PARIS – France (Wed 11 Nov)

We had a couple of quiet days for our last two days in Paris, just walking the streets and exploring different sights. We have started to become familiar with this town and able to find our way around without too much bother, and without sweating over maps. It is still amazing how many little back alleys there are and how many gems are there to be discovered. Just strolling along the Seine on a cold autumns afternoon on the other side of the world is a pleasant experience.

It is still surprising to be reminded at times of just how different things are. We stumbled across a taxidermy shop today, in the centre of the city. The range of animals was quite astounding. The sight that initially greeted us, stopped us in our tracks and we just had to go in for a proper look. Standing proudly in the middle of the floor was the front end of a rhino, just to the left of that a hippo head with mouth gaping, just to the back a baby rhino, next to that a jaguar, and over on the other side a full grown polar bear standing at about 3 metres tall. This place was crammed full of the exotic and not so exotic animals, either stuffed, or in skeletal form. There were porcupines, badgers, beavers, raccoons, moles, squirrels, moose heads, there were birds, beetles, butterflies, fossils and coral. All with price tags attached. For 3750 euro you can take home a baby rhino. Where would you put it? And why would you want it? Cute as it may have looked, why are people still dealing in these things? We were looking in a knife shop the other day and the retailer was proudly showing us a small knife that had a handle made of ebony and ivory … why? Does that mean, as long as it looks cool, we will turn a blind eye? Some things we will never be able to relate too.

But having said all of that, we love Paris very much, we like the whole of France and hope to return here again one day, even if it is just with bigger backpacks to buy some cool clothes. That is something that the French do very well … the understated style. The arrogance and rudeness that we had expected, we didn’t see, except for the occasional individual who was obviously dissatisfied with his job. But you get those everywhere.

On Friday we leave this great city, and head for another country … Belgium. We don’t know a lot about Belgium, except that it is famous for Chocolate, Diamonds, Waffles, WWI battlefields, Beer and Tintin. I think that it is the diamonds that Justine has her eye on, but then it could just be the chocolate. As for me, well the beer is sounding pretty good, evidently they have over 1100 different beers to choose from, so we may be there a while.