I was trembling with anger. It didn’t matter that Contiki was reimbursing us in the morning. It was the principle! No one rips me off sunny boy. Don’t you know who I am! Anyways after his door nearly fell of from slamming it when we got back to the hotel, it was on bitch. I yelled at him saying we were only giving him €25! Because we knew he took us for a ride. We were smart tourists. Then all of his English came out’ “Ahh I call the police!!! Kill you!!” so it was just like whatever dickhead here’s your extra tenner. Got the receipt and went into reception where the concierge was very lovely and very helpful.

However now looking back its just a funny story to tell. Paris was amazing and our last night together as a group was awesome!