Day 8 - From Flea Markets to Versailles

July 7 - Day 8: A few of us got together early to head over to a Flea Market. Well, even the flea markets in Paris open late, cuase many people were only just setting up when we got there. Funny how other people's junk is the same everywhere.

Back to the hostel where we explored the shops in that neighborhood and some of us walked up to see Sacre Coeur.

We assembeled back at the hostel at 12:30 to make the trip out of town to see Versaille. We knew our train pass didn't take us all the way to the zone Versaille is in, so we mosey up to a ticket machine to purchase tickets. But.... of course... our credit card is declined and the machine only accepts coins. So we all pool our coinage and start feeding 23 euros into the machine.... quickly of course cause if you wait too long, the session times out. Whew.... tickets in hand and we even made a mistake and ended up with an extra. We passed this along to a family having the same change trouble we were and were happy to do our Good Turn for the day.

We played saraspunda on the train... we've played it alot of places, but never on a train!

Versailles was interesting, but we were hoping for more of a full house type feel. It has lots of paintings hanging on the walls and hardly any furniture. Outside, some of us got caught in a crazy dust storm! It was whirling around like a mini-tornado and we had sandy dirst all over us for the rest of the day. Even in our teeth!

Heading back to the hostel we ended up on the Metro in rush hour.... ugh.... just when you though another body could not squeeze on, they did anyway.

We had dinner at a place near our hostel - Le Diplomate - salad and steak and fries and scrumptious dips and sauces. Very friendly waitor who kept the place open a little longer just for us!

BACK to the Metro... seems like alot for one day, but we were expert Metro riders by this point! And off to see the Eiffel Tower at night... which of course in Paris is at 10:30 at the earliest. The light show is terrific and some of us enjoyed an ice cream cone.

After realizing that all the people pouring into the streets were coming from a nearby "stadium" where they just finished watching a World Cup game, we deicded to just stick close to the tower. Not easy to navigate with hundreds of thousands of rabid fans, drinking, yelling and flag waving for thier side.

And then the ride home was interesting with 10,000 of our closest drinking football buddies!

It was a terrific last night in Paris!