I just got back from Paris. This post is going to be rather long because I have to recap the past 3 days, so here we go...
Day 1
We arrived in Paris and everyone was hungry, so we went into the first fast food place we found... it was basically the European version of Chick-Fil-A. As we're sitting there eating, we notice this man outside of the restaurant banging a plastic guitar on the sidewalk... ok, so the man is a little loopy... no big deal... we continue eating and eventually notice that he has proceeded to take his pants off... so now this man is standing in his underwear. He eventually puts his pants back on and decides to come in to the place where we are eating. Some of the other students had left their food to go to the bathroom, and this man just walked up to the end of our table and started eating their unattended food. He ate the fries, chicken, and even drank their soda! After he had this nice, free meal, he walked out of the restaurant and disappeared. About five minutes later, the cops arrive and start talking to the owner of the place. We were glad to see that he got what he had coming, but that was definitely not the way we wanted to start out our tour de Paris. A little unsettling if you ask me...
After lunch, we walked to our hotel and dropped our bags off. We found this really awesome outdoor market so that we could go "picking."
It was neat because it was just basically a gigantic flea market, only they had a lot of new stuff too. I went into a little clothing shop and got a really cute top for 12 euros. The only part about this that was frustrating was trying to stay with the group. We had to stop multiple times and wait on the group, but when some of us wanted to stop at a shop no one would wait on us. A lot of the time I felt like what I wanted to look at didn't matter.
Once we finished up at the market, we took the subway to the city center and walked to the Notre Dame Cathedral. It was beautiful. The towers were closed for the day, so we didn't get to go to the top, but the stained glass on the ground floor was breathtaking.
Then, the horror of my life began... walking from the cathedral all the way to the Eiffel Tower. That is a LONG walk. My feet have yet to recover, 2 days later. But I guess in the end it was worth it because we got to see it at night!
Day 2
We got up bright and early to make it to the Louvre before it opened. It was so cool to see all of the classics. My favorites were the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo... then we got to split up into groups to see the city. We went to the Champs Elysees to shop and see the Arc de Triomphe! My favorite part of the day was seeing the crazy street performer... check it out!
We were exhausted after all of our shopping, so we went to the Eiffel Tower lawn and took a long nap! It was very relaxing. We were supposed to meet at the Eiffel Tower so that we could go to dinner, but the other group ate lunch late so they decided that they didn't want to go eat. Just because they didn't want to go eat, the professor decided that they weren't going to feed the group I was in. It was almost 7pm and we hadn't eaten since noon. Part of our $2,500 program fee I felt was supposed to go to evening meals, and it made me a little upset that they just decided not to feed us. I ended up having to spend another 18 or so euros out of pocket to buy my dinner because we were left on our own. Since we went to eat on our own, we also had to walk back to the hotel alone.
Day 3
Up early for another cathedral and Moulin Rouge! The cathedral we went to today was up about 300 stairs, so I opted to enjoy the view from below. My ankle still hurt today, so I didn't think I would make it all the way up there. After they got back down from looking at the cathedral, we went to the site of Moulin Rouge! It was a little anticlimactic, though, because it was right off of the subway.
Then, we got to go shopping... that was fun until I got left in a store all by myself. I had to walk the streets of Paris by myself for about 20 minutes. It was a little scary because at one point I ended up on an empty street with a few homeless people. Eventually I found some people from my group, but I was mad that the girls I was with left me. I'm sort of holding a grudge about that because one of the girls has been saying the whole trip that she doesn't want to get left alone... how would she have felt in my shoes?
After we met back up, we got on the subway to head to the train station. On the metro, I saw pickpocketing in action! I had just sat down when a large group of men got on. They all started pushing each other and one man was yelling "Attention! Attention!" I didn't really understand what was happening at first, I just thought that they were trying to get on the metro before the door closed. Then I saw the suitcase and the wallet being thrown around and I realized there was a man trying to steal someone's things. The man yelling "Attention!" was letting the man know he was being stolen from. The man managed to hold on to his things and they pushed the pickpocket off the metro. He spit into the tram and a little got on me :/ yuck! I guess he had an accomplice too, because they literally kicked another guy off with their feet!!! It was an exhilarating experience, but at the same time it scared the crap out of me!
After that, I welcomed the prospect of returning to Belgium. It is so much more peaceful here... I'm waiting on one of the other host families to arrive here, and then we are all having a large BBQ! Yum!
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