Paris day 6 - By Jess
Our last day in Paris, and therefore Europe, had arrived! We checked out of our hotel but, since our plane wasn't leaving until 11pm that night, we still had a whole day to fill. So we decided to go and climb the Eiffel tower. We made our way to the famous landmark, during the day this time, and got in the line to climb it. The wait was quite long, around 40 minutes, but that was nothing compared to the people waiting for the lift. We eventually got to the front of the line and began the long, long journey to the first and second levels of the tower, as far as you can walk. It was a long climb, and I was very out of breath by the first level. When we got there, though, we were delighted to find that there was an ice skating rink on the tower. We did a loop, took some photos, and then headed for the second level. This meant another long climb, which we did.
The second level rewarded us with some great views. We had a toilet break and were surprised to find they had hot water up there. We took more photos and then decided to pay the extra 4euro each to ride the lift all the way to the top of the tower, as we couldn't get any higher on foot. We got in and went all the way up. And it's a very long way up. It was, of course, freezing up the top, but we took some photos, declined the 15euro per glass champagne, and marvelled at the amazing view of Paris. It was worth the arduous walk up to stand at the top and look down at the capitol building, fountains and surrounding parks and buildings. Just beautiful.
We then headed back down to the first level of the tower for some lunch. If we had seen the cafe, we would have gone there (a word to anyone who goes there after us) but we didn't so we decided to have lunch in Restauraunt 53. We each ordered a burger and shared cheescake for dessert. It wasn't the best food, but the view was brilliant, as we were seated by a window overlooking the park area behind the tower. We took our time with lunch, as we were both stuffed from the climb, and followed lunch with cups of tea. We then left the restaurant and inquired about the ice skating.
It turned out that the ice skating was free! You just had to leave your shoes as a deposit, so off came our boots and on went the skates. We then spent the next half an hour trying, with limited success, to ice skate on the Eiffel tower. It was lots of fun but neither of us were particularly great, and I was paraniod that after our injury free holiday one of us would break an arm or something on our last day. We were getting cold so we decided it was time to say goodbye to the tower, so we got our shoes back and climbed back down.
It was getting quite late at this point so we figured it was time to head back to our hotel, pick up our bags and go to the airport. We picked up some delicious cakes on the way back to our hotel and ate them in the bar. And then it was time to leave. We grabbed our luggage and tried to naviage the metro one last time to get the train to Charles DeGaulle airport. All those stairs with all our luggage presented a bit of a challenge, but we'd learnt from previous mistakes, and left plenty of time to get to the airport. We finally made it onto our train and disembarked for the last time. Once in the airport it was surprisingly quiet, though it was quite late, and after checking in and dropping off our bags (which, thankfully, were under the weight limit) we had some late dinner and waited for our flight.
We left Europe at 11.05pm and began our time travelling journey home on Air France.
The flight wasn't great as we were in the middle two seats of the middle row, meaning any time one of us needed the loo we had to inconvenience a stranger either side of us. The chairs were also tiny, even I was squished, but at least we were given ear plugs and eye masks. I managed to get a bit of sleep, but not a lot. On the plus side, as it was Air France, the food wasn't bad and the congac was free.
We landed in Singapore after about 13 hours, for a 3 hour wait. We weren't feeling brilliant, but we had a drink, tried to freshen up and then hopped aboard our Qantas flight home. The seats were bigger this time and we were on the aisle of the middle row, and I had a gap next to me and the next person, so it was much more comfortable. The food was ok, and once again I was able to sleep a little.
We arrived back home at 6.50am (though we didn't get out of the airport until nearly 8.30am) and so ended our awesome European adventure!
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