I had to google all the French place names.

Today was my second day in Paris!

Eia and I woke up super early and decided to power through the tourist things we wanted to see. We even made a list. It was serious.

We had our free croissants and jam courtesy of the hostel, grabbed our purses, and jumped on the Metro. We got out at the stop for the Eiffel Tower, and had to meander our way through the men jingling metal Eiffel Tower key chains at us and other men with string trying to distract us long enough with compliments to start tying a bracelet on our wrists. No. Thank. You.

Finally finally we got to the Eiffel Tower! The tower itself was actually a lot prettier than I expected it to be, and we spent a long time trying to find the best angles to take pictures of it from. We had to keep walking backwards because it's so tall, and after awhile, we realized we were probably a quarter mile back from where we started, near this big fancy fountain. We were finally able to get a picture that had the ENTIRE tower in it, and then we started playing around with our Polaroid cameras because where ELSE would you want to use film that is obsolete and more than $1 per picture?

Near the top, the fountain was flooding all over what was supposed to be a nice place to stand and look at the tower I suppose, but it quickly became mine and Eia's personal wave pool as we kicked off our shoes and ran around in the water. Eventually loads of other people seemed to think we had the right idea, and tons of barefoot tourists were playing in the flooded faux-pond. It was fun. :) We never actually made it to the beach in Rome, so this was our substitute.

After this, we let our feet dry in the sun and headed over to the Arc de Triomphe, where within seconds, two guys fro Israel tried to get us to spend the day with them. Cute or not, we declined, and rushed off in the direction of the Champs Elysées without even bothering how to figure out how to actually get TO the Arch without playing an extreme game of Frogger in the giant roundabout. But not before the guys had us take pictures with them. They're probably going to go back home and tell all their friends and family about all the wild and crazy fun they had with these two American girls, which is a laugh, because we literally talked to them for about a grand total of 4 minutes. Or so.

Our stroll down the Champs Elysées was fun; we saw Louis Vuitton and lots of other stores we can't afford to even look at for an extended period of time. We ducked into a bookshop and bought copies of Harry Potter in french (Eia bought me Sorcerer's Stone in Italian a few years ago, so I've decided to compile a collection of the entire set in different languages of places I've been; so I now own the french edition of Chamber of Secrets). The covers are so cute here!
I was looking for other cool covers of well-loved books, but the only ones I recognized were Twilight and Uglies, and both had the standard covers.

I'm having a hard time remembering what we did next, since we crammed so much into today. We were going to go to the Louvre, but we decided to save that until Monday. Right, so we were going to hit the Paris Hard Rock, but had a terrible time getting directions (3 different people told us 3 different Metro stops) and then, much to our dismay, we took the yellow line all the way to transfer at Nation, which was CLOSED, so we wasted about an hour riding a line all the way to the end and all the way back. We finally found the Hard Rock, got to add it to our list, and then walked in circles looking for the big Opera house. I have no idea how it took us so long to find it, but we did, and didn't end up going inside because it cost money and we're nearing the end of a VERY LONG European adventure, so funds are low.

After all of this, we headed back to our hostel, took a bit of a break where Eia napped and I fit in a bit more time reading the Hunger Games (I LOVE IT) and we generally just let our feet and bodies rest after so many days of constantly being on the go.

We had plans to check out the Moulin Rouge and the Eiffel Tower at night, but instead I got a phone call from these two French girls who'd been trying to meet up with me since I got here, and Eia and I decided to go with them out for crepes. We had a lovely time chatting with them about funny language barrier problems and the Internet, and not to mention, it was nice having translators for once and the best part was being able to be sure about what was going to be in my food when I ordered it. They advised us to get this yummy dessert crepe with alcohol in it because they lit it on fire when they brought it to us. That was awesome.
They also gave us these French caramel sweets with jokes on the inside that are known for being terrible (the jokes, not the candy) and we had a bit of fun while they tried to translate the jokes over to us and it just... didn't.. work.

The girl's were lovely and I'm glad we met with them. It was nice to "know someone" in Paris. Haha. They were still complete strangers I suppose, just... complete strangers who happened to know a lot about me. xD

So we decided to pass on any more night activities after getting back around 10:45, because we want to be up BRIGHT AND EARLY tomorrow for Disneyland. Oh god I can't wait. :D

Also, I'm sad because I am the only 5AG who didn't make a video this week. It's been SO LONG since I made a video.. in fact, the last Monday video was made by ALEX and that's not really okay with me. I don't know if I'll have time this week. I miss it. :/


In other news, my best friend from middle school just told me she was singing "Mrs. Nerimon" at her color guard practice the other day, and another girl on the team was like, "Oh, you know about Kristina too?"
Heather said, "You have NO IDEA."

Okay. That's all for today. Goodnight, blog.

Days until I leave: 11