Today we finally managed to go for the official free Paris tour. The tour guide was a Dutch guy who seemed really high. We learnt quite a few interesting things - who knew Napoleon was Italian? Napoleon was born on Corsica on August 15, 1769, just 15 months after France had purchased the island from the Italian city-state of Genoa. Next we spent quite a bit of time learning about the French revolution - whose most bloody memory is the death of Marie Antoinette and 4000 other royals. The French Revolution overthrew the monarchy, established a republic, experienced violent periods of political turmoil, and finally resulted in a dictatorship under Napoleon that rapidly brought many of its principles to Western Europe and beyond. Some of these repercussions included the end of slavery in French colonies.
The safety cord was unfortunately able to join as her leg got injured in the previous day's long walking adventures. After the tour, we went to the train station to try and buy tickets to leave Paris for Barcelona the next day. Yet again, we were not able to book any tickets. It was beginning to get very annoying. By this time, most of us were tired of Paris and its unfriendliness. We were ready to leave. In the evening, we went to a quartier of Paris called Montmarte for dinner.
I started having a killer toothache - that could only mean one thing. A cavity in need of a root canal. I am an expert at teeth issues. This had to the the worst timing for a tooth to do this to me. On the following day, I was bedridden. Toothache was killing me. I had bought a little anesthetic and was self-medicating. I sent The Little Toe and the Reluctant to buy train tickets - yet again they were all sold out. Paris was trying to hold us captive. We decided we would have to go to the train station the next morning and find train tickets out of town, however we could. I tried to sleep early, but pain kept me up till 5am. By 7am, we were up and on our way to the train station with all our bags.......and no tickets..
