Well where do I start.  . . I finished work early on thursday so i could go catch the train to get to the airport which was going to take about 3 hours.  I had to get from trento to bergamo and so I bought my ticket and jumped on the train to my first change point in verona, no probs.  I then had to catch a train to roveto and switch there, thats when the problems started, it was 11.45pm and i got off the train at this tiny little station with only african and indian men on the platform all eyeing my off with my little suitcase and 3 other bags.  i checked the train timetable only to find there were no more trains going to bergamo unitl 5am the next morning!  in fact the only train left was going back to verona.  I managed to find a security guard to talk to, wich was quite difficult as he didnt speak englishbut i managed to find out from him that the only thing i could do would be to go back to the previous stop, brescia and catch a cab to bergamo.  that kinda sucked cos roverto was actually closer to bergamo and would have cost as much but there were no taxis at roverto.  So back on the train i got and back to brescia and over to the cabs where i find out that it will cost me 85 euros to get get to the airport, thats about 140/150 aussie dollars!  but i had no choice, i was stuck in a little town that i knew nothing about where i hardly spoke any of the language.

so 85 euros later at 12.30am i got to the airport and settled in to one of the seats only to be kicked out of the airport about 30mins later.  me and a whole bunch of others were relocated to this big bus depo which was basically a small warehouse where we were able to sleep on the cold hard contrete floor till 4 am then we got kicked out of there back to the airport.  i then wandered around like a zombie till my flight at 6.30am.

so you can imagine that after that i wasnt really in the best mood for going to another foreign country where i knew even less of the language.

Paris is beautiful though, one of the most prettiest cities ive ever seen.  its really hard to describe why its beautiful, it just is.  maybe its cleaner, or greener or more spacious, i dont know if it is but theres just something about it.  I found myself getting homesick for trento though, not australia, trento!!!!  what the!!!  I couldnt believe it myself.

alfio wasnt going to arrive till 2.30pm and with the bus from the airport taking 2 hours it meant that we werent going to be able to meet up at the eiffel tower until 4.30 - 5pm, so i had the whole day to wander round paris by myself.  sounds great huh, but after my crappy night and with it being so hot, and having to drag around my luggage that was to do me for the whole week I wasnt in the best mood and although i saw heaps that day, actually going in the the city centre and through all the shops, i didnt take any photos.  Paris would be the perfect place to shop if you were rolling in the money, but not all that good for those of us on a budget.

 I finally met alfio at around 5pm under the eiffel tower, with the dramatic slow run over to him where i dropped my bags and threw my arms around his neck and he picked me up and spun me round a few times.  dramatic i know but it wasnt planned it was just how i felt after such a long hard day and to finally see a friend from home, it was just so nice. 

that night we went out for dinner and tried the snail, i cant believe i actually was able to stomach them, they werent all that bad as they were smothered in garlic butter but i was just hard to get my head around the fact that they were snails.  we wandered around the eiffel tower for a bit where everyone picnics on the grass to watch the light show and then we went back to our hotel.

the next morning we got up and went straight back to the eiffel tower and we went all the way up to the top.  it was such a magnificent view!!!!  then back down we came and back to our hotel to get our bags as we had found a hostel for the next night.  we made a quick stop in one of the bakeries where everything looked just delicious.  it was weird cos here in italy everyone eats panini which is basically a bread roll with stuff in it like ham, cheese and lettuce.  in france its not the typical panini bread roll but a small baguette, its sooo french.  anyway i got this yummy rasberry mousse thing which we ate on the way to our hostel.   it took us ages and we got a little lost on the way but we found the hostel eventually and dumped our bags and made our way to the lourve.  we got in to the city centre and walked the short distance to the museum through some of the gardens and it was just spectacular, paris is just amazing.

we spend a good couple of hours in the lourve stopping at all the major points, including the mona lisa and it was just hard to comprehend how big the place was, we didnt even see all of one floor!!!! and there are 5 floors in total!!! (i think)  afterwards we dragged ourselves back to our hostel and got ready for our evening program - the moulin rouge.

i had been warned that it was in a bad part of town but i just didnt believe it till i saw it.  its located on this street that is lined with sex shops and strip joints and peep shows, it was really wierd, because then you come to this place with a red carpet where everyone is all dressed up and its all kinda classy.

we got there pretty early and lined up, becasue i was stressing as usually about our reservation.  there were no problems in the end and alf and i ended up in seats right next to the stage, i mean we both had our elbows resting on the stage.  i will admit that it was a bit too close to see the choreography but i wouldnt have changed it at all as we were getting brushed in the face but their feather boas, and i could see all the details in their costumes, the dancers were even making eye contact with us!!!!!  i can even tell you that the dancers smelled like the gucci, envy scent!  it was amazing and so fantastic!!!!

we went back to our hostel and collapsed for the night, only to get up early, repack and make our way in to notre dame.  that was pretty spectacular as well, such an amazing church, unfortunately alf and i hadnt realised that you could climb the tower until we had to leave so we couldnt do that unless we wanted to miss our flight.  we caught the train back to the bus depot, which took us a little longer than expected as i kinda misread the map but we made the bus and ourflight and headed back to italy, to rome.