Friday 10-5: (from my journal)

So Today actually turned out to be a pretty cool day. Once leaving the hostel (and realizing I lost my papers for my hotel) I hoped on a metro (thankfully easy to use) and ended up at St. Michaels fountain where I got on a 3.5 hour walking tour of Paris. I met some girls from Boston while I got a crepe and we headed on our tour with our very energetic tour guide Mary.

The tour started at St. Michael's fountain where there is a statue of St. Michael crushing sin. We then walked over the river Siene, passed some bridges that Napoleaon built and walked down to Pont Nuff to the site where the head of the Nights Templar, Jaques de Molay, was beheaded. We headed past a church where a masacre occured (can't remember the name of it)and then went to the Lourve. We walked past some gardens and really pretty buildings along the Jordin de Turilies (Garden of Turilies). We walked down the Champs de Elysees (Seans de le-zay) down to the Arc de Triumph and the Effile Tower. The tour ended here and I set off to find my hotel.

My hotel was located in La Defense district which is more or less where everyone works. Paris is the only city where you have to travel outside the city to work. La Defense is where all the city skyscrapers are and tall buildings, which is unsual for any other city I have ever been to.

After getting cleaned up I met the rest of my temple friends (Ali, Katie, Kaitlyn and Brian) at the Lourve where we walked around for about 2 hours for free (horray for being a student!). I got to see the Venus de Milo statue, some of the crowned jewels and the winged victory of samothrace sculpture. I didn't see the Mona Lisa, but I wasnt too upset since it wasn't the real one anyway (the real one was being cleaned). After the Lourve we all went to a local cafe where we had dinner and then headed our seperate ways to our hotels.

Todays experience in Paris was certinally better than yesterdays. Being alone is lonely. It is an experience though. I think everyone should be alone at least once in their life. You find out a lot about yourself. I know it's only been a day, but I can tell that this weekend will have an impact on me. I can only hope tomorrow gets ever better!