Paris...

Getting to Paris was an adventure on its own.

Our flight from "Milan" aka Bergamo to "Paris" aka Beauvais, was at 6:30 in the morning. If your not familiar with Ryanair, this is pretty much standard for them. Since Bergamo is not the same place as Milan, it's not as easy to reach, meaning we had to take the 7:40 bus the night before and hang out at the airport until 4:30 AM when the check in counter opened. Red Bull is an amazing thing. Not surprisingly, there were a lot of people in the airport doing the same thing for different Ryanair destinations. But don't get me wrong, Ryanair is cheap (45$) if you're willing to put up with this kind of stuff.

When we arrived in "Paris," Hannah and I bought our bus tickets to real Paris and went outside. Suddenly, we realized that we forgot our checked luggage, and we had left the security area so we couldn't get back in. Luckily, the security area isn't very secure and we just walked back in, grabbed our bags, and left.

At 10:30am (yes, it was a 2 hour bus ride from "Paris" to Paris), when we reached real Paris, I was completely overwhelmed. Getting a ticket for the Metro was an ordeal, but soon enough we were on our way to the hostel.

After we left our stuff there, we went on the "free" tour of Paris, which wasn't as good as the "free" tour of Berlin, but still better than sleeping through one of our two days in Paris. Later, we went to the Pere Lachise (??? I don't have time to look up the name) Cemetery, where all of the famous people are burried, but we didn't have time to find any of them, since it closes at 6PM. We went back today and visited Edith Piaf and Jim Morrison. Even the graves of the non-famous are interesting though.

So, what else did we do today...well, we spent the morning in the Louvre, and yes, I saw the Mona Lisa and the Venus de (di?) Milo, along with hundreds of other paintings and sculptures. The hype surrounding the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo isn't really justified. Yes, they're beautiful, but the whole museum is filled with beautiful paintings and scupltures that hardly any of the visitors go to because they're not as famous. Kind of like Venice. Everyone walks down the same streets, and if you go one street over you feel like you're the only person in the entire city, which is nice when you have to hide from the Venice police and eat a sandwhich like Hannah and I did.


We had a (legal) sandwhich at the Louve, and then walked down the Champs Elysee to see the Arch de Triumph (yet again, I'm not going to look up the spelling). Next was the Eifel Tower, and then back to the cemetery. We tried walking from the cemetery to the hostel, but it was so far that we ended up having to take a more indirect route on the subway. Oops.

About the Parisians being rude, I don't know. I haven't really interacted with them. This city is really stressful though, and certianly full of crazy people.

I'd love to write more, but my internet time is nearly up, and Germany is playing Turkey in Euro2008 right now, so obviously, that is my priority at the moment.

Tomorrow I'm off to the west coast of Ireland, and I can't wait.

btw: the spell check is broken, sorry