Paris to Amsterdam to Singapore

My final day in Paris and the last day of my trip.

Woke up nice and early to cram in a couple more things before I had to leave. Essential things like buying a load of foie gras and confit as lasting souvenirs of my pigginess. Hit the rue de rivoli and snagged wonderfully expensive chocolates from Jean Paul Hevin's Spring/Summer Collection 2006. (Right. They even have seasonal collections for chocolates. Whatever. Im such a sucker.) Headed over to rue de Mouffetard to get some cheese to take home but managed to get lost as refused to use a map and look touristy. By and by, I found a produce market anyway and got a great selection of cheese from a very nice fromagerie.

I have no idea why people insist the French are snobby or unhelpful. The French people I met were more than happy to put up with my crappy French and/or spoke fluent English as well. So this cheese guy helped me pick out a very delicious Roquefort, a cool leaf wrapped chevre, a Brie, a camembert and a very nutty hard cheese. Vacuum-wrapped everything beautifully as well. Oh yes, and before that I fell prey to this guy offering foie samples and bought tins and tins of foie and confit. That really hurt mu bottomline in more ways than one.

Cheese, chocolate and foie in hand (in my luggage actually), I trundled my luggage to the Gare du Nord for the TGV to Amsterdam. Fast forward past the long ride to Amsterdam Schiphol, and I was at the airport ready to check in. Actually I had already checked in except they refused to let me board without my air ticket. Apparently I had mistaken my Eurolines bus pass for my airticket and my real air ticket was nowhere to be found. So there I was in front of the KLM ticket counter, tossing clothes and tins out of my luggage, frantically searching for my air ticket. Argh. Nothing there. To add insult to injury, a lonely tin of foie rolled desolatorily away and stopped in front of a little blonde kid who happily KICKED it back to me. Nasty little bugger.

Whined and pleaded with the ticket staff to reissue me another one, but nopie, no can do without the original PAPER TICKET. (Note to oneself, don't be such a cheap ass and get PAPER TICKETS. who in the world actually uses PAPER TICKETS NOW????) To make a long story short, I woke my bf up in Sydney and made him hunt through my luggage (ahem... i did some shopping and he kindly took back my excess), fax my ticket over, refax my ticket, refax again, didn't come through. Type out my whole ticket, print it out, fax that through...

Smack on the dot, I managed to get a new ticket at a hefty charge, raced through customs and plopped myself on the plane.

Not surprisingly, I arrived back in Singapore before my luggage did. But it was a great trip anyhow.