Wow, for neglecting to book our hostel for Paris until the night before, we got a good one. There is a bar and an internet cafe on the ground floor (because in Europe the 1st floor is the 2nd floor and the 1st floor is the ground floor ... confused yet? I live on the 4th floor ....) There is also interent in every room, though I have to be honest I havent tired it in the toilet.
We got into Paris on Saturday morning after spending another night in the airport. I must be getting used to sleeping on the cold hard ground because I managed to get 6 hours of sleep plus another 2 on the plane. Our flight left Rome at 6:45 am and got in just after 9 am. When we arrived at the airport we bought breakfast and hopped on a bus to take us to central Paris. The really cool part was that once we got to Paris we had to take 2 metro lines to actually get to our hostel and our changing station was ... THE LOUVRE!!!
Once we checked into our hostel and got all showered and pretty, Jenn and I decided to walk around a bit before we passed out. We managed to find the Opera House, the Arc Du Triumph, and the Eiffel Tower (to be honest, you cant miss it). When we got to the Tower to we took some pictures and decided to go back to the hostel, grab a burger (which tasted like meatloaf) at the bar, and go to bed early.
This morning we, and by "we" I mean "I", got up a bit late and went down to the bar for the free breakfast. I dont really like eating breakfast, so I just drank a lot of orange juice and grabbed a pamphlet for a free walking tour while Jenn checked her email. It was about 10:30am by the time we decided to actually get moving and get to the free tour on the other side of town. Somehow we made it.
The walking tour was really very good. The girl who gave the tour was an aussie who is living in Paris for no other reason than she wanted to live in Paris. She had a lot of cool stories about the monuments (she called Pont Neuf "the worlds first facebook" because of the 300 faces carved in the side) and kept pointing out where movies and tv shows had been shot, especially the Davinci Code and the Borne Identity. We saw most of the tourist spots on the tour.
We made a friend on the tour, his name is Benji and he is from MSU. After the tour he came with us to the Louvre (which you can get in free if you are under 25 ... there is no need to buy a museum pass) and the Eiffel Tower. At the Louvre we kind of rushed through. We saw the Mona Lisa, we walked right up to it, and the Venus De Milo. We also saw the entire Egyptian section, though I wasnt terribly interested in that. I took pictures of some paintings with interesting musical instruments in them ... which I had seen at the instrument museum in Milan.
When we were waiting in line for the Eiffel Tower we started talking to an Aussie behind us named Sam. Well, to be more accurate, she started talking at us and we decided that she was interesting. The climb and trip up was pretty standard, it was a great view and it took hours and hours. The best story of the day is Sam talked to a street salesman (one of the guys who tries to sell you random POS souvenires and wont go away until you tell them to F'Off) until he walked away
After we climbed down the tower Sam left us to meet some friends and Benji, Jenn, and I decided to grab dinner. Jenn and I have made a pact to eat McDonald's in every country once, so we walked across town to the Louvre and at in the McDonald's there. Afterwards, is was late and dark so we bought beer and walked the Champs-Elysees starting at the Louvre and ending at the Arc De Triomphe.
At this point we realised that the Metro was going to close in 5 minutes and we had no other way to get back to our hostels ... so we booked it. We ran like Kenyans, people confused us for kenyans. We ended up in one of the most confusing subway station I have ever seen. There werent ticket machines for our connecting line and I was out of tickets so I did a running slide underneath the barrier (which got a round of applause from a group of French people walking by) and we caught our train.
Tomorrow we are going to see the Notre Dame Cathedral and other things.
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