May 24

Today was the last day sent in Paris. Rebecca and I packed our stuff ate breakfast and checked out of the hostal at 11 am. We then went to the Louve, which was a aweome thing to do since we were able to check our packs at the front desk for free and enjoy the immense collection of art there. Rebecca had seen the Da Vinci Code so she really liked all the pyramids and things, I in ignorance agreed that they looked pretty. I saw some sweet statues od ncient greek gods and goddeses, as well as a nice selection of mesopotamian art, including the Code of Hammarabi on a pillar(a definate and unexpected highlight).

After I tired of the Louve we made our wy down the seine in search of some truely Parisan memorbilia. Boy was it hot that day, I rememeber i was sweating so bad from having my pack taht i had to remove my jacket, it was a miserable time. We stopped at subway and got some 15 cm long subs (6 in), and in paris you get only 1 cookie as a sub for your chip in a combo instead of the 2 you get in america. It was good though. We were running close in time to our train to madrid so we ran(which seems a norm for us) through the metro to reach our station. We couldnt tell if we were in the right place and i couldnt remeber the correct name of where we were wanting to go, I almost said Auchwitz, which wa wrong it was Aurstralich. Anyway we made it plenty early and sat with another American girl we bemped into at the train station. She was very experianced in traveling and had been abroad that semester in northern europe and then had an internship later that summer in the Czech Republic. We got on the train alright at 7:30 and a family with 2 small children sat in front of us, nightmare in the making. The kiddos jumped arund and at first i found it interesting b/c i could actually understan their spanish, that soon though became annoying when trying to sleep and relax. I dont know that i would reccomend a night train to ayone. They seem to be a necesary evil. Normally the ride to madrid from paris would be somethiing like 9 hours i believe we spent a whopping 14 aborad that sucker talk about stir crazy! The spanish countryside was ver beautiful though,however the ride was exaughsing.

Paris in a nutshell

So here are some things i noticed about paris...

Apparently, the more jackets your wear the "cooler" you are. Especially if they are black r gray jackets layered. This also applies to warm weather, jacket are still in.

PDA is widley accepted, expect it in parks, metros, etc

Breakfast usually has hot chocolate, a bagette and a crissant, one day i had prune jam....and liked it

People dont eat dinner they sit, drink smoke and chat instead

It doens t get dark until 10:30 pm at night

Parisians dont smile in public, only crazy drunks walk around smiling

The city didnt really strike me as romantic...but it has an enormous amount of sites and things to do.

I really had a great time in paris