Intro to Paris

Bonjour encore!

I have now been in Paris for 5 days and there is still so much more I want to do! Anyway here are my last few days:

I arrived in Paris last Thursday, found my bags, found the metro and found my hostel. I walked around the neighborhood and hung out at the hostel for a while, since I had left my bags in the sketchy, unlocked luggage room until I could get my room at 5. I was staying in the 15th arrondisement (neighborhood) which is a little ouside the center of the city, so it was nice and quiet. I found a fruit and vegetable market and got some stuff to make a sala, along with a croissant from the boulangerie - the nice thing about hostels is that they have kitchens you can use, which is generally much cheaper than trying to eat out anywhere! That evening I met up with the Hermans and a friend who are doing a Study Abroad tour of Europe on Rue Mouffetard. We went to a Morrocan restaurant and got gelato (yumm). It was awesome seeing them in Paris, especially since being all alone for 24 hours after being with 50 other people for 10 days straight was quite a shock to the system. Back at the hostel, my first set of roommates were a group of Columbians who were going to school in the Czech Republic - a bit of a language barrier haha.

I forgot to mention this in my last post, but halfway throuhg my Israel trip, my camera decided to die. Disaster. Luckily, I was with 50 other people so I can easily get pictures. Now that I'm on my own though, this would be a huuuuge problem! So, Friday I undertook the task of getting it fixed (Euro/dollar conversion make buying a new camera way out of the question). Another backpacker told me of a camera store colseby on Rue Suffren. It took me about an hour to find the Rue itself, after asking beacoup des gens where it was, and then when I finally found the street, no one had even heard of the store... fantastique. Alors, I took the metro (my new bff) across Paris to find Canon France. They wern't sure if they could fiz it, but said they'd have a look. So while I waited, I walked down to Pere Lachaise, a famous, ginormous cemetary. Seriously, huge! Somehow I missed getting a map of the place, so I just walked around for hours and yes, I did see the grave of Jim Morrison, among many other famous people. After a few hours I went back to Canon and thank goodness my camera was fixed! I could not fully express my happiness en francais, but I think they got the picture. As I was taking the metro back, happily snapping pictures like a lame tourist, trhe man sitting next to me just happened to be another guy who worked at Canon and recognized my camera (probably by my excitedness and maybe also by the USC charm on the camera...). We discussed how happy I was, since he spoke a little English.
That evening, I made some friends in the hostel and went on a Pub Crawl with them. It was fun, but I left about half way through with a guy from Kansas I had been talking to who was studying aborad in Germany. We went to the Arc de Triomphe and le Tour Eiffel. They were so beautiful at night, although by the time we got to the Tour Eiffel, it was no longer lit up (being 1:30 am and all...). We ran to catch our metros (which stop running about 2am on the weekends) and luckily I made my last train, but he missed his and had to walk back to his hostel in Montmartre. I didn't know anything about him, except his name (Derrick) so I never know if he made it back or was lost forever in Paris...

Saturday, I went to the Musee D'Orsay which, a mon avis, is the best museum in Paris. I mean, Monet, Manet, Renoir, Van Gogh... It doesn't get much better! I had been to the big musees on our family trip to Paris a few years ago, but I knew if I only saw one museum in Paris this time, it would be that on. I also went to le Jardin de Luxembourg, which were so beautiful. Plus, I ate un crepe avec le fromage, which was fantastic. As I was leaving the gardens to go meet a friend, I realized that no metro or bus was running as a result of the LGBT parade! uh oh.... Luckily I found out that Paris is really not that big as I pulled out my map and walked over towards Odeon. While you may be able to walk pretty much everwhere, the advantage of the metro is that you won't turn on the wrong street, which you can easily do on foot. I met my friend (through my roommate Sarah) Laura Villevieille (oui, elle est Francaise) who is living in Paris for the summer. She took me for an amazing almond croissant and we walked for a while past Notre Dame to Shakespeare & Co, which is a tiny little English bookstore. So cool! You could spend hours in there reading and hanging out. They even have cots and typewrtiers upstairs and sometimes house writers up there. After, we went to a cafe for a drink and she introduced me to the Monaco - a French drink that mixes beer and grenadine. Very good. That night, I met a guy from NY in the hostel who had been traveling for 6 months! Crazy! I don't know if I could ever do that... Him and I and a girl from Connecticut went to the Tour Eiffel, and actually got to see it light up, and then it sparkles for about 10 minutes every hour. Let me tell you, there is nothing like sitting in the grass with a bottle of wine watching the Tour Eiffel light up the purple Parisian sky!

