11, 12 & 13: PARIS

So ill let you know before hand, when we got ready to go to paris, we all got in the car and i tell hunter to get the camera and the charger and of course he comes back with the camera at its last limb battery-wise and no charger, we are all like crap, i guess we're gonna get like nine pictures of paris... these are them.

although we did do much more than these pictures show, and below is our exciting and wonderous account: so we drove to the airport friday morning and met with our friend eric and his daughter melanie, we drove into paris easily and went to eric's apartment which is located near the Chateu Vincennes and hung out for a little deciding which amazing site we would then view. We chose the eiffel tower. so we hit up the metro station about a kilometre from his appartment and wham bam boogie we were there, the pillar of iron shooting out from behind the skyline. So, being friday there were alot of people, and after waiting for like an hour at the southeast leg we bought tickets and rode up on the yellow rhombus-shaped elavator to the second level. Dang. That was a killer view. In no stretch of the truth, even at the second level, one may say they can gaze upon every rooftop in paris. After a while of awe inspiring view, we bought a few souveniers, a ham sandwich and some coke, and headed back towards the ground to meet angelina and Genevieve (sorry if spelled wrong), watch some music at the paris music festival going on on every other street corner and cobbled square, but most of all to party it up. After we met up with those guys we took the metro to the latin quarterand decided to go eat. What did we eat you ask? Two words: Fondue, baby. So basically we ordered a really hot stone with various herbs and spices on it, a pot of boiling oil and two plates of superbly fresh meat, and just went at it. Ten pounds and two bottles later we decided to get up and start listening to some music. So we went down to the nearest band playing, who was finishing up their song in that set, so angelina asked if hunter and tommy could rock out on their drum and bass, in fron of the small crowd gathered in the shady square. So they played a few songs, got a bunch of people dancing and tappping their feet it was pretty awesome im not gonna lie. It turned out that the drummer was a music teacher at a local music school, and he admired their skills. We kept walking around until angelina suggested we go to a little ice cream place behind Notre Dame, supposedly the best ice cream in paris. Ive only had ice cream a couple of other times in paris and i would have to agree, between the presentation and the taste, it was absolutely divine.

We were there for a little more than an hour, and after, we went out into the darkening city to music and shouts of mild drunkeness Tommy, Eric, Hunter, and I split from the other two when we realized it was very late and took the extremely crowded metro back to his apartment to go to sleep.

The next day we decided we wanted to go to the Louvre, so after a while of getting groceries eating breakfast and hanging around for a bit we took the metro to just one of the stops at the Museum. Walking up through one of the garnd entryways in the building was a sight in itself, with mosaics and exquisite stonework, its really more than anyone can process in just a few moments. We then went into a giant crowded courtyard where many people were just sitting by the fountains as well as going into the giant glass pyrimid that is the entrance of the Louvre after we went through, and then down two escalators into the main enrty hall, we decided we would see the museum's extensive collection of Egyptian artifacts.

We went into the Sully Part of the museum where alot of the very old artifacts from egyptians persians and other area of northern africa and the middle east. Unfortunately, because it was sunday, by the time we got to the end of the egyptian section the museum was closing and people were hurried out so that the exibits could be cleaned and maintained. After we came back up, eric told us about a greek resturaunt we could eat at just a couple blocks away from the Louvre called Chez Alexandre. A very quick and filling meal was a good change of pace from our upwards of 3 hour marathon dinners in the nights previous. We went around that part of town (in between the louvre and notre Dame) looking for souvniers to buy, we found many, but only seriously considered a few. By that time, being tired of walking around nearly all day, we went home and went to bed.

The next day, Hunter Tommy and I would be alone, eating breakfast at the apartment, and then walking to the metro stop to go to a large mall in the Defense district of the city and then back to another mall Near the Hotel de Ville that we skimmed past the previous day. The stores in the Defense mall were mostly closed becase we got there at about 9:30 in the morning (most stores opened at 10:00). We first stopped down at the Virgin Megastore at the very bottom level at got a few things that caught our eye. We worked our way up to the top level next to Toys R Us to get Zack a toy (he wanted a Transformer and we oculdn't let him down because he doesn't have enough of those already... anyway) and then to a perfume shop because Dylan wanted some cologne (this is Hunter writing now) but he couldn't really find any he was particularly fond of. We then headed to the nearest metro stop and caught a train to get to the "underground" mall. We had a little trouble finding it at first but all was well as we recognized our surroundings so when we found the mall, we just browsed and got lost and didn't really find anything cool. We did however find a Waflle Factory and we got hot waffles with Nutella which is about the yummiest thing I've eaten in about the few weeks I've been here. We waaaaalked out of the mall with basically nothing and Dylan wanted to go to those green boxes they have buy the river-side that sell a bunch of random souveniers. I was pretty surprised at how much stuff we got and how cheap it all was. We got some posters and poscards and all kindsa stuff for our freinds back home. If you are still reading this, dang, you really have a big attention span... So summed up, we came back to Eric's apartment and then on a rain to a car where we went back home and ate dinner. Then we crashed and sleeped in waiting for the next day to go to park Asterix. bye bye now!!!