Sunday June 12

Sunday morning we left our apartment in Belgium and walked to Central station to meet up with everyone at 9:00am. We found a quick breakfast at a small shop in the station before boarding our train to Paris. We took a jet train to Paris which was sweet because we got there in two hours time because it went 180mph the whole way and only made on stop in Brussels. When we arrived at the Paris Nord Station we had to transfer on another train to the Metro. We used the metro to get absolutely everywhere while we were in Paris, I think I used it even more than when I am in New York traveling. After we transferred to the first metro, we did not all make it on at once but w few of us kinda got body slammed into a train and we were crammed in very uncomfortably tight, I took out two kids with my bag (I felt really bad and the mom was less than pleased with me). Needless to say I got my very first "Welcome to France you stupid American" conversation/look.

We arrived at our hotel which took us forever to get to and about four train and metro transfers. When we got their it was around 1:00 and our rooms were not ready so we piled our stuff into Zach and Nylands room until we returned later that night. We left the hotel to get back on the Metro and spent the afternoon walking around Paris and stopping at several of the popular historical places. We visited The Sacre Coeur Cathedral, Trocadero Place, Eiffel Tower, Tuilleries Gardens, Place de la Concorde, Arc de Triomphe, and Hotel de Ville. The weather was pretty good, it sprinkled on and off but it stayed cool which made it really nice for walking around. When we stopped at Notre Dam, Kailee and I split up from everyone and went into a few souvenir shops to find a shot glass and see what else was around.

Around five we arrived at Avenue des Champs Elysées, which is the most expensive shopping street in Europe. We did not do much shopping due to us all bring broke college students and because the cheapest thing I think I saw was 200 Euros. Ridge, Devon, and Michelle decided we would opt out of shopping around and instead go find a Bistro and sit outside and enjoy our first taste of French wine. Ridge and I split a bottle of white wine that was pretty good. Michelle split a small bottle of the same kind of wine with Devon. After we had wine we went to meet up with every to walk to dinner which was just off Avenue des Champs Elysées.

We walked a few blocks and turned onto a back alley. As we were walking around the alley the craziest thing happened, Michelle all of the sudden was like "Amanda"? I turned around to find Amanda Parsons standing on the other side of this alley coming out of the restaurant I was going into. Amanda is one of my good friends from NDSU visiting Europe for ten days. I of course screamed really loud and a lot of people stared. We were going to try to meet up but she was without a cellphone and I did not get her Facebook message on time before I left Belgium and did not have my computer with me in Paris so I was bummed we would not get to see each other so I was shocked that in a city that size, what are the chances of running into each other in a small alleyway.

After that all happened we arrived at Flam's restaurant which was an all you can eat flat bread and salad place. We found some good Riesling and Michelle and I spligt a bottle. Dinner was pretty good, I did not get to eaat much but salad and wine but it was still a cool place to eat. Michelle said the flat breads were all really good, especially the dessert ones.

After dinner, it had really started raining as we were walking over to Bateaux Mouches pier. We got on a boat at the Pier and had a boat ride down the river where we saw the Effiel Tower lit up and a lot of neat buildings. It was freezing so most of the girls gave the guys our umbrellas so they could go to the top of the boat and we stayed below to hang out in the dry and warm place on the boat. The weather really sucked and made it hard to get pictured but we made up for it the rest of the trip.

By 11:30, the miles of walking, wine and rain had made most of us exhausted. We had two Metro transfers and a few walks back to our hotel and then we were able to check into our rooms. Michelle and I finally got in our room and I pretty much passed out I was so tired. Our hotel room had bunk beds and we probably would have been more comfortable sleeping on the wood floors but for as tired as we were it worked out just fine. It was a long day and we managed to fit a lot in!