Bonjour!

These past few days have been a blur, but in a good way. Monday night I had to say goodbye to Marina and Christina, that along with finishing all my cleaning and packing was extremely difficult. It’s weird that I will never be sleeping in that flat ever again, or seeing them everyday. Then Tuesday morning Dominik picked me up at 6:15am to give me a ride to Central Station so I could catch my train at 6:55am to Stockholm Arlanda. My flight to Paris took off at 11:20am and a short two and a half hours later I landed. And I must say, Charles De Gaulle is a huge and slightly complicated airport. I had to walk down this hallway that constantly went up and down, like hills or waves. Then when that ended I had to take all these tunnels up the center of the airport to the baggage claim. It was interesting. Then I was off to find the Roissy Bus to Paris Opera where I met Liz Schéré (a friend of mine from high school who is currently studying in Paris).

Like every city in Europe, Paris is absolutely beautiful. Liz and I walked around for probably close to three hours. She made to show me as much as possible. We grabbed some coffee then walked through Monceau Park, which is mentioned in several literature classics. Then we walked through the city and saw Napoleon’s Tomb before heading to the Eiffel Tower. Seeing it in real life is pretty surreal, I have always known that it is big, but it is bigger than I expected. After our walk throughout the city we returned to her apartment to have some dinner and wait to meet up with her friend Jean-Philippe. Once we met up with him we headed to this area in Paris called Montmatre. It is known for its large bohemian influence and because it is located on a hill overlooking Paris there great views of the entire city.

Tuesday morning I woke up and went out to find David. He had been hiking and camping in the Alps in Italy for five days and took a late flight here to meet up. Originally his plan was to stay in the airport for the night, but shockingly it closed. Since he had not booked a hostel he ended up attempting to sleep in a park and then wandered around the city in the early hours of the morning. He’s crazy. To him it was a hilarious adventure; to me it is crazy he wasn’t robbed or something worse. (Thankfully he wasn’t).

Anyway, so we met up at 11am on Wednesday at the Fontaine Saint-Michel in the Latin Quarter to go on another free tour offered by Sandemans New Europe. The tour was supposed to last 3.5 hours (so until 2:30pm), but we ended up leaving it after the lunch break at 2pm because they were going to the Eiffel Tower and we had both already seen it, and we were tired. Before we left though we did see the Notre Dame and the Louvre (along with everything in between). The lunch break was close to the Louvre, so we wanted to end there so we could go in it and then meet up with Liz when she got out of class. According to our tour guide, if someone walked around the Louvre and looked at every piece inside it for only thirty seconds it would take them sixty-four days to see everything, sixty-four days without sleeping, eating, or bathroom breaks. Needless to say, we did not get the opportunity to do that. Instead we walked in and headed right to The Mona Lisa, like everyone else who ever goes to the Louvre. Surprisingly, it is much smaller that you’d think.  Then we walked around for another hour or so to look at the Italian, Spanish, and French paintings.

After the Louvre we were supposed to meet up with Liz at the Hotel de Ville, however we somehow got incredibly lost for a good half an hour and ended up walking in the complete wrong direction. We were literally standing probably a block or two away from it originally. Liz had been waiting there and her phone wasn’t working (and mine won’t let me make outgoing calls) so she ended up having to go home to call me. By that time it was 5:30pm and beginning to rain so David and I spilt up at the train station. I headed back to Liz’s and he headed to find a hostel for the night.

Wednesday night Liz and I were tired, after all she is still in school, so we ended up staying in and watching “When Harry Met Sally”. Then we took her dog, Nafta, out for a walk. Nafta is also a King Charles Cavalier, the same color as Gypsy and Clancy. Having him there for the night really made me miss Maybs. He reminded me a lot of her; it must be the breed in general or something.

Thursday was our last day in Paris. I met up with David at the Opera and heard all about his night with the people he had met in the hostel. Then we headed to the Catacombs, which are really creepy and cool. I can not get over how big they are, they must run under the entire city. I would love to know how many people are there; the walls are lined with piles of skeletons. After the Catacombs we headed over to the Eiffel Tower to go up it. The line was extremely long for the elevator, so we took the stairs. It is 700 stairs to the second level. We were supposed to meet Liz at 4pm, but again we ran late. I caught her right before she was about to leave the meeting place, I felt awful. But the Eiffel Tower took longer than expected and we got slightly lost. By the time I found her it was almost 5pm and we had to catch our bus to the airport at 6:20pm. Liz and I rushed back to her house and then I ran to the train to get to the bus stop to meet David. We made it just in time. We got to the airport around 7:30pm and thank god we did because it was the worst airport ever. We had to wait in line to check in for almost an hour and then spend another hour in line for security. It was horrible. But we made our flight to Rome just in time and are sitting in the gorgeous 80+-degree weather and sunshine.

I’ll post pictures from Paris soon!

Love and miss you!

Home: 20 days

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