It's been an amazing couple of days in Paris. I feel like I've done so much already, but I know that this city is more massive than I can possibly imagine.

Yesterday morning, we left Lincoln for the last time and took a bus to St. Pancras Station in London, where the Eurostar runs. We had to be there about 3 hours early to make sure that we would get on the train because they are still backed up from the fire in the tunnel last week. The waiting area was so full of people that we had to sit in the middle of the floor until it was time to board. Once we departed, the journey to Paris was very smooth. Once we arrived, however, we loaded onto a bus that would take us to our hotel- it was supposed to be a 30 minute drive and ended up taking 2 and half hours because all these roads were blocked off for a concert and traffic was insane. Our tour guide who is traveling with us is this hilarious 70-year old British man named Brian Masters. He got so frustrated en route that he said Paris should have been Dante's 8th circle of Hell. Things got much better once we finally checked into the hotel. We put our bags down and walked to a nearby restaurant for dinner. We had fresh bread and a basket of vegetables on our table when we sat down. At the front of the place, there was a table full of sausages that you could cut for yourself. There were jugs of red wine that we refilled from a barrel all night. For the main course, I had a beef kebab, cooked rare, because in England I kept ordering medium rare like I always do and it would be overcooked. They don't have that problem here in France. I was the only person who ordered it rare, I think, but that was the way everyone's meat came, no matter how they had asked for it. The next course was cheese, and there were about 7 different kinds. They pretty much all tasted the same to me...but it was delicious nonetheless! For pudding, they brought out bowls of ice cream that we could choose from. Excellent meal, to say the least.

Today, we went as a group to Notre Dame first thing in the morning. We talked about the history of Paris and then looked around the outside of the cathedral. When we went in, there was a service going on, but there were tons of visitors who were all just walking around the outer aisle. When we finished there, we split off to do our own thing, for the first of 2 free afternoons we have while we in Paris. I spent the time with Tina, Ali, Haley, Anne, and Max. We got crepes from a street vendor for lunch. Then we took the Metro out to the Champs-Elysees, the wide avenue leading up to the Arc de Triomphe. There are tons of shops along that street, from Lacoste to Cartier to Louis Vuitton. We went in L.V., just to look around, and it was magnificent. 5 stories, I think, but I only went to 3 of them. Being a fan of designer purses, I found one I liked and cautiously lifted it up to look at the price tag......905 euro. Mini heart attack. Put it down, moved to the tiniest wallet I could find.....180 euro. I had to leave then because it was just painful. We walked up to the arch to take pictures. Then we continued on to the Eiffel Tower. We laid down on the grass on the Champ de Mars and listened to our iPods/read as the Tower was looming over us. We then got back on the Metro and went to the Musee d'Orsay, which was converted from a train station into a museum and now holds 5 floors of art. Normally in a gallery, I will walk around, look at the paintings, read the plaque if I like it. This time, I couldn't do that because everything was in French, but I think I saw more as a result. There were rooms full of Monets, Manets, Van Goghs, Renoirs, Cezannes, Degas, and more. I think I like Van Gogh the best of the Impressionists that I've seen so far. All of his work is so interesting. I also thought some of the Neo-Impressionist stuff was cool- basically a lot of colored dots jumbled together. Once we finished there, we were so incredibly exhausted and got on the Metro to go back to the hotel. We stopped to get paninis for dinner and then called it a night. I am getting ready to go to bed because tomorrow we are spending the entire day at the Louvre, which I'm sure will be great but tiring.

Au revoir! (I'm picking up some conversational French, and let me tell you- I am awesome. Je voudrais une Diet Coke s'il vous plait.)