After I was in Paris now almost a month ago, I will be travelling again already this week-end: going to London and then to Tallinn this time. And it was about time huh!
So I thought I'd share my Paris trip a bit...
I went there by hitchhiking simply because train tickets were unthinkably expensive. This was the longest trip I've ever done hitching alone and it was quite fun. I never waited longer than 10 minutes and got rides with not only french drivers but also polish and slovakian truckers. I even had to pretend being french because this one french trucker didn't seem very friendly towards foreigners...
The reason I went to Paris was a conference held by Captain Paul Watson that was organised by the Sea Shepherd France in one of the universities there.
That's him in the middle and on the left you have the smiling Kim McCoy - she's the executive director of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and also one of the three Shark Angels. I need not mention that the conference was absolutely great and gave me a lot to think about and plenty of motivation. The most amazing was that only two months ago I was surfing the net, reading Sea Shepherd stories and watching videos and thinking how great it would be to be able to meet Captain Paul Watson some day. And there I was! I even managed to shake his hand and ask him some questions :)
This whole conference and seeing Paul Watson and all those people made me feel as if I had walked into some parallel Universe that resembled strangely a lot to Paris. They had even put an Eiffel tower there to make a better illusion... So I spent the rest of my time sleep-walking and seeing people and things and places that only seemed semi-real.
I stayed at Alundra's place who I'd met through Couch Surfing. He showed me around a bit and introduced me to some of his friends and helped me to get in Palais Tokyo for free. There we saw an army of musical Darth Vadors and a huge pile of rubbish and a gravity-laws defying elephant. Here's Alundra in Boltansky's room in Musée d'Art Moderne and the crazy elephant.
The rest of my stay there I spent wondering around the city streets, window-shopping, watching videos in Centre Pompidou, looking to bump into famous people (I think I saw Sinclair), taking my morning coffee on a terrass on Place de la République and my dinner picnic on the grassy hill in front of Sacré Coeur and drinking the most expensive beer of my life in a bar in Montmantre. I wonder if I'll top that record in a few days in London... I'll let you know.
