Monday, June 13: After a horrible nights sleep on rock hard beds we woke up and went down for breakfast at the hotel. After I ate breakfast and Melanie came down to get some coffee. We met with everyone else to get our stipends and money for the museum. And then headed to the Metro.

We started our day at the St. Michele fountain. We met our tour guide named David. He reminded me very much of a typical Paris guy. We started our two-hour walking historical tour. We went to a lot of the same places we did yesterday to learn about the history of all of the places. We walked over the bridge with all the locks on it. It was the same bridge the last episode of Sex In The City was filmed where Carrie and Big finally got together. We walked along the river and saw a lot of PDA. Paris is apparently the place to be making out wherever you go. Lindsey and Kailee were trying to keep a count of home many couples they saw making out and I think they lost count. The walking tour was the best tour we have had so far. Even Melanie said it was not bad. Our tour ended at the outskirts of the Louvre where we stopped at a Starbucks and then headed back to the Metro to go find lunch near the St. Michele fountain. A few of us stopped to get lunch at a Kebab shop. They were the best Kebabs we have had in Europe yet! We took a while at lunch and then Me, Melanie, Kailee, Baylee, Lindsey, Jordan, Adam, Casey, Kyle, Scott, Nick, and Reneta all decided to go to the Louvre.

We got our tickets and because it was so crowded we all split up. The Louvre is huge and it takes about 2 months to get through all the galleries if you want to stop and see everything (this is according to our guide). Melanie and I split from the group right after we saw the Mona Lisa. The museum had a million people in it and was 100 hundred degrees. I had to get out of there so Melanie pretty much dodged the crowds and ended up in some ancient Italian exhibit. We searched to find a bathroom and a bench so we would not pass out. After standing in a huge line we got into the bathroom and then headed through the museum a little bit more and out the other side to sit in a Starbucks and cool off until we all met up at the inverted Pyramid which is in the center of the museum. A guard yelled at Melanie and I because we were sitting on the cement floor against the wall to cool down and apparently that is not allowed.

Eventually we all somehow found each other and decided to conquer shopping in Paris. Kailee and Melanie decided to take the map and go ask some guards where the best shopping was. After sorting through some language barriers we headed to Metro seven to find the Galleries on Lafyette. They had 6 galleries of malls in a row, each at least six floors. They had a floor just for shoes! I was in heaven…..except I couldn't buy any. L Every designer brand you can imagine lined the galleries. Melanie and I looked around for a while and went to try and find some cheaper stuff before finding Zach and Baylee and deiciding to call shopping quits early and just find a Bistro and have wine until everyone else was done. Us four split two bottles while we waited.

When we finally found everyone we realized the guys had all gone to buy wine and cheese and bread. They decided that would be their dinner and we were all going to have a picnic under the Eiffel Tower. So we gathered everyone else up and bought more cheese, wine and bread to bring over to the Eiffel tower. Now that is was about 7:00 we were finally on our way to the Metro. We were all starving and just wanted to sit down. Just before we got to the Metro, Sarah called us and told us that they were trying to get on the Metro too and because of a bomb threat they had closed all the Metros down. We were 2.5 miles away from the Eiffel tower and it started raining. The Metro was not supposed to open for at least two hours so Nick, Kailee, Michelle and I jumped in a cab and headed to the Eiffel Tower. The rest of the group was trying to find a bus to meet us there. When we picked a spot under the Eiffel Tower we realized that the guys had our wine bottle openers. Not wanting to wait, Melanie decided to take our bottle of wine to the ice cream truck stand and ask them to open it which to our surprise they did! About an hour later the Metro finally reopened and the rest of the group joined us. We hung out and ate and drank until the sunset. We then got in line to take the elevator to the top so we could see Paris at night. Melanie was a little uneasy about the elevator ride to the top because of how much she loves elevators ;) Good thing she had had plenty of wine for dinner :) We made it to the halfway mark on the tower and everyone got out to walk around. Ridge, a guy in our group was taking pictures and dropped his camera off the Eiffel Tower. It was pretty funny, even though he does not think so due to the fact that his camera is destroyed. We got in the elevators once again to go all the way to the top. We spent some time up there and then everyone split up. I ended up coming down with Ridge in the Elevator. We met some girls from Wisconsin on the way down who were talking about how there was nothing in North Dakota. They felt pretty embarrassed after Ridge told them that we were from North Dakota. Haha!

When we got to the bottom we found Melanie, Kailee, Lindsey, Scott, Nyland and Nick on the front lawn watching the Eiffel towel light show. We sat around for a bit and watched the light show. Ridge bought roses for Melanie and Lindsey. Lindsey and Kailee really wanted to go on the carrousel so those two, Melanie, Jordan, Zach, Bailey, Andrew and Casey all went to the carousel to ride. We realized that we needed to catch the last Metro to our hotel and we still had two transfers so we walked very fast and made both of our trains thankfully. We got back to the hotel around 1 A.M. and headed to a grocery store so some people could get food and more drinks. Most of us were all so tired that we did not make it up past 1:30. It was another eventful day!