Paris

In Paris I stayed in Leo Lagrange or Clichy hostel. It's a not so bad hostel because it's located close to the subway station. I didn't have so many choices of hostels because I went there in a main vacations season and all the main hostels, e.g., the well-located ones, were booked up. There is a kitchen with microwave oven, electric oven and refrigerator in the hostel. A problem that I faced there was that they stole my food I had left in the refrigerator. At that time it happened the Coca-cola scandal and especially because of this I bought half dozen cans. No way, even with the cans and food inside a closed bag they took everything away. If it's this way, I incarnated the Brazilian spirit and caught back my sodas! It happened something else... The receptionist guy talked really bad English and I lost an important detail: beds are numbered. As predictable, I caught the wrong bad... And you know how women are, they like much to find a reason for an arguing. In the middle of the night a Spanish girl woke me up to take me out of the bed. Well, I guess she could have noticed I've made a mistake. In the next day I could clear up what it was wrong when I took a better look at the beds. There were some small numbers in their legs. The funniest is that this happened in the same way in the bedroom of my friend Ronaldo (men and women bedrooms are separated). And as men are more flexible in such cases, they didn't care about this as they only wanted a bed, independent of numbers. Another interesting thing in this hostel: the shower taps are those ones that you press and after some seconds they come back to the original position. Again something really predictable: I had to take showers with a hand holding the tap and the other in the body. Imagine when I had to wash my hairs! J

We visited the Eiffel tower. In the pictures, I show it frontally, in angle and a close of its under part. As I am a civil engineer, it's impossible that I don't appreciate this impressive building. The city was really dirty. We were there in 14th July, the Bastille Day. There was a military parade that began under the Triumph Arc> and went along all the avenue.

I really thought I would be bad treated there, especially because everybody says that French people are nationalists and they refuse talking other languages different from the French one. I can say that I wasn't bad treated neither a little bit. As soon as I arrived there, I went to the tourist information sector in the train station. The girl gave me city maps and as the subway station system is really complicated there, she advised me to go by bus. Big mistake! The bus was really overcrowded and there is traffic jam there too! After a good studying of the subway map, be sure you get used and become an expert!

Another interesting place I've visited was the Miraculous Medal Chapel. A sister, called Catherine Laboré, saw Our Lady for three times. In one of these visions she was asked to coin this medal and broadcast it around the world. Since the death of this sister, her body remains intact in the chapel, without being embalm. There were many buses with pilgrims there and it was a Brazilian woman that assisted me in the chapel when I wanted to buy some medals.