Paris Day 1

The night before leaving we packed sack breakfasts (bagels, juice boxes, Kit Kats, chips, oranges, and cereal bars) so we would be ready to leave at 6:15 a.m. to get to the train station.  Security and customs are so much easier when you're traveling by train and not by airplane!  We had about an hour to wait once we were in the station so I sat on the floor and ate breakfast.  Soon enough we all boarded the train.  One of the girls switched me tickets so she could sit  by her friend so I ended up sitting by S Mason, Nick's older son.  While everyone else slept, we talked pretty much the whole time.

Twoish hours later, we arrived in Paris.  We made a quick stop at our hotel to drop off our luggage and let everyone use the toilets but we only had a few rooms available so it was ten or so people to a room.  So that was pretty interesting.

We had all been given tickets to use the Metro but for some reason mine didn't work.  This was my first introduction to people not being able to speak English and me not being able to speak French.  I stumbled a little trying to figure out what to say to them and they were saying a lot of things to me and I had no idea what they were talking about.  Eventually though they gave me a new one, I got through, and all was well.  Luckily some people in the group had noticed that I had trouble so they hadn't left me and I wasn't lost forever.  

Our first stop was a few places from the French Revolution and A Tale of Two Cities which we are reading right now.  

Remember the Obelisk in London?  Here's it's distant relative.  Place de la Concorde

 They set us off to wander Champs Elysees, a famous walking street to get lunch and also to get to the Arc de Triomphe.  I didn't eat lunch because I was feeling very sick to my stomach.  I was terrified that I was going to throw up all over poor Napoleon's arc.

 After a long windy staircase later (You'll be climbing a lot of them, future study abroaders!) there was a great view of Paris and the modern layout of main streets.  I didn't upload any of those pictures because it was also a fabulous view of the Eiffel Tower!

A newscast on top of the Arc

After wandering around on top of that for a while we moved on.  As soon as we were close enough, it was time for a photo shoot with it!

 See.  Lots of pictures.  I didn't want to climb up so I wandered around for a while, especially towards the green side to get green in the picture.  We also went and found some food and I tasted a churro for the first time.

 I also bought a hot dog because I was finally feeling well enough to eat and it was the only thing I could understand on the menu since everything was in French.  It was the strangest hot dog I've ever eaten.  Better than usual though.

 We then met up with the group again to cruise the Seine.

I wore my glasses so I'd actually be able to see

My first view of Notre Dame

The cruise was the first spark of excitement I had for Paris, probably because for the first time all day I wasn't feeling like I was going to lose what little I had eaten.  Afterwards we waited for a few minutes so we could see the Eiffel Tower do its light show.

So I took fun pictures of myself with my buddies.

After that we headed back.  A bunch of people went to go eat but I was still feeling quite sickly.  I took a shower to try to get my body back to normal temperature ranges and then went to bed.  My roommates for the week brought me back some crackers, orange juice, and applesauce and woke me up to make me eat it.  And then she tried to make elephant noises that sounded like train whistles and made a lot of sheep jokes.  It was awesome.

So my first impressions of Paris?  It's dirty.  There was graffiti and cigarettes everywhere.  It smells awful in a lot of places, especially in the metro.  There are some scary looking people wandering around.  Apparently it IS true that several of them don't wear deodorant.  And a lot of times they are pretty rude to you.  If you're slightly in the way in the sidewalk they shove you aside--not turn their body slightly or move over a little.  They shove you.  But they do dress nice!  

I'd never been in a place where finding someone who spoke English was hard.  I had to learn to point and fumble with simple words like "merci" and try my best to get my point across without talking.  It was strange.  A very eye opening experience of course, but strange.

So.  The end of the first day!

Pictures stollen from Facebook:

Me, Emma, Taylor, Abby, and Sarah

Abby, Taylor
Eliza, Alexis, Caity, Courtney, Kimi, Annie, me, Emma
Michelle, Brooke
Ali, Cami

Me, Emma, Abby, Sarah