Paris

Last night we caught a high speed train from Rome to Milan. We travelled first class and had lovely big seats. It was a very easy journey of around 3 and a half hours. We had to wait about 40 minutes at Milan before we could board the sleeper train to Paris. Again we were supposedly traveling first class but our two berth cabin was pretty basic and the shared toilet was terrible. The train finally got away just before midnight and Finn had stayed up until then. As soon as he train was underway, they unlocked the toilets by which time there was quite a queue. So Finn did very well as it was about 12.15am by the time he was in bed. He slept solid through to 8am, so a great sleep for him. Sleeping on the train there was a gentle rocking motion (not dissimilar to when we went on our cruise last year) except for the clickity clack of the train moving. I got about 5 hours sleep, so I'm looking forward to a good sleep tonight. We got into Paris at 9.30am, walked to our hotel (about 10 mins), left our bags and went and found the hop on hop off bus. We spent a few hours checking out a couple of different routes - there are four different routes through Paris with our hop on hop off company. We were struck by the difference in temperature. It was just 15c when we arrived and had been raining. It felt really cold after the heat of Rome. It warmed up to 19c later in the day. Had lunch in a cafe by Notre Dame. Got absolutely fleeced! They charged us E21.50 for 2 sandwiches, a coffee and a coke. Apparently my cappuccino was E6.50! I questioned that as I'd been paying E2 in Rome. So was my NZ$13 coffee nice - not really. The moral of the story is don't eat at a cafe right next to Notre Dame! Tomorrow we are hoping to go to the Louvre. Will see how it pans out though. Love Deb and Finn Coach Matt - good one for getting the goal. Dad told me about your goal too. I saw a soccer shop in Rome. We passed a football field on out hop on hop off bus in Paris today. Say hi to the team from me