Well, I am now on my train to Amsterdam. My second stop on my European journey. I missed my 13:00 train this afternoon so, I had to wait until 18:55 for the next available seat. Though trains seem to leave every hour from Paris to Amsterdam, it is obviously a very popular trip, because I was unable to get a ticket for six hours. It's been a fun day nonetheless. I think I love train stations now almost as much as I love airports. Either way, I don't get to Amsterdam until 23:00 and I still do not have a place to stay tonight. Hopefully there will be an available hostel near the train station that I can go to when I arrive.

BUT, now my thoughts about Paris: My first impression of the city was on my bus trip from the airport to Porte Maillot (The location where my host was able to pick me up). The freeway reminded me much of Los Angeles, with too many cars and graffiti everywhere. Also, there are motorcycles all over the place, and none of the cars follow any traffic laws and the motorcycles even less. They drive on the shoulder, between lanes, in and out of traffic like crazy. And I thought LA was bad. I arrived in the morning, but I hardly got any sleep on my flight over, so I spent much of the first day sleeping. Between naps I did manage to take a walk to a nearby park which I found out was a popular destination for hookers. That night, one of the women I was staying with (not a hooker) took me out on her motorcycle to see Paris by night. It was a nice first glace at such a beautiful and old city.

The house I was staying at was within a mile or so of both the Eiffel tower sfdljsljdadfjdsaljl;dsa. So the next day was spent doing massive amounts of walking. I saw everything from the Louve to the National Assembly to the cathedral of notre dame. This was very nice as you can see by the pictures I will be posting of the city. The following day was spent doing much of the same type of sightseeing.

The family I was with was kind enough to extend an invitation to me to visit one of their other homes in france for several days. I accepted, so on Friday, we packed up the car and drove to an area of france called le perch. The home they own there is located just outside of a small French village called Brunelle. It was a lovely home built in the 14th century that used to be the residence of two monks. I will post pictures of this as well.

This was a very relaxing weekend spent mostly driving around and visiting the various manors/castles/churches of the area. My kind hosts actually just finished closing a deal on purchasing their own manor called jsdlfka;l. I have pictures of this as well. Many of the manors throughout france have been restored and updated many times, so much of the architecture varies from building to building. Parts of the manor they have purchased date back to 1361. Now that is history. I cant believe they make me take a class in U.S. history, which by the way is only about 200 years long, to graduate college when there are so many more important things to learn about the long history of the world that are not even mentioned. No matter.

After returning to paris I decided that I would leave for my next destination on Tuesday. My last day in paris, I went to visit the château de Versailles. You may have heard of this castle, because it is the most famous castle in France and possibly the world. It was built by Lois XIV with the intent of being the grandest castle in the whole world. Unfortunately the castle is currently undergoing massive restoration and the inside of the castle was closed. I did, however, take a long walk through the vast gardens. Unfortunately my pictures cannot capture the enormous size of the gardens. They stretch on for miles. I read somewhere that when the gardens were built, there were so many fountains that the pumps could not run them all at one time. So, when Lois XIV took walks in them, his servants would travel ahead of him in order to turn on the fountains by the time he arrived to see them. Whether or not this is true, I do not know, but you should tell your kids anyways. They won't know the difference. Thanks for visiting the site and for reading my blog. Please come back again and see what else I have accomplished on my trip. I apologize for the delay in posting pictures etc. but hopefully I will have much easier access to the internet from now on. We shall see. Hasta la Victoria siempre! Till next time,

Kelly