an american in paris

ok paris was... cool. it was unbelievably close to what i've seen in movies and pictures. how often does that happen? so i believe i left off when we had finally arrived at our amazingly 2-star hotel in the Bastille area of Paris. luckily, this place had an elevator! (the previous hostel did not). granted, my suitcase (who has now been nicknamed 'squirt'... i'll explain after Paris) isn't that big and I can handle stairs alright. everyone else, however, has a little trouble. they're all smaller than me and have bigger suitcases! that just doesn't make sense.

anyway, one by one we went up (did i mention it was a teeny tiny elevator?) and found melanie bored and worried in the room. rosie and i were starving. we went out exploring around our hotel (granted it was like midnight at this point) and found a cafe that melanie had eaten lunch at (and had a bad experience with uncooked salmon... the french don't seem to like to cook their meat.) and settled in for a ridiculously expensive/yummy salad. this is when we had our first try at the sign language we would continue to use for the next 4 days or so. it went alright... melanie's really the best and worst at it. when she mimed a hairdryer i thought they were going to take away her wine.

the next morning we woke up at about 9:30 and ran downstairs for breakfast (which ends at 10) and had some croissants, coffee and orange juice. this meal didn't change for the next 4 days. granted, i'm not complaining :)

we decided to do all the ultra paris stuff the first day. we took the metro/train hybrid system out to the eiffel tower. i must say, after things in london not meeting my expectations, paris blew me away. the tower is freaking HUGE! i read that they were going to tear it down but then found out it was good for satellites or antennaes or something haha. we took pictures with it at every possible angle and decided to put off going up since it was sunday and the lines were ridiculous. we made our way towards the arc de triumph. again, humongous! it just chills there right in the middle of a traffic circle as people drive by. could you imagine driving past that every day during your morning commute? ridiculous. we took a lot more pictures and then went to find food because it was like 3pm and we were FAMISHED. at this point we were so hungry we weren't all that discriminating and ended up in a random italian restaurant where i had some decent tortellini with a diet coke, but it was again overpriced and not all that exciting.

after lunch we walked along the super expensive street whose name escapes me. we went into the louis vitton store (i probably misspelled that. don't hate.) where i felt a little nauseous/disgusted at not only the prices but the number of people buying things! a pair of sunglasses was over 300 euro. a key chain was over 200 euro. i mean... seriously? i can think of a lot of things i'd rather have for $1000 than a purse. but i guess i'm not schooled in brand names and can't appreciate the finer things in life. oh well, i think i'll live.

we strolled through the gardens in front of the louvre. that was pretty. we passed a bunch of random monuments we previously did not know existed. for instance, in the square where marie antoinette was beheaded they have replaced the guillotine with a huge obelisk that someone important in egypt presented to some french ruler awhile ago. very random.

we walked along the Seine to the latin quarter of paris. apparently it used to have a bunch of universities taught in latin in the area. we walked up to notre dame. man. that place is pretty. it's free to go inside, but i felt so bad about it. there was a mass going on so when youw alk in they send the mass people to the middle and the tourists to walk around the outside. it just felt way to disrespectful to take pictures while these people were trying to convene with God, so don't expect any pictures. everyone else was just snapping away though! and they didn't even turn off their flashes. i mean, now that i'm writing about it i guess it doesnt seem like a big deal, but at the time it made me uncomfortable. don't get me wrong, though. the cathedral is gorgeous. my only exposure to it before was the disney movie Hunchback of Notre Dame. i mean, they are all very talented artists over at disney, but it just didn't compare tot he real thing. the ceilings are so high! and the art and thestain glass windows... sigh. it was meant to be a bible for peasants who might not be able to read, so there are frescos and stuff everywhere of important scenes from the bible. i knew most of them... though i didn't remember the relevance of a story taht involved stabbing babies with swords. anybody know that one? i'd be curious to know.

we explored the little streets and alleys in the latin quarter for awhile and decided that we wanted coffee. unfortunately, it was well after 7 and every restaurant was well into dinner. so we stopped at a little crepe place and had the most delicious crepes ever with coffee. mmmm... ours had chocolate and banana. yum yum YUM.

we wandered a bit more, found an internet cafe but then it started to rain so we headed back to the hotel. melanie and i took naps (i have some sort of coughing sickness that i'm trying to get over and she was jetlagged still) while lindsey went running (of course) and rosie just went exploring. that was pretty much it for the rest of the day, we were exhausted.