Tummy rubbing waiters

0500: I stand sleepily at the bus station in Leeuwarden, waiting to board the bus to Paris.
1700: An exhausted and ravenous Maya steps out of the bus and onto the streets of Paris. Parisians beware!

No, it’s not farther to Paris, France from Holland than it looks on a map. It should only have taken roughly 7 hours by car from Leeuwarden, but hey, we went by bus. And such are the ways of buses.

The bus driver was absolutely hilarious, though. He must have chatted with us for most of the drive down. Of course, I suppose it helped that we had a rather international group (Cuba, Russia, SE Asia, New Zealand, Italy, etc.) that forced him to say everything in Dutch and then repeat it in English. But enough about the ride itself...

Our first stop in Paris was a little restaurant called: Le Royal Montsouris Restaurant. Our tour group had a deal with certain places in Paris, so we were able to eat a 3-course meal for 90 French francs. The meal itself was modest, perhaps because we had to ask specially for a vegetarian dish. What had me in stitches, however, was the waiter. I think he had a special eye for my friend, if you catch my drift. Every time he placed food in front of us, I would get no special treatment, but my friend would get a tummy rub every time. “Enjoy your meal!” our waiter would say, as he rubbed my friend’s tummy. I laughed every time, and I think the people sitting around us got a good chuckle as well. Oh well, I suppose that’s the price you pay when you’re too sexy. *grin*

After dinner it was off to the Montparnasse Skyscraper to get a panoramic view of the city: 59 stories high, with no other buildings even close to being as tall. We got a great view of the city, including the new tennis courts on top of the train station, and the Louvre, which was so much larger than I had imagined (and even that's a bit of an understatement).

Then a short bus tour around the city, with all the main sites pointed out to us, after which the group went on a boat tour on the Seine River. That would have been much nicer if I hadn’t chosen to sit by the window that had a rather large piece of wood tied right above it. They used the wood to keep the boat from crashing too hard against the dock, but the 2nd mate didn’t bother to pull it up out of the water before we departed, which I of course failed to notice. My first clue was when I was splashed by the spray of water. Fun. It was either close the window and not be able to take pictures, or leave it open, get myself and possibly my camera wet and still not be able to take pictures, so I opted for the former. The taped explanation of our river-tour wasn’t working correctly and I was a bit miffed that I couldn’t take any pictures because of the water being splashed around by the dragging log, but all was forgotten when we reached the Eiffel Tower. As if on cue, the 20,000 lights added to the Eiffel Tower for a special year 2000 display started to sparkle

We headed for the hotel at around 2300 and were handed out our security codes to get into our rooms. I took a quick shower and almost literally fell into bed. Who ever thought a vacation could be so tiring?