Salut,
Well.. the French adventure is continuing. Friday night, a group of us went dancing at the club in the Disney Village here in Disneyland Paris. It's really close to our hotel, and it was Salsa night. They played mostly latin music, and I had fun making new friends. Unfortunately, a bunch of the guys I really like finished their courses here in France last week, so the went back to their respective locations already.. sad.
Saturday, we went to Paris. It was quite fun. We (Dilan, Muazz, Lydia, Irshad, Cristian, and I) took the metro to the city and walked everywhere from there. We must have walked miles. We started at the Grande Arche and walked to the Arche de Triomphe and on the Eiffel Tower. Besides being overcast and periodically rainy, it was a lovely day. Some of the highlights include: the giant thumb sculpture, laughing at my friend, Muazz, try to give us directions (at one point he decided the Eiffel Tower was in one direction, when in reality it was 180 degrees the opposite direction... yes somehow we kept letting him lead... go figure), eating ice-cream at the Eiffel Tower, and hanging out with my cool friends. At the Eiffel Tower, there are tons of guys selling assorted Eiffel Tower paraphenalia- keychains, light-up crystal Eiffel Towers, etc. I figured out that they weren't the most legal operation when all the guys started running away when a police woman came through on a bicycle. In their haste to run away, one guy left a crystal Eiffel Tower behind. Dilan picked it up and was trying to sell to us to make a profit. He wasn't successful. Anyway, the sellers will barter with you a little bit, but once you buy stuff from one of them, you get swarmed by the rest. A couple guys bought some key chains for souveniers, and five minutes later, we were surrounded by about six of the salesmen. It was a little overwhelming, but funny. Dilan tried to give them marketing advice- we already bought stuff.. go somewhere else! That was pretty amusing. As far as the rest of the walking around Paris goes, you really should just look at the load of pictures I put up online. It is a beautiful city. Most of them have captions, so you'll understand what's going on.
We stopped by the outside of the Louvre, but it was closed already, so we didn't go inside. It derserves a day of it's own anyway, so I plan on going back. One of the highlights of the day was our dinner. We found a grocery store, bought some wine, picked up some sandwiches and ate picnic style on a bridge near the Louvre. It was a pedestrian bridge, full of young people from all over the world. We were sitting next to a group of guys from Tanzania who were studying in Paris. They were playing guitar, smoking a water pipe (who knows what), and have a fantastic time. It was a really cool experience.
Oh.. 15 minutes after we got off the train in Paris, I saw a Starbucks! I hadn't had a Starbucks latte in 6 months, so I was so excited!!! Unfortunately, it was in the commercial district and was closed! I was so sad. I finally found a Starbucks here in the outlet mall near the hotel on Sunday. I knew it was somewhere around here, but it took a while to get there. I paid four euros for my vanilla latte, but it was wonderful.. a little taste of home. My friends, Lydia and Irshad, thought I was obsessed and ridiculous (maybe they're kinda right), but I was one happy camper afterwards. :-D
My course in full swing. Fourteen people, 8:30am to 5:30pm, one instructor, every day. I'm learning lots, but I can imagine that I will be ready to get out of here by the time eight weeks are up.
I'll be heading to Paris again next weekend when I'm done with classes to meet my college friends, Luis and Jesus Calderon. They're brothers on a Euro adventure. I'm quite excited to hang out with them, and I'm glad our schedules line up. Yay! If anyone else wants to come to Paris in the next eight weeks, I would be happy to hang out with you!
Well.. I have more stuff to share about my daily adventures, but I'll save it for another email, another day, when I don't want to be sleeping :)
Love ya'll,
