I hate giving money to taxi drivers as much as I hate putting money into an economy of rude people. The people in Paris, in my opinion, are as rude as they come for absolutely no reason. Their attitude mimics the surly attitude of the Greek but with more pride. It isn’t something to be proud of and there certainly is no need for the snooty behavior. Paris has some great sights but seeing them once is enough to never return thereafter. It is overly expensive and the eurail doesn’t really work in this country. They find ways to charge you for their overly complicated transportation system. That constantly goes on strike. This can be a city of romance, but there are plenty of places outside of France that are far more romantic. It’s a shame that they have so much land. Luckily, Daniel and I are quite savvy. We got into The Louvre for free, every Friday it’s free for students under 26. We found a way to outsmart the metro system and we managed to strike a bargain with our hostel. But two days in Paris was enough for us to want to leave and as we tried to go down south to Nice we were met with very unhelpful staff members of the train system. They wanted to charge us close to 200 euros, with our eurail pass! We pulled another ticket and waited to speak to another representative that told us she can reserve a ticket for us the night we wanted to leave for 9 euro each. And then some more magic happened, for whatever reason she couldn’t bill us, so we ended up getting the tickets for free!

But back to Paris: Paris was beautiful, a place that was saved from destruction by a nazi trying to save himself and his family. Hitler was really fond of Paris and said that if he cannot have Paris then no one else will and he gave orders to destroy the city and leave it in smokes. But Deidrich Von Choltitz in an attempt to save himself, saved Paris.
Paris has a lot to do, you’ve got lots of museums, lots of culture, lots of history. The louvre alone would take 3 months to see if you looked at every piece of art for only 10 seconds according to research. The catacombs of Paris very much resembles that of the bone church in Kunta Hora but more eerie, with a lot more bones, and Daniel popping out trying to scare you around every corner.
Daniel finally got to see the Mona Lisa, who became famous because she was stolen from the louvre by an Italian employee on his last day to pay homage to his country. It took the museum three days to realize the painting was gone. The painting remained under the guys bed for years in Italy until he decided to sell it and the person was aware that this was the missing painting from the louvre. Italy and France were in an uproar. The artist, Leonardo da Vinci was Italian therefore, the Italians thought the painting should belong in Italy but the French said it was a gift from da VInci to the king. But let’s forget about all the Italian art work that Napoleon stole that still sits it the louvre in Paris. Haha, people are mental. The painting itself is overrated, Daniel took one look at it and laughed because behind it is a painting that’s 10x better. The Mona Lisa in his opinion is a poor piece of artwork there are paintings in the louvre that in his words took a poop on Mona. He took out a pen scribbled on a sheet of paper for a moment and showed me a picture of a stick figure and said this looks better than the Mona Lisa. He tried to auction it off to the highest bidder in the crowd hoping to make his millions and retire unfortunately there were no takers.

Ah, oui, the Eiffel Tower, with its magnificent lights, and wonderful height is actually a radio tower. The French weren’t very fond of this “monstrosity”and wanted it torn down and used for scrap, but to keep it Mr. Eiffel made it functional into a radio tower that came in handy during WWII, very clever, but it is a must see and very beautiful. The view from the top is nice as well you are able to see all of Paris , but keep in mind, you cannot see the Eiffel Tower when you are on the Eiffel Tower.

Nice, is nice. It’s sunny, the weather is good and the beach is a welcome change from the norths weather. This however was where we experienced our bed bug problem(see previous two posts) but it didn’t dampen our spirits.

We went to Monaco while in Nice and it is beautiful. Every other car is a Bentley. There are lamborghinis, rolls Royce, Mercedes, BMW’s, Bentleys everywhere! They have the famous casino of Monaco with its own opera house. Where the majority of the visitors are the Italians! They used to have a formal dress requirement which they abolished about two years ago. And it’s the only place in the world where there is a dealer that has to think, and he bets against his players while dealing. He has a split second to perform mathematical equations in his head, there are 200 of them. His profit is a percentage of the casinos winnings from the very game he’s dealing, so the more money he wins for the casino, the more money he gets to walk away with. They have gorgeous gardens, and high end shops galore, including Hermes, Louis Vuitton , Alexander McQueen, Gucci, Lalique, Prada…and the list goes on. This place is definitely one of the worlds luxury capitals.

Tid bit for the day: you will fight when traveling together for long periods of time, it’s inevitable the best advice I can give you guys is don’t use all your excuses for your mess ups back in the states save the good ones for traveling its a lot harder to escape her when you don’t have a car.