Bonjour! We are currently in Paris, sitting in the lounge of the hostel, drinking wine, and journaling. This trip has been quite the adventure. Our flight out of Detroit was delayed two hours, but that wasn't a big deal to us, until it meant us almost missing our plan from New York to London. We were sprinting through JFK for our flight, listening to them say "this is the final boarding call for flight 6 to London." We made it just in time, but our bags did not. Mine was shipped over on the next plane, and arrived about an hour after us, but Kyle's never left JFK. It took a full day for them to get it on a plane, which meant that we got the bag a day and a half later. It was terrible. Kyle had no changes of clothes and all of our toiletries were in his bag as well. Because of this and our desire to be spontaneous (that backfired when we found out the whole city was booked for hostels, due to a rugby tournament, of all things), we ended up checking in to an expensive hotel in London for the night. It was beautiful and it was right on the river. We could see the Tower Bridge from the hotel. But, you get what you pay for, and we blew our day's budget. Virgin Atlantic claims that they will reimburse us for some of it, but I'm sure it will be a huge hassle for not much of a reimbursement. At least we were able to get online and book a hostel for the following night, so that we could get back on budget. We walked around London for a little bit, before going to bed, after an exhausting day. (Krista)

Our second day in London was so much better! We left our ritzy and expensive hotel early for our first hostel on the south side of London called the Hootananny. It was a safe hostel in a fairly nice area but the hostel was what we are describing as a greasy spoon of hostels. We met some really nice people from England and Australia there too. So anyways, after we checked, in we waited most of the afternoon for my backpack. Like Kirsta said, it literally took a day and a half to get my backpack back. Once my backpack arrived we took off for the Tate Modern. Modern art is cool but we only stayed for an hour or two, it was all we could take. We finally made it back to the Hootananny late at night where we stayed up even later talking with those people from England and Ausrtralia. The next morning one of the girls in our room was just getting back from partying at eight in the morning. Her getting back woke Krista and I up, which then made us realize that we were waking up an hour later than what we intended. We wanted to wake up early because we had to catch a train from London to Paris at nine twenty in the morning. I reacted to the situation with mild surprise and a casual "aw s***." We packed up everything and took off for the subway without a shower or breakfast. So once again Krista and I found ourselves sprinting for a departure. As we arrived at the Eurostar we were certain we missed our train. For once a delay worked in our favor. There was a fire alarm incident in the tunnel and all of the trains were delayed because of it. After an almost four hour delay we finally left London. Just before our train made it to the tunnel, the train manager announced that the traffic in the tunnel was backed up because another train was stuck on one of the two tracks. So almost five hour late Krista and I arrived in Paris. We're finally getting to backpack through Europe the way we wanted to.... (Kyle)

We immediately took off for our hotel as soon as we got off the train. We had said we would check in around one, thinking that an hour and a half spare time was plenty. We didn't want to put it too late and end up not being allowed to put our bags in the room, which would make for a very unenjoyable day. We got to the hotel around 6, and they had no record of our reservation. Because we made it online through hostelworld.com and didn't have a printer, our only confirmation was a scribbled down number that meant nothing to them. Luckily, my French is still good enough to get by, and one of the workers spoke some English. We figured it out, and they had a room open and asked if we paid in advance. We were honest and told them the actual amount the website said we owed, which thankfully we had written down. We were on the sixth floor of this tiny hotel, which meant we had to get off at floor 5 1/2 of the elevator. The elevator, by the way, was about 5 feet by 3 feet, and when we walked in with our backpacks on, we couldn't turn around and therefore had to walk backwards out of the elevator onto a ridiculously dark hallway that was part of the spiral stairwell. I'm amazed we didn't tumble down the steps. The hotel was so tiny, but it was nice and clean. Good enough for me! We set our stuff down, and took off. We ate at a little cafe right outside the hotel with internet so we could make reservations for the next few nights. We're trying to plan a little further ahead, to avoid paying so much last minute. The price of spontaneity... We walked around Paris, and made it to the Ile de la Cite and went in Notre Dame and walked by Le Centre Pompidou. We went through the Place de la Bastille and just walked around throughout the city. We bought a bottle of wine and, when we were all done exploring for the night, we headed back to the hotel to drink wine and write in our journals. (Krista)

So for our fifth day in Europe we don't have any crazy stories of running to catch a departure or scrambling to find a hostel reservation. However, we did have a very enjoyable day. Krista and I walked down to a local bakery, literally just down the block on the corner, and got a pain au chocolat for breakfast. Our next reservation was at a hostel in Northern Paris called St. Christopher's Inn. It's some hip and trendy hostel. It's the nicest hostel we've been in yet and I get the impression that it might end up being one of the nicest we'll see for the rest of the trip. We're trying to book at the other hostels owned by St. Christopher throughout a few other cities in Europe, including the grand opening of their new hostel in Prague. This afternoon Krista and I went to Versailles. I have never seen such an extravagant building in my life. There are some hundreds of rooms all completely devoted to the French Monarchy. Probably all of them are covered in gold and frescos worth more money than I can probably imagine. Upon returning to the hostel tonight we ate a small dinner and now we're sitting in the lounge updating facebook and calling home through skype. It's been quite an adventure so far. We'll update again soon. (Kyle)