More From France

The pace in Paris is quite different to the other places we have been, especially coming straight from Amsterdam. The traffic is absolute bedlam, and they are constantly sitting on their horns! Around the train station there are beggers and drunks everywhere and there is rubbish everywhere. They dont have bins as such on the roadside, just metal rings with plastic bags strung through them - and because there are dogs everywhere, the rubbish bags don't stay in tact for very long.
There are street vendors all around the stations on the outskirts with shopping trolleys full of corn,and make shift BBQs made out of metal drums - they have converted them into little BBQs and they grill the corn on them and sell it - there was one on almost every corner.
We have been really lucky with the weather as it has been really hot and brilliant sunshine the whole time we have been here.
We paid a visit to ChocoStory which is a chocolate museum. It takes you through the history of chocolate right back from the Aztechs and the original preparation of the cocoa bean. We had no idea the pods were so huge! The museum was really well put together and really interesting, and of course the highlight is the demostration of making french pralines and the tasting. At the end you also get to do a hot chocolate tasting and choose the floavour of chocolate, so we tried the original Aztech and Spanish recipies, they give you the hot steamed milk, and the chocolate is on an icecream stick which you stir around in the milk to melt......yum! Interestingly the Aztechs used Chilli with their hot chocolate, so it is not a new concept, but a very old one that has taken fashion now.
We went to the Moulin Rouge on Saturday night and unfortunately our seats were right at the front and off to the side so the view of one side of the stage was completely obscured. (we didn't realise the seats weren't allocated and the line to get in was already spanning 2 blocks down the road by 30 minutes before the show) The costumes were fantastic (2 million Euros) and it was very sparkly and showy, but for the price of the tickets we expected the show to be more polished. The theatre seats 1000 people at tables and the setting of the theatre was very nice. They had a massive pool rise up out of the stage that had snakes swimming in it that they did tricks with, ponies, a cute little dog, a great vantriloquist and a Russian duo that did a very impressive contortionist act. The dancers were topless and in g strings for the entire show as we expected, but after the intial number you really don't notice, it is just part of the costume.
On Sunday we managed a bit of a sleep in which was nice, as the show at the Moulin Rouge didn't finish til after 1am. Logan was sick of omlettes for breakfast so we decided to try a creperie. We had seen huge jars of Nutella everywhere in Europe (1kg jars) and Sara decided that this must be popular so had a banana and Nutella Crepe - highly recommend it!! We tried to get a train to Giverny for the day to look at the artists garden, but after being sent around in circles for an hour by some very unhelpful information desks we found that the only remaining train for the day wouldn't be back in enough time for us to catch our evening dinner cruise, so we had to skip it.
We decided instead to head back into the city and attempt to get up the Eiffel Tower. We ended up queuing for about 40 minutes to get a ticket and up to the first level, then another 20 minutes to get to the summit, but we made it. The view from the top was incredible and it shows the expense of the city - buildings as far as the eye can see in every direction. They have a campagne bar at the top where they sell you champagne for 10 euros a glass (around $18NZ)!
Our last evening in Paris was spent on a dinner cruise on the Seine. The boat was lovely, all nice old woodwork with side lamps, wooden flooring and big old fashioned rugs. The upper deck was open air and was great for seeing everything as you cruise past.....really felt like Paris should. Around the river is really pretty, and there is a level part way down along all of the sides that appear to be a popular hangout for locals to have drinks, jam sessions and picnics as everytime we were around the river the lower banks were full of people.