Happy New Year!

Best. New Years. Ever.

Rock, Anthony and I messed around in Paris just to kill time on NYE.  We tried to go to the Louve, but it was closed.  Found out that it is free on Sunday, though!  Speaking of free-  All of the public transit was free for New Years, which was really nice, but made the metro a madhouse.  Anthony signed us all up for a pub crawl to welcome in the New Year.  We ate a HUGE dinner in Chinatown and Rock ordered for us in Chinese.  When the food came, the waitress brought Anthony and me a fork, spoon and knife and only brought Rock chopsticks. We got a kick out of that.  After dinner we met up with a girl in Anthony's study abroad program from L.A. named Melissa Liu and we took the metro to the Moulin Rouge, where we were meeting up with the organizers of the pub crawl around 8pm.  The group was way larger and a lot more fun than I expected!  It was almost exclusively foreigners, but not really many Americans.  There were a couple of marines from the states who came down on leave from Germany, but that's really it besides us.  We met and mingled with people from Germany, Slovenia, England, Scotland, Australia, Brazil, France, Ireland, China, Singapore, Costa Rica and probably other places that I don't remember.  At the first bar we got a free shot and jager bomb with the purchase of a specialty cocktail and after that it was just a free shot with each beer, glass of champagne or cocktail.  After the first bar, the 75 or so people on our pub crawl were split into three groups of around 25.  We were all on the "blue crew" which turned out to be the rowdiest of all the groups.  We started chants, sang songs and jeered the other groups as we passed them going from bar to bar.  All three groups met at a huge night club an hour before midnight.  There was a 30 meter (yup meter- i'm adjusting already) line to get into the club but all of us got to skip it and go in the VIP entrance.  The night club was already hopping and we had a blast bringing in the new year.  The only bad part was that Anthony's wallet was stolen from his jacket.  Luckily he took his credit cards out, but he did lose all of his french ID's, his American driver's license and some cash...  We left the club around 1 and went to a huuuuuuge apartment in a really nice part of the city.  We were invited by Joa, Elody and Alison- the French girls we had been out to the bars with the two previous nights.  By the time we got there, the party had died down to around 15 people, all French.  At first I got the feeling that we weren't really invited (and was actually told that by the host later, after we had become friends), but the girls told us to not worry about it and it turned out to be a blast.  We left around 7:30am...  At the party we mingled, spoke in broken english to french people, played a game that involved impressions of famous people, enjoyed some more cocktails, danced to American music and laughed a lot.  The host explained to us the finer aspects of a good, French cognac and made Anthony and me try two kinds that had aged over 20 years.  All-in-all, it was a great new years!

Day 2 in Paris (abbreviated version)

Wow, I just started typing about my first day, was on a roll, and didn't realize the post was so long!  Yesterday we woke up slowly, got some breakfast from a bakery (amazing), and then went to the Arénes de Lutéce.  It is in the oldest part of Paris and was constructed in the first century AD by the Romans as a gladiator arena.  We next went to an arabic library- a tall building with a great rooftop balcony overlooking Notre Dame.  It was one of the few free things we have been able to do, so that was nice.  We visited the University of Paris and then headed over to the Pantheon.  After the Pantheon we went to the base of the Eiffel Tower, which was mobbed with tourists.  It overcast, so we didn't get the greatest view of the tower and decided not to go to the top, saving it for another day.  For dinner we went to another American student's apartment.  Rachel was fun and we all went to the bar together afterword.  We met up with Joa at the Fifth (another pub) and she brought two French friends-- Alison and Elodie.  The Fifth has a beer pong table, so naturally we had to teach the French girls, who had never played!  Later, we all went to an Erasmus party.  Erasmus is apparently an organization that organizes international students, so only students were permitted.  The party was on a large boat right near the Eiffel tower and it was a huge techno-rave style dance party.  We stayed a little too late and missed the public transit home, so we took a cab to Rachel's instead, made some food, and crashed on the couches.

