Our flight arrived at Charles de Gaulle early in the afternoon. Enough time to get to the Australian Embassy. We needed a document witnessed for a business transaction back home so we figured the easiest way to achieve that would be to go somewhere where it would be easy to be understood and where there would be an appropriate person that fits the criteria of signing the document. We did have to make an appointment and we were about five minutes late. Normally it would not have been a problem but it interfered with their afternoon ‘Le Siest’! We had a hell of a time getting past the French building security guard, but managed to get him to contact someone from the embassy. Once we had an Aussie on the phone we were able to convince him to let us up, and he begrudgingly did so.
It was so comfortable talking to an Australian having been away for so long and he understood exactly what we needed. “There will be a standard charge of ninety three Euro”, he explained to us. “Are you for real”, I found myself exclaiming. I was absolutely furious and told him they were a bunch of ‘thieving bastards’ and that I had been warned to watch my back in Paris but I never expected to be fleeced by the Australian Consulate. He did apologize and did the whole ‘It’s a standard charge and I can’t do anything about it’ thing. We were backed into a corner and needed to get the docs back to Australia urgently so we reluctantly paid.
We walked out of the building, still with our luggage in tow, around the corner to our hotel feeling violated. This time we were staying on the other side of the river in an old style (tiny) Parisian hotel on the Boulevard de Grenelle, close to the Eiffel Tower. After checking in we walked down the road to post our documents and then found a really nice traditional restaurant that was very busy, with what appeared to be business lunches that had gone long into the afternoon. Just what we needed to put the embassy episode behind us.
Train view 
When we got back to the hotel Linda was exhausted and chose to have a quiet night in so I went for a walk along the river to the tower. I was shocked to see the base of the tower has now got an ugly heavily secure glass wall around it and is only accessible to those paying to do the tower tour. It’s such a shame the levels they have to take for security these days but I guess it’s the age we live in. I got sick of being approached with offers to buy mini plastic Eiffel Towers (which were apparently being sold at a bargain price!) and headed back to the hotel.
We had a full day in Paris so we checked out early, stored our bags at reception and headed off to the other side of town where Linda wanted to replace her ‘salt water’ camera. We bought a couple of day tickets from the Metro station nearby and Linda had accidentally gone through the gate normally reserved for wheelchairs. The woman that sold us the tickets saw what had happen and waved us through. As we were exiting the station at the other end we were confronted by a gang of ticket inspectors. Linda’s ticket scanned ok but my ticket wasn’t validated as I had followed Linda through the gate at the other end. “Your ticket is not validated” the smug inspector said. “That’s right,” I said and told him what had happened. He wasn’t having any of it and even smugly-er said “I am writing you a thirty five Euro ticket” I tried to reason with him and told him that the woman at the other end had seen what had happened and waved us through. We could see that he wasn’t going to budge. He was the epitome of the arrogant Parisian, which until now we hadn’t met on this visit (most of them were very good) I was buggered if I was going to pay a fine when I had bought a ticket but he wasn’t going to give an inch so I did what I had to- I hit the deck! He didn’t buy it for a moment but the women in the group panicked and convinced him to let me go. Linda somehow knew my intention and didn’t panic. I did hear him saying to her as I was getting up “Your husband is a very good actor”, I did want to keep the banter going but Linda sternly said through the side of her mouth “Shut up, they’re letting us off, let’s get the hell out of here”.
We welcomed the fresh air and walked the length of the Boulevard Beaumarchais which is the ‘camera street’ of Paris. All the best camera shops are there and I think we walked into each one of them. Linda knew exactly what she wanted but we were offered all sorts of different deals. Some with trade in, some duty free, some with this lens, some with that lens and it all started to get a bit confusing. We ran into the ‘Le Siest’ closure so we had to fill in time until the shops reopened. We took the advice of one of the camera shop proprietors and went to their regular restaurant. It was crazy busy and we recognized some of the many people we had been negotiating with. It was a little awkward but thankfully no one approached and spruiked us while we were eating. Lunch was good and we went back to the guy we trusted most. He suggested that the camera was still ok and it was just the lens that was damaged so we bought a new lens from him which would keep us going till we could replace the body when we had more time.
With that sorted we could enjoy the remainder of the afternoon. We were not keen on riding the Metro again even though we had tickets. Google maps told us it was about a six kilometre walk back to the hotel along the river. “Perfect” we thought, we had the time so off we went. It was a nice afternoon, a little chilly but ideal for walking. Our walk took us right past the Notre Dame Cathedral so we took the opportunity to take a selfie, similar to one we had taken several years earlier (It was to become all the more special when we heard the shocking news of the fire some weeks later).
Pre-fire 
Paris home & garage
We continued to walk along the river to the ever increasing noise of emergency sirens and heavy police presence. As we walked closer toward the Eiffel Tower the roadway of the Quai Anatole France was completely lined by heavily armed riot vehicles and the blaring sirens were deafening.
We got chatting to a local woman who had come out of her riverside apartment to observe the commotion and she was explaining that the ‘yellow vests’ were up to their shenanigans again and that the city’s traffic was complete chaos. We suddenly realized that we had to get a bus to Beauvais Airport, about an hours drive to the north so we hurriedly walked back to the hotel to collect our bags and head for the airport hoping we were not going to get caught up in traffic.
We’ll miss you Paris
Fortunately, we dodged it all and got to the airport in time for our flight to Fez.
See you all in Morocco
People ask us about how we get our house sits. This is the main website we use. https://www.trustedhousesitters.com/refer/RAF147238/
If you use the link above you will also get a discount on membership.
If you have any questions don’t hesitate to ask.
Enjoy.