je suis en paris!

Allo mes amis!! (sorry but this is a long one!)

Where do i even start? i am just so happy to have finally figured out that we can make these keyboards like the ones back home, since the first few attempts left me a little frustrated - they are not QWERTY keyboards here! Well, this morning I am finally going to be making my way out of the beautiful city of Paris - yes the city of lights. I have seen and done so many things, and often wonder where the time is going?! But so worth it. I have met so many people and have been the power tourist! Still have not seem probably half the sites in the city, but am very happy with the ones I have seen!

Where do i even start? PARIS!

I arrived Friday morning after taking the Chunnel train from London. While waiting in line at the Tourismo desk, a man came up with a flyer for a hostel - I suppose the backpack gave me away. And that is where I have been staying the past - wow, five nights! The first thing I visited was the Louvre - incredible. Just the building itself, actually, almost more than any other part of it, was absolutley beautiful. The lines weren't so bad, but there were so many school groups, so i plugged into my mp3 player and walked around with my map and pen in hand. I wrote down things i saw, liked, didn't like, and drew my direction on the map so i would know where i had been. Half the time I was walking around looking up at the ceiling and down the staircases - it was magnificent! I felt like a kid in the biggest toy store ever! Huge perma-grin.  I spent over 3.5hours there. Then i walked out into the gardens where there were more statues, and towards the Place de la Concord. I had plans to meet people at the hostel at 7pm, so i started to head back. The metro here is efficient, but dirty and hard to follow actually. It supposed to be colour coded, but half the signs are not in colour, so you really have to know the number and the last stop's name. There are no friendly announcements, not even in french, so it's pretty quiet except the sound of the trains. You just have to watch the signs and count the stops. I made it back in time, and the first thing i did was have a beer - i was exhausted from all the walking. It was friday night, and the main lobby of our hostel is actually a local bar. It is all in english here, music, actually the music in most places i have been was in english, which was a little disapointing. The music in this internet cafe is finally in french - but a second ago they were playing JT's Bringing Sexy Back so it must play both on the radio.

So after the beers, we (Kyle, from Vancouver, Julian from CA, and Ludis from NY) headed out to a disco - and it was right next to the Moulin Rouge! that was crazy! but the bar was dark and a little dingy. Full of very young french kids - but we had a blast dancing and they have SoHo everywhere here - they drink it with orange juice, so that is what I had (SoHo is a lychee liquour that i love!) Saturday was my sightseeing day - and my roommate, Don (from Australia) and i headed out to walk down the Champs d\Elysees - crazy shopping district. Stores like Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Sephora, etc etc... It was fun cause Don was so excited tosee these stores too. We then arrived at the Arc du Triomphe - holy! It was massive, i didn't realize it was that large, and to see it in person really hit me - it's in the middle of a roundabout, which i realize is every single sort of intersection here. There is not the usual four corners anywhere - it's all coming at you from different directions, and you just cross at crosswalks, wait for the little green man, or actually don't, that might be safer, and then you can sometimes only walk half way across, and then wait for the next little green man (that is what we have been calling them all week) and finish crossing the street. It's an adventure. We walked around the base of the Arc, then back down the Champs Elysees and then we walked to the Eiffel Tower - we could see it's peak and just walked in that direction, we crossed the River Seine - beautiful bridges, and when we finally got to the tower - wow. It was like nothing i expected. It's actually sortof mid-evil looking, more like mad scientist gothic, dark, metal structure. Totally different feeling than i expected. we decided to walk, er, climb up to the viewing platform. The lines were crazy long and zigzagging around the bottom of the tower, but boy, was climbing all 700 stairs worth it, we really felt like we earned the view!

We walked back to the Louvre, since that is where we knew there was a metro station, these are not always easy to spot. Took pics of the cool signs for them though. We got back to the hostel and again, the evening festivities began! My rooms have been all over the hostel as i booked day by day - there are about 19 rooms - only about three per floor - so you can imagine - it's a spiral staircase and sometimes you forget something in your room, but it's like - forget it! too far up to get it. But man, this whole country is full of stairs - you climb up to the metro, then descend down under the city, walk around, climb back out of the metro - all museums and sights, you climb up and down and up and down.

Sunday - slept in a wee bit finally. I went up to Sacre Couer with Ben (another Aussie) and then we found some grass and relaxed under the stairs of the church - there was a man playing the violin next to us - we felt like we were really in paris!! Sun was out, it was a great day. That night i met Gabby again, she's from S.Africa but works in London, and we hung out with a bunch of guys from UK and Australia and Sweden... and the usuals - Kyle, Julian, Ludis, met some more. That night I made plans to go to Versailles on Tuesday - see the problem is that everythign here is closed on mondays, and i didn't want to leave without visiting Versailles, so i stayed an extra day. Monday was out with Gabby and then i came back to the hostel, wrote in my journal, and then did this great walking tour at 5pm. Saw the artist district, and the city at night - finally!!!! The Eiffel Tower lights up and sparkles so fancy every hour from like 10 until 12 - and we just caught it, i was sooo happy!! so cool.

and finally - yesterday, we went to Versailles. I went with Mat (Aussi), Lauren (NY) and Pete (China). We took a wrong train, but eventually got there - how incredible. The blatent showiness of it, the grandeur, the gold, and gardens, the opera house was my favourite. We spent over four hours there. Last night i met Josh for dinner down by the Notre Dame, and saw the gay district. Beautiful people. had a falafel. it was awesome.

So now i am on my way to the train station, and will make my way up to St.Malo, and then visit Mont. St. Michel. I got an email from Kyle and they are headed down to Barcelona, so hopefully I will meet up with them!!

hope you are all well - I will try to write more often so that these are not ridiculously long like this one!!!!

love jo