Sorry I haven't posted in a couple of days, my excuse for missing last night was my computer wouldn't connect to the wifi. My excuse for the night before is just that the wifi was downstairs in the bar and we were on the 5th floor and I couldn't be bothered going down by the time I remembered - although there the lift worked. Here it doesn't, and we're back up on the 5th floor. I'm loving that.
So when I left you I was in Munich. Our last day there we headed up to Dachau, to the memorial site at the concentration camp there. It was appropriately grey and cold for our visit. It was well worth doing. The camp was a working camp rather than a straight out death camp the way others were. They built a gas chamber part way through the war but never used it, well not for mass killings at least. It didn't affect me quite as much as I thought it might until the crematorium. We walked into the building and I looked up at the sign on the wall and it said that it was the room that it was the room they'd stored the bodies in. Having seen the photos already of hundreds of bodies piled up it horrified me. I felt like we shouldn't have been allowed to just walk all over the room, it didn't feel right some how. Looking at the ovens wasn't a hell of a lot better. So an interesting day, not a particularly cheery one though.
It ended up taking up most of the day. By the time we'd gotten home and eaten a late lunch it was 4pm, and the museum I wanted to see closed at 5, so I missed that one unfortunately.
The following day, so yesterday, was the travel day from Munich to Paris. Our final day on busabout, and a long one. We left Munich at 8am, and arrived in Paris just before 10pm. It wasn't too rough a day though. There were only 7 of us on the bus to Salzburg, and then 11 from then on. So a very empty bus considering it can hold around 50. That meant plenty of space to spread out and a less 'hearding cattle' like feel. Arriving in Paris they gave us a quick tour driving around the city. Which was great with us only having a day so it meant we at least got to see the Lourve and other sights like that we didn't manage to make it to today.
You remember how I said it was cold in Munich? Here is where the sacre bleu comes in. Today it got up to 38 degrees. Thirty-eight. THIRTY-EIGHT. So at least a 20 degree change from Munich. Oh boy was it hot. And unfortuntely the one museum we visited didn't have air conditioning. We started the morning with the effiel tour. Which took all of the morning. Between the waiting in line and the climbing the stairs. Yeup we took the stairs option because it was cheaper and the line was shorter. I doubted that decision part way up. I am not as fit as I could be. We visited the first and second levels, but decided not to bother paying the extra fee to go right to the top. Great views from up there. Very hazy though, I still haven't gotten used to that about Europe.
We sljmped up to the arc de triumf (I apologise if I'm spelling these wrong, I'm feeling too tired to look up the correct spellings) keeping in the shade as much as possible. It was an impressive show of over the top pomp and wealth from Napoleon. Don't get me wrong, it was amazing, just after 7 weeks of things like this I've started to wonder about the point - and the point of that one was Napoleons ego really. Anyways. We had planned to got o Musee D'Orsey after that, but discovered that its closed on a Monday, and today is in fact a Monday. Days of the week aren't something we keep very good track of over here. So instead we jumped on the metro up to the Gustav Moureau museum. I didn't know who he was, but it was a great museum anyway. It was in his old apartment, so it started off with giving you a look around some rooms decorated the way they originall y were. Then you headed up the stairs where the rooms were cleared out and his art covered the walls. There were two (non airconditioned) rooms of this. Lets say he was an ambitious painter. The ceilings were very high to incorporate his canvases, and quite a few were unfinished.
We escaped from the heat of the building back into the heat of the street. It was at this point that we passed a pharmacy sign that let us know it had reached 38 degrees. It was at this point that I thought melting was about the only thing I was capable of. We didn't melt. We kept walking. We sweated our way up to the Moulin Rouge to have a look at the outside and take a picture of the windmill. We watched the Moulin Rouge movie on the bus yesterday, which I haven't seen for years, and I discovered I really liked it, I found it very funny, and loved the cancan scenes of course. Soph and I asked at the hostel this morning about getting tickets but the girl said they are fully booked till Tuesday which is very sad, as we fly out tomorrow morning. We really would have liked to have seen one. Oh I also forgot. As we walked towards the effiel tower this morning I went to grab my camera to take a photo, and discovered it wasn't there. That left me in a bad mood for some time, one day in Paris and no camera, and unsure of where it would be. Soph at least had hers so we got some photos. Back to the Moulin Rouge. Can I just say, Paris leaves Amsterdam for dead. It doesn't have the girls in the windows, but its sex shops out do Amsterdams red light district by a long way. The street the Moulin Rouge is on is full of them. We passed them twice, once on our way to the Moulin Rouge, and once on our way back to head up to the Cathedral. Quite funny really that you walk along the sex shop street to get to Sacre Coeur Cathedral. We managed the walk up the hill to the Cathedral. Not much shade to be had up there, plus we were feeing we'd had a pretty full day by this point, so we slumped back down the hill and got back on the metro - which was air conditioned thank god. So here we are sitting in the bar next to the canal, waiting to get our dinner at 7.
Tomorrow is the mission to get to BVA airport. It should be simple enough, just a long process. Hopefully its simple. Then its Dublin! Looking forward to Ireland. I think it might be strange though be back amongst signs etc that are all in English. I've gotten quite used to looking at a sign, the packaging on food, and not understanding a word.
Oh and since I last posted we also passed the 2 week mark till I fly out of Heathrow. Very exciting that. My track pants are calling me.
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