Bonjour

I bought some internet so now I can talk.  We leave Paris today for Madrid.

May 20

We arrived at the Austin Airport and security was a breeze so we hung around until our 12:15 flight. Rebbeca and I got some County Line BBQ sandwiches and ate those on the flight.  I had never been inside the Austin airport before so I didnt realize how small and yet throughly austiny it was.  While we were there we saw Farzin he was flying to NY for some training with a finaical job there.  We boarded the plane and stopped in Raleigh for a 2 hour or so layover.  We flew American Airlines.  The plane from Austin was cramped however the plane to London was very nice.  They served us dinner(beef or chicken) and a mini breakfast the next morning.  I was so tired and dehydrated from flying.

 When we arrived in London I heard my name being called but I ignored it, seeing that I was in London, however it was none other than Miss Britney Van Fleet so we chatted in the passport line and ended up taking picture outside the Gatwick express, which is the train that takes you from the Gatwick Airport to Victoria Station in London(approx. 30 minutes).   We also saw the UT bme group from Lille france at the airport and said hey. We arrived at the airport at 7 and we had a flight out of london at a different airport at 12 however we had to drop off our heavy suitcases in town at Nicole's office. The tube was not hard to navigate but everything took time, we were running around the streets of london trying to make our flight we arrived about an hour before departure and made it through security as we were boarding we were told the flight would be delayed at least 30 minutes when we got on the plane finally we found out the reason for the delay was a strong ammonia smell in the cabin....strange.

Any way the flight from Heathrow to Charles de Gaulle was only an hour and we finally made it to paris!  We checked in at our hostel the Hotel Caulicourt on Cauaincourt Square. I found it completley adequate.  We had thought we had community bath and an eight person room but our room had its own bath and shower as well as only 6 beds. The roomates we had were two boys from UT university of tennesse tom, and todd. They were good guys and very easy going.

Our first thing to do was to explore the neighbourhood around us, we saw the Sacre Couer, and the mulain rouge; we were staying montmarte whiwch is a hill in paris. It looks quite impressive from the effiel tower.  After that we ate at a cafe in montmartre and then meet coral and her roomie cassidy on champs elysee, which is a ritzy shopping street located between concorde and the arc de triumph.  We stopped at McDonalds there and sat and enjoyed the atmosphere. This is also when I relized i had left my makeup and face wash in my suitcase so i would have to grin and bear it.

THE 22

Today i used most of my internet up trying to master the french keyboard, tre confusing! Rebecca and i went to notre dame and we happened upon coral there and climbed to the top; beautiful views. Then we continued walking that area of old paris quite lovely and i think the most beautiful part of the city.  We temporarily got lost in the ST Germaine district and ended up doing lunch pinic style at a nearby Arte school i think. The lunch was a shrimp rice salad, green beans and strawberries. we bought it at a french deli where english was not spoken at lot of pointing and hand gestures went into that transaction, lol. We continued our tour around the seine and saw where the louve and tuliergardens; las invalidades as well as the eiffle tower which we climbed all the way up to the second landing the view was awesome and the height ecclipsed the view offered by the notre dame. After that we came back to the hostel and hungout we meet a guy who told us about a good place to eat for cheap, as well as a brazillian with whom we watched Harry a grad student of stats from california do card tricks, he had quite an act worked out.  That night we deicided to try the jewish fallafel place we had heard about after we struck out at the neighbourhood bistro, the kitchen was closed. We went to the jewish ditrict wandered aimlessly until we mustered to courage to flag a local down, she counld not understand us when we said fallafel, until finally she got it and repeated the word with her french accent quite posh; so we followed her directions and found the place, but it appeared closed. There was  a door open leading to a corridor we went in got half way and then the lights went out we screamed and ran out into the street, actually rebbeca pushed me into the street because she was so freaked out.  we found another place that sold the aforementioned and ate there it was good and the waiter was nice, again the language barrier came up and it was quite funny, i asked if they speaked spainish and he got someone who could but he was from brazil and only spoke a bit but he knew english so it was cool; he asked where we were from and i said tejas. he asked if i was still living there or in paris i guess i seemed like a locale to him, lol. After that we roamed and saw the bastile district it was there we stopped at another mcdonalds to chill and got hit on by a drunk who wanted a cigarette, i said i was spanish and to leave us alone, it worked; i immediatley washed my hand since he had kissed it blah!

all for now internet about done