Bonjour France!

Well, I made it. Barcelona airport was a breeze, but a bore and the pilot we had managed the gentlest landing I think I’ve ever experienced. I slept virtually the entire flight seeing as I was up late blogging for you lot. Paris Charles de Gaulle (not Saint Germain… that’s a football team) is another behemoth based on a ring pattern, I think. There’s a central column filled with criss-crossed escalators. It’s the only airport I can recall being to which tells you how long you have to wait at the baggage carousel for your items to be transferred from the plane.

The train station was reached via a free monorail thing and is a pain in the neck to navigate. All the escalators are surrounded by a glass wall and it’s impossible to see where the gaps are to get to the platform. Having said that, I think you’re actually supposed to go through the barriers which may explain why my EURO1.40 ticket still worked the next morning. It was around 10pm when I got to my hostel near the Hoche Metro station. Thanks to Delphine for doing the research for me as I didn’t have time in Barcelona.

I checked in, grabbed a burger and some munchies from nearby shops and retired. Only to be woken at 1:30 by the entire population of my room (plus one extra person) crashing in and talking with the lights on. I think I got them back by snoring all night as my head cold’s worked it’s way into my sinuses and throat. Joy.

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Any old excuse to look at pr0n

With Sharon gone I had no excuse not to. I got up early (earlier than I wanted) and packed my bags for checkout, wolfed as much breakfast as my snot-filled head would allow me and stepped out into the depressingly overcast and cool day.

I decided to mix filth with culture and paid a visit to the Erotica Museum. This is where the friends get annoyed and the family egt relieved that I can´t post pictures at the moment. It’s towards the top end of Las Ramblas and costs EURO 7.50 to get in. There isn’t a huge collection in there and most of it consists of prints if the Kama Sutra, wood engravings from India and some interesting artwork.

Some of the stuff is graphic – I can see British middle aged couples going mad if their kids got in – but a lot is simply interesting like the 1950’s condom machine from Holland. The most graphic thing they have is a constantly running restored pr0n video made in 1923 for one of the kings. Now I´d obviously not know how it compares to today’s stuff (honest) but let´s just say that Queen Victoris would very rapidly have changed her mind about not setting an age of consent for gay female activity had she seen it. And survived the following heart attack.

I’d also considered going to the zoo, but the weather looked a little iffy. Also, I only had my dinky camera with me (the one with the 10x zoom is in Cardiff) and four hours or aso just isn’t long enough for me. I usually get thrown out at closing time, and run out of space on my memory cards.

So back to the hostel to plan some more stuff. I now have accommodation in Frankfurt and Mons courtesy of some fellow Couchsurfers. My bus is booked from Paris to Mons on Tuesday afternoon, and I´ve mailed the hostel in Paris to extend my stay by one night. In French. I´m dead clever, me.

I have to go and repack now, so my next post will likely be from gay Paris!