Day 1 in Paris

I'm not sure if I have even sat down since I arrived in Paris!  No need to adjust to the time zone you just don't stop moving, right?  My plane landed on time (amazing given all the delays in the US) at CDG in Paris, both of my checked bags made it, and I found Anthony and Rock easily.  A quick taxi ride later and we were at Anthony's apartment in Paris' China town.  We stopped briefly to drop off my bags, went to the cafe across the street for a cup of coffee and croissant and then headed to the metro station to get me a pass for my 6 days here (which paid for itself the same day).  The metro system in Paris is amazing!  Take notes, America... Rock has been in Paris with Anthony since the 16th, and they graciously avoided many of the touristy things so that all three of us could see them together.  Maybe they just avoided them so that they didnt have to see them twice, but I like the first scenario better.  With a combination of riding the metro and a ton of walking, we saw Notre Dame, Sacré Coeur, Arc de Triomph, Camps Elysées and the Eiffel Tower (from a distance).  I think the coolest thing was the 360degree view of Paris from the Arc of Triumph.  The picture came out really well too!  I love my new camera :).
The Sacré Coeur is a HUGE catholic basilica that also has a great vantage point over the city of Paris.  One thing that surprised me a little bit was the amount of black market street vendors.  They are at every tourist destination (which didn't surprise me) but the weirdest thing is that they all have the exact same merchandise and it's all worthless junk!  The street performers are quite unique, though.  Lots of solo acts singing mostly American songs and they are all pretty good, too.  In addition to the vendors and performers, there are lots of scam artists.  Some people try to grab you and strap a bracelet to your wrist as quickly as possible and tell you that you owe them money for it.  Others pretent to be deaf and get personal information from you.  Luckily for me, Anthony has been here for over six months, speaks french so well that Parisians don't know he's American, and he can spot the scams from a mile away.  The Camps Elysées is a really cool avenue in Paris with every single designer clothing and accessory story you can imagine.  We walked the length of it and just took in the scene, going into a few places here and there along the way.  We walked past the Louvre, but, with the holidays in full swing here, we decided to leave it for another day in which we would have more time and less of a crowd to battle and line to wait in.  Notre Dame was impressive!  It's located at a fork in the river, so it has rivers on two sides.  The architecture and vast size of the church is astonishing.
After a full day of sight seeing, we went back to Anthony's to change and regroup before going to the jewish area of Paris for falafel, which I had never had before.  We ate it in a pita type wrap with lots of veggies (not my fav) and a sauce that was a little over powering, but the falafel itself was very good.  I thought it was a meat.  We then went to the bastille and I was a little disappointed to find that there was just a monument type thing where I was expecting to see the place of the meeting of the French national assembly during the Jaques Necker and French Revolution era.  We proceeded to a little pub that Anthony frequents called the Hideout and met up with a couple of his French friends, Joa and Carolyn, and two Mexican international students but I only remember Ilse, whom I had an interesting political discussion with and I also got to practice speaking spanish.  After the pub we got crepes and then went back to Anthony's to sleep.

One more flight

After ordering room service (special thanks to the travel agent), I went to bed around midnight chicago time only to be woken up rudely by my three alarms at 3:30am.  A quick shower and check out later and I was on line to check my bags for the final two legs of their journey.  The time- 3:50am.  My place in line-6th.  Time from place in line to ticket counter- one hour and twenty minutes.  Really US Airways?  That's pathetic... Luckily for me, my 6am flight was delayed and I made it easily onto the flight and to Philly (where I now sit).  I just got off of a skype phone call with Anthony and we finalized our plans for meeting up at CDG.  I know this post is pretty boring, but I can promise you that I am more bored writing it than you are reading it.  T-minus six hours and thirty minutes until take off!
p.s. I'm glad I'm not flying domestically!  Some destinations are delayed DAYS!

Getting to Paris

I knew it wasn't going to be easy, but I thought it would at least start out a little better. After getting to the GR airport two hours early with the fam and Gram, and attempting to fix possibly the worst itinerary ever, we found out that the 45min flight from GR to Chicago was by delayed two hours. Right now I'm sitting at the gate killing time (after two rousing games of up and down with the family before passing through security) experimenting with my new blog- which I created on my phone (please excuse typos). When I finally get to chicago, I will attempt yet again to fix the worst itinerary in the history of modern flight before retiring to my hotel room in the ohare's Hilton. More travel updates to come.

Oh, forgot to mention the baptist engagement. While waiting to pass through security my entire fam and I creepily watched a dude wait at the end of the jetway with a bouquet of white roses. After at least an hour of pacing and nervous twitching his girlfriend arrived from Cali and the airport errupted in applause upon the presentation of the roses. Mom found the parents of the kid in the crowd and pryed out the story. Law students at some Christian school in Cali. He is proposing to her tonight. (Good luck airport dude!)