France & England... for work... - Page 3

First, a field, its probably what most people imagine the French countryside should look like.

Here is the local village, so beautiful and peaceful, wonderful old houses.

Some beautiful flower arrangements in the village square.

All stores in France, post the bread futures market spot price on their window like they are trading gold.

Here she is in all her glory, the local Carrefour supermarket. Its the town pump / village well, the only place with people.

Inside, people wander the aisles, wondering how a modern supermarket can exist without air conditioning and with every drinks fridge turned off.

Just past the edge of the village, a youth activity centre, behind large fences. Hoodlums without skateboards are hanging out on the skateboard ramp.

Now we start our dedication to fields of hay and the evening sun.

Clouds and powerlines go well with hay.

Shot of the day.

And finally, taking things too far.

Then I found a dark forest to walk through, and see if I could find the illusive French bear.

Eventually this became a park, with a nice tree. It was still daylight, but time for me to go to bed.

I think this is a combo of a housing project for immigrants, a supermarket, and a reconstructed ancient gate possibly celebrating Levi Strauss, the guy that invented American blue jeans in the wild west that Russians will trade for military secrets.

Here we have a section of track where the metro goes above the road. It is very loud and rickety.

My walk took me past the other big train station, Gare de L'est. Trains from here seem to go mainly to Germany. Apparently tonight is the start of the 8 week official French / German holiday period, and possibly the worst night all year for traffic escaping Paris. The train station was very busy. I am trying to use up my remaining Euros, so I drank 5 litres of water before setting off on my walk so I could keep paying to use the toilets. There was no need for cash, everywhere takes card, and by card I mean I paid with google pay via my phone everywhere. That would be fine except I took some Euros out before I knew that, so now I have to use them, which is annoying. I could give my cash to the immigrant children but they already tried to rob me.

A rather picturesque street.

This is the biggest park in the entire greater Paris metropolitan area. These two ladies and their babies are enjoying the lovely gravel.

All white delivery vans are conveniently painted a few times each day to prevent rust.

This is African hairdresser street. Every shop here is a COIFFEUR. I speak French now.

Arc de non triomphe.

Now for my dinner. Everywhere is a crepe shop, so why not a crepe for dinner? See below to find out why not.

I got talked into a crepe combo, savoury and sweet. I expected the savoury one to be more than just cheese. It was just cheese. The chocolate one was nutella from a jar. Why are they this dark brown color? I have so many questions as to how a crepe shop in Paris can stuff up crepes. I have regrets.

Lots and lots of people had amassed to watch this busker guy. I made sure my pockets were zipped up and took up a spot. First he spent 5 minutes untangling his blue rope to music, occasionally jumping in the air or standing on one leg while his music was playing, then when he was done, he just stood like this until the crowd dispersed. So cultural.

Tonights photograph of the sun.

TIN TIN WAS GAY! Finally the truth comes out.

And what might this building be?, gallery? church? embassy? military? No its a bank branch.

Still in Paris at this point, and here I am in some kind of a monument park. There are many monuments, and many many more keep off the grass signs.

As this is a French park, it is mainly blinding white gravel.

There are however ducks, that seem completely oblivious to humans. The water was filthy.

This is a sculpture. It is made out of plastic or marble or something like that. Why someone spent a great deal of effort to sculpt a tree that has fallen over, I do not know.

Another photo of the Seine, the last one.

Still in the sculpture park, someone has sculpted a realistic looking bag of rubbish.

Time for one last photo of an impressive old building with gold painted highlights.

Everywhere you go, piles of scooters await.

Yep. And later in Gare Du Nord they were announcing in English that multiple pickpockets had been arrested so far today.

Here is Gare du Nord as seen from the Eurostar check in area. The check in process has actually improved since I was last here, with e-passports now accepted.

I managed to find something reasonably healthy, but extortionately expensive, but that was ok, I was spending my remaining Euros.

The departure lounge area is still very small, just before you can board the train, you cannot move. It was a lot better than last time I was here, which was 10 years ago minus one day exactly. I was last here on Bastille day, which is tomorrow, and left on the Eurostar that evening. It poured with rain all day and the entire wooden floor area here was mud. No rain in site this time.

The inside of the Eurostar is surprisingly claustrophobic. The seats are very high, the aisles are very narrow. It also seems dirty.

And now, the comedy hotel room! This is the entire room! Me and the friendly flies are sharing it.

My hotel is just across the street from Kings Cross station, which means betting shops, England loves them. This one is great, because 3 homeless guys who are probably homeless due to the betting shop, are passed out directly out the front of the shop. Much like Australia there are lots and lots of betting ads on tv.

I dont know why, but I wandered into Kings Cross station to take a photo.

Heading north and I got to this surprise outdoor area with a canal, near something called the coal drop sheds, where people are watching the Wimbledon tennis on a big floating screen.

As it was about 20c, lots of people cant resist the lure of a fountain.

Here is just one of a few markets in this area. I think this one is called canopy market.

Canal boats. I think they are strange in that there is nowhere on these boats to sit outside and enjoy the weather. The full length is under a non opening roof.

Real grass you can sit on! More of that to come.

This is an independent record label market. Apparently people still buy records.

I briefly returned to my tiny room to check if I had been robbed yet. Here is the view. Outside the window 2 fat women were having a tourettes battle. It was simultaneously amusing and concerning.

MORE GRASS. Parks people can use.

No, I have no idea how the water authority is preventing your house from being broken into.

I almost managed to get this properly square on! You can actually correct parallax in lightroom, I have never played with the tool.

Here is a random street. Note its cloudy. There was a bit of sun, but nothing like the bright blue sky of Paris.

There are nice streets full of little houses, with more variety and general niceness than Paris.

The start of the busy Oxford street shopping area looking towards Piccadilly Circus. Everyone who has been to London has been here.

The top floor of John Lewis has a restaurant. I was excited.

There were many healthy options, I settled on Sri Lankan vegetarian curry. It was really quite nice, and very cheap! I could have taken my pick from 20 different tables. How convenient!

I have no idea at all how or why, but the Microsoft store has what I assume is a real Mclaren Senna, that you can sit in and play xbox games. These are about a million bucks and limited to about 500 being built? Maybe Mclaren built them a rolling shell, but its still all made of carbon fibre.

This is where a guy got run over. He is on the ground here. There was a bang, a series of metallic crashing noises, then general screaming and panic. I suspect he went over the car that hit him rather than under it, he did not seem to badly hurt, maybe a broken leg.

The church near my hotel is a bit weird. It has these statues of people half buried, head first. They are presumably trying to dig down to hell.

And now two of my favorite things. Marks and Spencer fruit salad, of the WITHOUT MELON because apparently melons cause cancer, and their excellent diet ginger beer. I really wish Marks and Spencer would come to Australia.