Sunday I decided to chekc out the market on Rue Mouffetard. There were lots of people and lots of fresh food stands, in addition to the normal shops and cafes. I had a crepe citron (mon favorit)and then went up to the Bastille and le Place des Vosges in Le Marais, a fashionable little neighborhood. Il y a un jardin tres beau, where I sat for a while before going to Montparnasse. Conveniently pretty much all pretty much all of Paris is in a month long sale and I bought some really cute shoes. I'm not quite sure where they will fit in the backpack, but we'll worry about that later ;)

Sunday night I switched hostels (nothing wrong, just moving to a different part of town) to one up in Montmartre. I made some more friends and went to watch the Euro Cup finals with two Australians - Alex and Dan - at the Auzzie bar across from the Moulin Rouge. Dan just moved to London and Alex is 4 months into her year long travels. A whole year! Wow. Nous avons ete tres heureux quand Espagne a gagne and we walked around a bit and went back to the hostel. I thought there would be more people out celebrating, but it wasn't nearly as crazy as I expected. France wasn't playing, but still, we are surrounded by Spain and Germany.

Yesterday (Monday) Alex and I decided to go to the Catacombs, were there are tons and tons of bones from victims of the plague. Before we left, I ran back down to my room to get something and ran into none other that Derrick! (Arc de Triomphe, Tour Eiffel, missed the metro.. following?) So in case you were worried, he made it back just fine (although 2 hours later...) Ahhh the small world of backpacking. Anyway, we got to the Catacombs, but unfortunately, it being a Monday, they were closed. So Alex, a boy we met at breakfast Jerre, and Jerre's friend from school Tessa, walked through Luxembourg (definitely pretty enough for at least two visits), through Notre Dame, along the Seine past le Palais de Justice sure Ile de Paris, and the Louvre and into le Jardin du Crrousel et le Jardin des Tuileries. We sat in les jardins for quite a while. I have had the best weather while I have been here - 70s and 80s with a clear blue sky: perfect! We decided to walk back to th hostel, which took about an hour, and we got to see La Madeleine, et les Galeries Lafayette. Last night Alex and I and a couple more Australian boys walked up near Sacre Coeur and got crepes with Nutella (is there any question about what I mostly eat here?) Back at the hostel, I ran in to Derrick and his friends and talked with them for a while in the lobby. They were on their way to the Tour Eiffel, and actually planned to sleep in the park there before their early morning train back to Germany. Alex and I decided to go meet them about 11pm. We figured as long as we left by 1:15am we would be fine catching all our trains. When we arrived at our last stop, there were scores of people leaving, which we thought was very odd. Anyway, we went to the Tour Eiffel, found the boys and watched the Tour light and sparkle for a while. About 12:45, one of the boys mentioned that we didn't have much time to get back. It took me a minute before I realized that it wasn't the weekend, so the metro closed about 1am! Alex and I SPRINTED back to the station but it had already closed. Hahahaha. So we had two options: 1) take a taxi back, or 2) sleep in the park with the boys. We decided since we already missed the metro we might as well go back for at least a little while. After a couple more hours, we were both sufficiently cold, damp (dew? humidity? Je ne sais pas), tired of the Russians next to us singing, and grossed out by the family of rats we saw, and we took a taxi back to the hostel. And our driver gave me his phone number to call if I wanted to go to a discotheque... random hahaha! It was a really fun night and we had a blast hanging out with the guys!

Today I took it easy and spent a while walking around le Cimetiere de Montmartre. Then I wandered around the artists and cafes by the Sacre Coeur, and went inside the Church. I climbed to the top of the dome to see an amazing 360 view of Paris. The church itself is so amazing and the view is spectacular! The neighborhood I'm staying in is so lovely that I was quite content to spend the afternoon here (along with doing some laundry in the sink...).

I'll keep you all posted on my next few days here, before I leave for Geneva on Friday!