Adventures in Paris and on the way there

Remember, how I mentioned couple posts ago that upon leaving Brusseles, we started worrying a bit about one of our tires. Well, that worry was not in vain after all.
As we were on the highway to Paris, it first started raining hard, and then all of a sudden the tire got flat.
So we got stranded on the side of the highway with the rain dripping, wind blowing and freezing. This was not the best situation. Add numerous trucks that were passing by really fast - I was just hoping that no one would lose control of the car while driving)
Thanks God, Kostya knows how to change tires - otherwise, it would be horrible.
As we got the tire fixed, we continued on the highway, but of course the story didn't end there - a few minutes later we realized that we were really low on gas and we had just passed one of the gas stations, and no one knew, where the next one would be.
So we stopped on the side of the highway and sent poor Kostya off to walk back through the rain to the gas station with a huge empty canister - little did we know that walking to a gas station with a canister in hands would immediately alarm everyone around (somehow in Paris they think that this might be the sign of a potential terrorist attack).
The gas station attendant immediately called the police on Kostya, so Kostya had to explain to the French police officer what the whole deal was. Seemingly easy task turned into a disaster - as no one, including the police officer, spoke any proper English.
Well, the gesture language really helped in the end, so we finally got the gas and continued on the way to Paris.
By the time we got to the suburbs of the city it was around 1 am. Everyone was half asleep by then, so I got the steering wheel to myself and it was my task to find the way to the hotel.
Now if you know Paris - it's all about one-way streets that are super-narrow, so if you ever miss the right turn, it might take hours before you find your way back. Exactly what happened to us. Took me 2,5 hours to find the right hotel (of course, the receptionist didn't even want to let us in, as it was 3:30 am by the time we checked-in and we obviously woke him up), and by that time I think I was cursing everything that came to my mind for ever letting me drive into Paris on the car.
As the next day started, instead of going straight to the Eiffel tower (which was the original plan), we had to run around frantically looking for an auto-mechanic to help us get new tires for the back wheels ( as we still had to make our way back to Russia on that car). We ended up leaving our car for couple hours with a mechanic, who provided us with 2 tires (that were previously used) for 160 euros - which is an enormous price if you compare it to how much you would pay for the same service in Russia.
In the pics below our car is undergoing the tire-switching "surgery" in downtown Paris))