It's All Relative

Paris....ahhh Paris...

Paris has been the craziest and most fun city we have been in, for sure. We had to come a night early because all the trains were full on the day we originally planned to travel, so we had to stay a night in this random hostel in the Latin Quarter, which is a really cool neighborhood where a lot of French students hang out.

This hostel was a trip. It was the first dorm styled hostel we have stayed in so we had to share a room with like 5 other random people. There was this one lady, who looked way too old to be staying in a youth hostel, who slept below me. She was way weird. She rolled her own cigarettes and had so much stuff-it seemed like she was living in that place. so during the night she wakes me up with her seriously loud snoring. I mean, it was bad. She was making this borrible, deep, nasaly noise that I could not stand. So I keep moving around in my bed thinking it might wake her up-no luck. I was desperate. So I rolled up a piece of paper and threw it at her. It didn't phase her at all. So I then got a handful of water and threw that on her-again, nothing. she continued to snore. I was starting to get pissed so I got up and walked out into the hall, thinking me getting up and opening/closing the door would wake her. No. I came back and she was still snoring. I finally had to dig through my stuff to look for some earplugs I had bought in Athens, way back when. I could only find one so I stuck it in and pinned my head to my pillow. She finally simmered down a little bit so i could go back to sleep, but still. Ridiculous. This woman has serious issues.

That day we walked to the Notre Dame and got there just as it was opening so it was virutally empty as we walked around inside. It was really nice to be in there when it was so silent, without any crowds to deal with. It's a beautiful building, lots of arches and a big dome with a lot of old paintings. After Notre Dame, we headed to the Louvre. We got there right as it was opening so we had a head start to the big attraction-the Mona Lisa. The Mona Lisa is a little overrated if you ask me. She hangs there, on her own wall, behind this barracade, so you can't really get up close and look at any of the detailing. Anyways, I stoof there for as long as I could and then moved on. The was a lot fo other cool stuff to see in the Louvre and it really was so interesting. Since none of the descriptions of the paintings are in English and I really wanted to know about some of them, I bought an audioguide. It was really helpful. you just punched in the number by the painting and it gave you a description about it. I highly recommend the audioguides.
We stayed at the Louvre for like 5 hours. We definitely saw a lot of stuff, but still, its so big, I doubt we got through half of it.

After the Louvre, we checked into our new hotel and then got ready to go to the Eiffel Tower. We wanted to go at night and see it all lit up, which was such a good idea. The Eiffel Tower is unreal. As soon as I saw it, I realized I was in Paris-it hit me. I couldn't believe how pretty it was. Then, it started to sparkle-i almost had to pinch myself it was so unbelieveable.

Earlier that evening, we met some really cool and funny guys who were actaulyl from Salt Lake actually (weird). They were in Europe for the World Cup. We hung out for a while and then decided to all go out to a club that night. They had rented a car so we all crammed in it and drove around PAris which is really cool. We found a club, that turned out to be a really popular gay club, but no big deal, it was a blast. We danced to some pretty sweet techno till 3:30 in the morning, then hungout outside at this cafe for another hour. We watched some crazy French guys get maced by some bouncers at another club which was crazy. Paris at night is crazy. We couldn't believe how many crazy people we met. Anyways, it was such a fun night. Quick story-when we were leaving the clud, we got pulled over by the French police. Then all of a sudden about 5 french army guys hopped out of their van and surrounded our car-machine guns and all! A little uncomfortable....They mad our driver get out of the car and explain why we had to many people in it. He totally played the "Ignorant American Card" and told them he thought it was made to fit 7 people. I guess the police guy bought it so he let us go. but still a little scary, but funny all at the same time... these boy were hilarious and way nice and we had a really good time that night.

The next day we took a day trip to Versailles, which is where King Louis palace is. It's really cool as well-really big, but they only let you go through a small part of it. We saw the Throne Room ,the Queen's Apartment and the Hall of Mirrors-amoung other rooms. Unfortuneately the gardens, which are gorgeous were like 7 Euros to get in, so we decided to skip it and head back to Paris.
On of my best friends from high school, Kaysen, happened to be in Paris the same time as me, so we planned on meeting that evening. she actually got a reservation at the same hotel, so it worked out great. It was really good to see her. I never get to see her so hanging out in Paris was pretty funny. We decided to go to dinner the next night.

Later that day we headed over to this modern art museum called the Pompidieu. Sadly, it was closed, but we could still wander around the big lobby and art store, which had tons and tons of cool prints, books and photography to browse through so it was not a total waste. After that we wanted to catch the US vs Italy World Cup match so we found a cafe across the street, ate some dinner and watched the match. It was a really good one and we ended up doing pretty well, tying Italy. Some Americans and this drunk French guy almost got into a brawl- it was pretty crazy. the drunk French guy kept yelling about Iraq and stuff, pretty vulgar stuff that I won't repeat, but it was the first and only anti-American stuff we've encountered which surprised us.

The next day, we found a church to go to. It was a french ward but for some reason, we still don't know, there were tons of American visitors that Sunday. It was really cool to go to church again in Europe. Weird story-we were talking to these girls behind us who happened to be BYU students. When I told them where I was from, one of them asked if I knew this girl, Melissa Madsen, which I did so that was weird. Then she asked if I had a sister named Shannon. She totalyl knows my little sister-lived on the same dorm floor freshman year. She thought I looked a lot like her so she thought she'd ask. Weird-small world.

The rest of the day we hung out around the Pompidieu again, had some lunch and then went up to this church. I can't rememeber what its called, but it was quite a hike up there. Later that night, we all had dinner with Kaysen and her friend. Me and Kays caught up, laughed a lot and then said our goodbyes sincee they were leaving that night. It was really cool to see her, especially in Paris.

Later that night, me and Rachel wanted to go back to the Eiffel Tower and climb it. So we did just that. 700 hundred stairs later, we were on the 2nd concourse and had a great view of the entire city. It was a tough climb, but worth it, totally.

The next morning we had to take a train to the coast of France called Calais-all thedirect trains from Paris to London were full so we had to ferry it over the channel. We are total ferry experts so it wasn't a big deal, but it took a lot longer to get to London than expected.

Overall, Paris was awesome. By far the most crazy and probably most fun we've expericed so far. Our motto for Paris was "It's Paris-it's what they do...." because seriously, they are crazy here. We loved it.

So stoked for London. It's the best feeling walking into a city where you understand what people are saying. Really refreshing.

Sorry this post turned into a novel. But Paris was a trip, man. So much happened there-so much that this would go on and on and on if I tried to explain it.

Hope the Mavs can pull out of their hole.