Paris!

If you're a regular reader of this blog and enjoy getting your daily dose of European adventures with Ben, Phil and Grant you're probably getting pretty antsy for a new post just about now. Don't worry, I feel your pain and I'll be putting up posts about the events from last weekend up until now..........just as soon as we have wi-fi.

We've found that they are incredibly stingy with their wi-fi over here (making you pay for increments of time and requiring that you can read French just to set it up). Thus, we've been effectively "off the grid" for the last couple of days.

We're on the train right now from Paris to Strasbourg and I will HOPEFULLY have internet access there and be able to put up this post as well as the one before it, which details our adventures from the weekend in Breidenbach, Germany.

Anyways, let's get down to business and get you all caught up on our time in Paris. We arrived about the middle of the afternoon on Monday. We were met at the train station by Laura Tucker, a friend of Grant's from the Champaign AC church who is studying abroad in Paris this semester. Laura was a fantastic host and hung out with us the entire time we were in Paris. Her many talents include not only knowing the city forwards and backwards as well as knowing all the best places to see, but she also speaks French fluently (which comes in mighty handy in Paris)!

Monday afternoon we started off our time in Paris by visiting the Louvre (because it's closed on Tuesdays). The place is absolutely gigantic! I'm pretty sure you could walk around for 24 hours and still not get to every exhibit (unfortunately only we had about 2 hours until it closed). We were able to see several wings of paintings and a wing or two of sculptures before we were forced to leave. The Mona Lisa exhibit was crazy! You couldn't get within 20 feet of it and there were close to a hundred people crowding around the small space snapping pictures and jostling for a closer look. We were able to get a good picture of it though, because Phil's amazing camera has a zoom that's about 150X actual distance.

After leaving the Louvre, we walked around the city for a bit before settling on a place to eat dinner. On Laura's suggestion, I got snails as an appetizer. Apparently it's pretty common in Paris (they were good).

When we finished dinner we walked around quite a bit more before taking the metro back to our hostel for the night. This was one of the more interesting hostels we've stayed in thus far. It was in a pretty shady section of Paris and had absolutely no costumer service (or wi-fi) whatsoever. You even had to pay 2.50 euro for a towel to shower with.

We were awoken before 8:00 in the morning on Tuesday by the sound of much ruckus in the hallway. I put some clothes on and stepped out of the room to find about 20 small children crowded into the narrow hallway, all very rambunctious and jabbering constantly in French. Needless to say, we weren't getting back to sleep (and it was a good time to start our day anyways), so we got up and got ready to meet Laura at her place. On our way out we found that the downstairs lobby was also lined wall to wall with small children (I guess staying at a hostel in a shady part of town is a good idea for an elementary school field trip in France).

After meeting up with Laura, we took off for the Eiffel Tower! It's much bigger than I had even imagined and is definitely not overrated. We bought our tickets and climbed the stairs; first to level one, then to level two, and then took an elevator all the way to the top! (climbing the stairs to the second level is the equivalent of ascending to the 43rd floor of a building). The view from the top was absolutely incredible! You could see the entire city and then some. Laura, our fantastic tour guide, was able to point out many famous landmarks that were visible from our tower top perch.

After the Eiffel Tower we eat a lunch of French crepes and took the metro to the Arch de Triumph. It was raining at the time so we didn't stay there long, but were able to snap a few pictures and get the experience of this famous French monument.

Since the rain was putting a damper on any proposed outdoor activities, we opted to head indoors to a museum. We took the metro to the military museum which also houses Napoleon's grave. This was one of the more interesting museums I've been to, containing detailed histories from the French perspective of World War I, World War II, and the Holocaust.

We were hosted for dinner that evening by a friend of Laura's named Phoebe. Phoebe is originally from Zambia and had attended school at Oxford before accepting a job in Paris in the business of buying and selling petroleum. She was a very passionate Christian lady and was extremely educated and well read. Probably one of the most interesting people I've talked to in a long time.

Phoebe prepared a fantastic meal of chicken, sweet potatoes, rice, bread, and steam broccoli. After the main courses had been devoured she brought out crepes, toppings and ice cream for desert!

After walking by the Eiffel Tower to see it all lit up at night, we took the metro back to our hostel (getting back around 1:30) and hit the sack. I slept like a rock. What a interesting, informative and utterly exhausting day!

We had to catch our train to Strasbourg at 9:00 this morning (Wednesday), so we were up fairly early to catch the metro down to the train station. Once again, when I stepped out into the hall I was greeted by a small army of pre-pubescent children. I muttered a sleepy "bonjour" and they all looked at me like I was from outer-space.

Now I'm sitting on the train, enjoying the passing scenery of the French countryside and anticipating our time in Strasbourg. Hopefully we will have wi-fi at our hostel there and you can read this post as well as the one before it (I'll post them simultaneously when I get the chance).

Until next time, this is Ben signing off from a train somewhere in the middle of France.