The Louvre

Once in the Louvre I went straight to the toilet. There was a queue almost as long as the one for the Louvre. The toilet attendant told the women waiting to use the mens and sent all the men to the other toilets, since the other womens toilets were shut. The looks on the mens faces as they walked up to the mens toilets to see a queue of women were priceless. They didn't really know what to think. The toilet attendant was redirecting them in between checking the toilets so often the men were standing staring for a moment before she came over to tell them. One guy thought it was such a novelty he filmed it.

Once in the Louvre I went to see the Mona Lisa (obviously) along with the millions of other tourists and French people. Once you had shoved your way through to the actual room where the Mona Lisa wsas, you had to elbow your way through crowds of people to be able to see it. People were all squished together and for the second time today and probably not the last, I found myself unable to move. At one point I had some an inexplicably sweaty elbow of a chinese woman taking a photo against my shoulder.

Once I had had a good look and taken photos I went in search of a cafe. The first one I found had a massive queue so I moved onto the next one. This one had a much smaller queue. The prices were ridiculous. A packet of crisps was €2.30. The drinks, even the water, were so expensive. I just had a baguette in an attempt to save money but it was still €5.20. It was a CLT but I picked out all the T. It was okay.

When I came out of the Louvre, there were 6 police men standing around the courtyard all of who had roller skates on.  I guess its a good way of chasing running criminals. I went and sat on the edge on the fountain and joined all the other people, with their feet dipped in. There were so many people in the Louvre that I was quite glad to get out.

After a while some Egyptian guy came and sat next to me. He said something to me I didn't understand and then asked me if I was English. I said I was and we starting chatting. He told me his name was Mustafah and asked if I seen the Centre Pompidu. I said I hadn't. He asked if I wanted to go and I said I was going to the Luxembourg Gardens.  He said he would come with me and then kept saying 'let's go'. I kept telling him in a minute in the hope he'd get bored and go away. Eventually he did.

About ten minutes later I headed off towards the gardens after deciding to walk instead of getting the metro. I stopped to take a selfie infront of the Louvre and suddenly he rushed over and asked me if I wanted him to take a photo. I should have taken the metro. I agreed and he took one and then we started walking to the gardens. He kept trying to hold my hand and I kept pretending I had to look at my phone to get out of it. I was desperately trying to think of ways to get rid of him. No sooner had we left the courtyard of the Louvre he said he was hungry and asked if I was. I wasn't. He asked if I would wait for him and I told him he could get food and I'd go to the gardens. He was like 'you're alone and I'm alone so let's go together'. I didn't know what else to say so just said "I like being alone". He shrugged and walked off. Thank god for that. I felt a bit mean coz he was only being nice but he kept trying to hold on to me and I just wanted him to go away.

I walked to the gardens and found a place to sit in the shade to rest before exploring the gardens. After leaving the gardens I walked past the Pantheon to a metro station to go back to the hostel to charge my phone and camera for tonight.