Paris

I just realized that I had a few posts lurking around in the draft section, so I'll be posting them all soon. I guess I wish I updated more while I was there, but when you have so much fun living every day life-- anything tech/communication related becomes so secondary.


On Our Way to France

To be honest, at first I was worried that my trip to Paris would be some amalgamation of overrated sites, high amounts of tourism, and snobby and unhelpful French people, but I was so, so wrong. Paris has been one of the best experiences of my life.

Let's start at the beginning. Ryanair is literally one of the most efficient airlines in Europe and the US. In return for the dirt cheap tickets, you have to pay for any carry on luggage and you can only bring one bag on, which includes any purse or camera bag you may have on you. Generally, this results in hiding your extra bag in very creative ways:

Purse... or big butt? (As shown by Paula)

Hostel Living

We decided to stay at the Plug-In hostel, and while they're under construction, it's still very chic. But the best part of it all was that we were staying in the Montartre area. If you EVER go to Paris- stay in that area. Not only is it near the Moulin Rouge, a few main metro hubs, and what seems to be the entire Amelie movie setting, but it has a delicious bakery right down the street, which I unfortunately forgot to take pictures of, but here's the hostel sign:  

Landmarks

It's crazy how many landmarks there are in Paris, and each one is more amazing than the next. Yes, the Eiffel Tower is a phallic symbol- but seriously who cares? It was originally built for the World Fair, but it was stable enough to last for over a century:

Details from the inside

Also, you can't forget about Napoleon's Arc de Triomphe:

Or Notre Dame, which has some of the most beautiful stained glassed windows- and I also thought of Quasimodo

Prayer Candles

Or Moulin Rouge

Or Basilique du Sacré-Cœur

Or the Louvre

So this isn't really a landmark as much as a memorial- and it was so powerful it made me tear-up. It was created to recognize the 200,000 people deported from France to the Nazi concentration camps during WWII. On one of the walls was the poem, "The Heart that Hated War":

I have dreamt so very much of you,
I have walked so much,
Loved your shadow so much,
That nothing more is left to me of you.
All that remains to me is to be the shadow among shadows
To be a hundred times more of a shadow than the shadow
To be the shadow that will come and come again into your sunny life.

After the sobering visit, we ended up going to Versailles, which is also quite sobering during any time that isn't the spring

But on a lighter note- a few fun facts about the Paris visit:

1. The weather likes to play tricks on us. Every time we walked into the subway and then walked out, the weather would be different:

1. If you would like to read French- they key is to drop-off any letters behind the first syllable- for example: Barbes Rochechouart ends up sounding something like this- Bar Rouche. While I'm kind of kidding, I'm kind of serious, lol.
2. I had my first Couch Surfing experience- do it when possible! It's so awesome to meet the locals.