this is the end (Paris)

well, I thought I should reference at least one Doors song while in Paris. After all, Jim Morrison is buried nearby in Pere Lachaise Cemetery. 

And the end really has arrived. Tonight is our last night Paris. One more night of room service food :( but tonight with champagne to say goodbye in the proper fashion. Tomorrow morning we will be in a cab heading for Charles de Gaulle at 8am. Yes, Jayne will not be happy about this.

The hospital trip

Today? Oh, OK then. We had a relatively early start because Jayne had her appointment at St Antoine to have the plaster cut prior to our flight on Saturday. As we were getting ready I noticed the appointment time was actually 8:35, not 9am like we'd been told. That was cool, we were right to go. Jayne managed the crutches well and we went outside to where there is usually a swarm of taxis. Today, not so much. I kept waving at them and they kept telling me to move further down to the other side of the station. That was way beyond Jayne's range, so I retreated to the hotel and asked them to call a cab for us. While I was organising this, some Australians were chatting with Jayne and explained that the area in front of the hotel was for radio cabs only, you can't hail one there. Unbelievable.

We made it to the hospital without incident. The driver dropped us at Emergency because he didn't know his way around. That was good, because they provided Jayne with a wheelchair and called for someone to come and get her. We were escorted to 'consultation'. Then it was decided that Jayne needed to have her blood levels taken prior to the cast being cut. They swapped the wheelchair for a racing version that was easier to steer and took us down to the Polyclinique for the blood screen. Back upstairs, Albert, who put the cast on, also cut it and taped it up.

The next step was to make sure that QBE had contacted the hospital and sorted payment. I parked Jayne at the top of the steps at the Discharge Admin centre. Obviously, if you can't negotiate the steps you aren't ready to go home. Lucky I was there. I found Mme Avril and we conversed in fluent Franglais to discover everything had been looked after, except today's bill which I needed to pay. Thankfully an English speaker happened past and walked us down to the cashier and then explained how the number system worked all the way down to pointing out that the number of the cashier corresponded to the number that came up on the board next to our ticket. Clearly my lack of French has caused my brain to atrophy and I am now not smart enough to work a ticket system common at Coles' deli.

Bill paid. Taxi called. We headed back to the hotel where Jayne promptly sent me out for a walk. That's the thanks I get.

Jardin du Luxembourg

 Grabbed the camera and headed across the river to the left bank to the Jardin du Luxembourg. It is more of a botanic garden in style and I took some arty shots of flowers. There were plenty of lunchtime joggers. Now, I don't think I've mentioned a disturbing trend I've noticed with male joggers - their tendency to wear bike shorts while running (no pictures). No, no, no. Wrong, wrong, wrong. They're called bike shorts for a reason, one should wear them while riding a bike. Jogging? No. Too much information.

The stuff of nightmares.

Aside from being a great place for lunch the garden also harboured every second school child in Paris as well as every playgroup. The reason was, there was a menagerie in the gardens as well. I can't resist a zoo, even if it is just to see what they have in their collection. Overseas zoos are fascinating in terms of Australian content. This one has a couple of emus, some Bennett's wallabies and red kangaroos. It also had crested pigeons, budgies, cockatiels and a couple of green frogs. Eclectic, but hardly amazing.

The interesting thing is the difference in how the animals are kept. I made comments about French TV being stuck in the 80s, well the zoo is reminiscent of the '70s. My aviary is larger than some of the ones they were using to house really large birds. There was no way they could spread their wings. Many animals also endured cramped conditions.

Too cute for words.

It was lunchtime. Even the animals sleep.

Luckily the Stegosaur was behind the fence.

This is the end, my only friend, the end

And that will be it until we get home. I will finalise this series of blogs in Australia on Monday. Thanks for sharing the journey the with us dear reader. It didn't quite turn out as we expected, but as John Lennon says, "life is what happens while you're busy making other plans". So we must be returning to life because we have commenced planning our return to Paris. We will see Paris, together, and take more than three days to do it (Jayne will be confined to bed on the 4ht day). So, at this stage, we'll be back in late June or early July 2013 (Tour de France time). Maybe we can catch up Dianne?

Thank you beautiful people.