Paris - not as bad as everyone says it is...

So I've just gotten back from a weekend in Paris, nominally to see the Tour de France, but really, well... because I can. Gotta love the Eurostar!
and I thought I'd take the novel approach of writing some thoughts about it whilst the trip is still fresh in my mind (my thoughts have a very short use by date), and I must say that having previously not really thought it was all it was cracked up to be. Now before you all drown me out with a chorus of "but Paris is the city of love!, it's the most beautiful city in the world" etc, etc, let me explain how I came by my previous misconception:
1) the weather when I went previously was shit. I mean really shit
2) as a result, pretty much all I saw of Paris was the Sacre Coeur, the Champs Elysees and Zara (a predominantly female clothing store) oh and lots of dog shit and rubbish on the streets
having been again with reasonably good weather I have now had the opportunity to climb the Arc de Triumphe, check out Notre Damne, Plaza de Concorde, the suburb of Saint Michel, the grounds of the Lourve and take the boat cruise past the other main sites (including that big tower) and I must say that I now agree with the majority of the human population that has had the pleasure of visiting Paris!
However, I do still have a few beefs with the beautiful city, namely:
- in 2 1/2 days all of the meals I ate (except lunch at a delightful Greek gyro house) were shit. Really shit. As shit as the weather was last time I was there.
- the customer service is terrible. Now, living in London, I'm used to poor service, but the places I visited really raised the bar on shit service levels
- the trains were as bad as those in the UK - stopping for no good reason and making things worse was the service announcements in French (to be fair my fault for not learning French)
- the beauty of the walkways by the Seine river and in fact a lot of the city of Paris being rudely interrupted by that most delightful odour - human urine. Now, we've all been caught short at one time or another and I'm as guilty as the next person of just a spot of public urination, but really, I've never smelt public spaces as bad as I have in some of the prettier parts of Paris
- continental breakfasts are generally good unless you're staying in a ridiculously cheap (and inconveniently located) 2 star hotel "near" the Carrefour Pleyel (not to be confused with Carrefour - the French version of Coles) metro station and their version of "ham" is suspiciously similar to "Spam" - complete with that nasty jelly like substance holding it all together
- getting into clubs is generally difficult enough - wrong shoes, wrong haircut, wrong shirt and all that jazz, we've all been there - even in Radelaide, but to be turned away from a club that was already mainly full of girls because there wasn't a girl in our group was a bit of a slap in the face
- for all of it's reputation as a city of high fashion, most of the Parisians we saw were not inappropriately dressed for a night out at the Village Tavern

Now, to the Tour de France.
On a certain level, I'm glad that I can say that I've now seen the starting (in London) and closing stages of one of the most famous sporting events in the world, BUT - not actually being that big a fan of cycling in the first place, on balance, I would rather have been watching it on a big screen either at home or preferably with friends, beer, toilets and most importantly... couches! Rather than spend any time ripping on the experience (which I am glad I've had), I've compiled a few suggestions for those who want to see the Tour up close an personal...
- having seen the Tour come through the streets of Paris I would probably recommend watching it up on one of those hill climbs that they do, so you can get close enough to the riders to push them (over if you so choose) and there's likely to be a reasonably steady stream of them come through over a period of time, as opposed to the whole pelaton cruising past in 30 seconds (admittedly they did a few laps of the Paris street circuit)
- pick a good location - luckily my boss suggested the corner of the Champs Elysees and Plaza de Concorde and that actually worked out quite well for us
- get there early... but not too early. We got to our spot at about 1pm. If you get there too late then the crowd will be six deep and unless you're over 6 foot massive (I'm not) you probably won't see anything
- bring water and snacks - but don't drink too much! if you leave your location, some will steal it and even if you don't people will keep encroaching into your personal space until you just want to start lashing out and hurting someone. I don't have the largest bladder in the world and not being able to go to use the facilities for 4 1/2 hours is not fun
- bring something to sit on - standing in the same spot for 4 1/2 hours is also not fun
- bring some music, a book to read, or someone you can talk shit to for 4 1/2 hours. If you're lucky, there will be speakers set up near you, but those speakers, whilst playing a reasonable selection of music (including Midnight Oil and INXS) may change over to random French commentary at any given moment, which can be confusing
- oh and be prepared for a parade of truly commercial proportions, made amusing by the sheer fact that you won't know half of th products being advertised but tolerable due to the large numbers of pretty girls dancing on fast moving automobiles

So that's it. My weekend in Paris. Photos and a video clip (if I can figure out how to make it work) of the race to come. I can feel the anticipation already...

PK