Day 45-Moving Day in Paris and the Opening Ceremony of the Games

Today is the day we move hostels in Paris.

Unfortunately we could not get accommodation in the same location for all the days we are here. So after breakfast and a shopping trip to Decathlon for a new pair of bike shop and gloves, packed and made our way to the new digs at the St Christopher back packing hostel. This was certainly a bit of a downgrade to our earlier accommodation but quite adequate. It mainly caters for younger people from what I have seen.

The ride to the hostel was short, but I forgot to return the key to the bike room so had to make a quick trip back….or so I thought! I ended up gets bit lost but good old Google maps helped me find my way.

After a walk near the hostel, we fours place for an early dinner ahead of watching the Games Opening Ceremony. I had hoped to go to the ceremony to see it live but unfortunately all the tickets were sold… this included the so called free seats which were ticketed as well! I must say I was very disappointed but as it turned out for most of the ceremony it was raining!!!

I noticed when we checked in that the hostel bar was showing the Opening Ceremony live, so after dinner we found a table and settled ourselves in for the evening. It was funny as most tables were reserved but the table we took although reserved was vacant an hour and a half after the reservation time…. Fair game I thought.

The bar was full of people of all nationalities and it really made for a fun night! There was plenty of drinking by all the others but the 3 of us stayed non-alcohol for the night! The bar was full of cheering for a lot of the teams as they made their way down the Seine River but the biggest cheer was for the French team.. lots of singing and clapping by all… we made ourselves heard when the NZ team and the Oz team were presented… some lovely cheers by others also was heard.

The whole ceremony was very well done I thought and you can now see why there were large areas on the Seine, Eiffel Tower and other places which were sealed off when we toured the area a few days ago.

The ceremony finished about 11.30 pm and as I do this blog I can hear some singing and talking by some of the reviewers!

It was a good day despite not seeing the opening ceremony live.

The pictures today are the 2 rides I took

A picture of our new home

The canal near the hostel

Steve and I inspecting the subs we didn’t buy from the French

At the bar watching the Opening Ceremony

The Australian team arrived to great cheers!!!