Paris, France

Last night at the hostel bar I sat with Hisashi again for further translational acrobatics, and through him met a decent Brazilian-American chap called Bruno who worked for Intel, and whose razor-sharp brain appeared to tick over as fast as the chips he helped design.

Like most of the other travellers I had met at the bar I had been utterly captivated by  Paris. The roads were wide, giving an impression of space in contrast to our cramped British capital, and were lined with elegant buildings. The city had an unrushed, relaxed feel and yet paradoxically also had a vibrance to it, with plenty going on to keep you interested. It also seemed surprisingly clean for such a metropolis. I was smitten.

I kept my tourist sun visor firmly on for today, pedalling from the hostel past the Louvre once more and beyond to the Champs Elysees past swanky shops, heading for the  Arc de Triomphe, where the traffic thickened like a blancmange and cycling became somewhat riskier. I didn’t take in the arch for long, as I was quickly told by two French policemen that Ron was not permitted there. There certainly hadn’t been any signs to indicate as such, and I personally I couldn’t see the problem, as my bike didn’t explode or anything, but I fought an urge to ask for a decent reason why, knowing not to mess with The Stench, and removed myself and Ron from their vicinity.

I relocated to the  Blackpool Tower and had minutes of fun wheeling my controversial bike all around its base right in front of patrolling police officers without once being challenged, although I was challenged by a number of “Bosnian refugees”. There was a whole team of them (which to me immediately yelled “business operation”), dressed in headscarves and faces covered in artistic dirt, going up to unsuspecting tourists each with the same - and frankly genius - opening line of “Do you speak English?” If you reflexively said yes, which most people caught unawares did the first time (including myself), they would have your full attention to unleash their unrelenting begging spiel about how they were poor Bosnian refugees who needed money for food. Hindsight flashes up many possible responses to their opening question, including “Yes. Now it’s my turn to ask a question! Can you play the banjo?” or, more sensibly, “Hold on a minute… didn’t the war in Bosnia end ten years ago?”, but I chose to brush off the first chancer and replied to each of the subsequent “Do you speak English?” scam artists in increasingly abusive German.

Whilst in the queue, I realised that the information signs were indicating that the very top of the tower was closed, so I bailed out of the line, escaping via a flowerbed, and decided to try my luck with it again tomorrow.

Having spent the day cycling past the sumptuous exteriors of so many gorgeous Paris hotels fronted by doormen in posh togs, it felt a bit disappointing to return to my hostel fronted by, er, groups of French lads in hoodies. I found I had been shifted rooms, and “Intel-Inside” Bruno turned out to be my new dorm-mate. We chatted in the bar over a couple of beers that evening and he tried unsuccessfully to get me out of the hostel and into a nearby Brazilian club. Sadly, my years of arm-flailing to tunes in crowded bomb shelters are pretty much behind me, so I resisted and propped up the bar instead, chatting to the Norwegian barman and exchanging a few words with a miserable Eye-talian pensioner on the next stool. He had a sore throat and was drinking a glass of water with several cloves of garlic in the bottom.

“It’s-a good for the throat-a,” he gesticulated.
“But not so-a good for those you share-a room with,” I didn’t say. Poor bastardos.

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