Paris

So we got into paris yesterday afternoon sometime. We took a so called airport shuttle from Paris Beauvais which actually took longer than our flight. it was pretty hazy that afternoon, but it was fun to see a little of the countryside before driving into the city. We navagated the metro easily, (if it's easy to climb up and down tons of stairs while carrying a third of your body weight is easy?) We're so smart these days. It was just about three blocks to our apartment. Easy easy, you must have all been praying. There we climbed the 118 stairs to our apartment, (of course we had to count!) and our cute french landlady gave us the tour. It's so cute how all the landladies can manage to give a twenty minute tour of a 300 square foot space. We like our apartment a lot. It's in a great location next to plenty of restraunts and a grocery store, a very 'homey" area of the Latin Quarter. There are a ton of university buildings and students all around, so it feels very familiar to me. We have three big casement windows, we are in the roof of one of the typical paris apartment buildings. I feel like I am in one of the scenes from Moulin Rouge movie (not the bad ones, but the ones that are of the roof tops of paris) There are window boxes with bright flowers absolutely everywhere. It looks exactly like Paris, it doesn't disappoint. So our apartment is really cute, but it wouldn't be interesting without a couple of problems. There is the huge dip in the center of the bed which tries to suck you in as you sleep, so you feel like you're constantly about to fall off the edge of the cliff. plus, it's on the "sixth" floor, so you have to keep the windows open to let the heat out, but then if you do that you let the mosquitos in, so Amy and i are mostly covered in mosquito bites. More and more bites kept appearing while I was cooking dinner. We never actually saw the mosquitos, even though we were watching each other intently to see when they struck. I am not sure what our final count was. But, praise God, we found a pharmacy that was still open and bought some bug repelant, and we already had cortizone cream from Florence. On our way to the internet cafe, I was counting the words that I have learned in French so far. There are about seven :) and one of them is Creme de anti-instecte. Shannon and mev, we should have packed you as our French-english dictionaries! So that sounds like a lot of complaining, but I really really like Paris, and we have already had lots of fun and seen tons of the sites.

After we got in last night, we hadn't eaten in about 13 hours, so we were starving. Plus we hadn't heard from Amanda and Sara (two of my best architecture friends that have been backpacking europe these three weeks as well) in days so we weren't thinking that we'd actually see them. So we went down our street a little ways which is lined with tables so deep a car can barely get through without hitting the diners with its side mirrors, and ordered dinner. I had some really good lamb, and a salad. it was all fabulous. Amy actually ate steak. (no snails yet) So we were just getting done with the main course, and I see two very sweaty tired looking girls carrying ridiculously huge backpacks. So I yelled out to them from our table, and when they finally figured out where the voice was coming from, we were all very excited to see each other. I left Amy to hold the table at the restraunt and took Sara and Amanda up to the apartment to drop off their bags. Then we sat and talked to them while they had dinner. It was so fun to catch up on each other's trips so far. They were definitely able to comisserate with the good times, and the trials, and of course the carrying of the backpacks. it sounds like they have had a great trip, despite Amanda's luggage being lost for the first three days of their trip. They crack me up, i have definitely missed them both. They left our apartment at about 11 to go sleep at the airport, since they had to check in at 4 AM, and the last train out there left at midnight. don't worry, we won't sleep in any public places. but we did make a hierarchy of bad places to sleep. The "best" is an airport inside security, then an airport outside security, then a train staion, a bus station, and of course a park bench. We will stick to our exciting apartment.

This morning we got up and took the metro down to the Arc de triomphe and then walked up the Champs Elysees. I don't think we made it out there until probably eleven and hadn't eaten anything, so we stopped for lunch and had sandwiches almost right away. We continued to wander around Paris, and we kept seeing buildings or monuments that seemed like they might be important, and then we'd get out the map and try to figure out what each was. You don't have to look far to see beautiful cool buildings here. We have taken lots of pictures, especially posing/mimicing statues. Amy's favorite travel pasttime i think. We sat in the Jardin des tuileris and journaled for a bit. We eventually walked down to the louvre to check out the pyarmid, the museum was closed today though. Then we went to the opera house. I like how they added just a touch of gold here and there on every building and statue. Shiny is good. So we eventually went back to home base, bought some groceries and cooked us dinner. We had a picnic on our floor and we narrated the French news. It is very funny, if you ask us. We love paris, and all of you, and your comments!

Shannon, sorry for your scare with Derek, that's how it is with boys. I'm sooo glad to hear he is ok. :) How is your little boy doing??