Ketchup

Bonjour Mesdames et Messieurs!

Espérons que ce blog vous permet d'obtenir tous pris avec nos activités. Je l'espère.

(ah hem) Excuse me, I am so used to fluently speaking in french that I forgot to speak in English. (And when he says fluently speaking, he means saying "je voudrais" which means " I want" and then pointing at something). Anyway, I was saying that I hope this blog gets everyone caught up to where we are today. Let's see, we last left off when we arrived in Paris...

When we first got off the train we experienced a bit of a culture shock, especially Lauren. We went into the main station and tried to figure out how to get to our hostel. We should have never pulled out that map in public (an obvious sign of a tourist). The second we did, we had Middle Eastern looking people approach us and ask for money for their sick sister, or cousin, or dog. They would approach us and ask us if we spoke English (merely confirming we were tourists) and then they would go into a story. So after a few of these visits we just started saying that we didn't speak English even though it was obvious we did. We have two sayings that we use now. We either say, " Allez Vous-en!" which means " Go Away", or we just say "No". Either way they get the picture.

So after a while of not being able to get anyone in the ticket window to speak to us in English, I loosened up the old french vocal chords and go to work. We finally got our tickets and got to the hostel.

I am quite surprised at how unhelpful everyone is here. I am convinced some people know English here and are refusing to speak to us. After a while of staring at one another, they eventually begin to speak perfect English. For the most part we haven't needed them to speak English. I would like to point out that I have done a superb job of navigating in french. I think my skills have been undervalued during our trip by my counterpart. ***Sigh***

We got settled in and then began to scavenge for food and the internet. We were unable to find the later, but Lauren did find a great bowl of noodles for dinner. Members of my family can testify that I am somewhat of a picky eater (I don't like seafood and some types of meat). My rule of thumb while traveling is to pick the safest item on the menu. I have learned this from my first few not-so-delicious meals in Europe. Anyways, I got a container of pasta salad from the grocery store to be safe. I opened it up and found chunky meat in my pasta salad. We were starving so I just looked the other way and took a few bites. After a while I couldn't take it any more and had to find out what the meat was in my pasta. I grabbed the French dictionary and the label to my pasta salad. Tuna.... in my pasta salad. So I ate the rest.

I, on the other hand, don't mind the food. For example, a regular club sandwich in France consists of the ham, bacon, lettuce, tomato and a handful of eggs. I thought, "what a great idea!"

We are still getting used to the Metro system here. The map of the Tube, in London, was well organized and made since. This map looks like one of those modern art paintings we saw at the Tate Museum.

After dinner we walked to the Cathedral Notre Dame de Paris. It was an impressive building. The detail of every piece of stone was incredible, and the Gargoyles were really cool too.

The next day, we woke up and looked over our Euro-passes to make sure we could get on all of our trains. We read the incredible small print on our passes and found out that we were supposed to "reserve" a spot on each train before we left for Europe. Great. So we went back to the station and asked where we make the reservations. Obviously everyone looked at me like I was crazy. They said they had never even heard of the Eurail. Finally, I found the tourist station and he pointed me in the right direction. Then I went to the Eurail booth (in the same station that everyone said they hadn't heard of it) and I had to talk to a lady in french for an hour and a half trying to explain what happened. Luckily we were able to get all the trains we originally wanted except for one (the next one). So basically we have to take the night train tomorrow and head straight for Venice. She said there was no way we could get to Nice in time for our reservations. So I guess that's not too bad. We still get to go everywhere else on time, but we will have one long travel day/night getting to Venice.

After that, we went to the Louvre. I was amazed at how lax the security is there. There were signs that said, "No Camera's" (in french) and every single person was walking around the museum taking pictures. Nobody cared. On that same note, we did run across a guard who was asleep in his chair. It was a great experience to see the Louvre, both inside and out. On the outside, we got plenty of pictures of the glass pyramid and enormous building with the gardens all around it. On the inside we were able to see the Mona Lisa (wow), Venus de Milo, Winged Victory, Hammurabi's code, and tons of other stuff that were amazing.

After the Louvre, we walked through the gardens toward the Champs d'Elysees and ate lunch (another event). Once again, I tried to get the safest thing on the menu, a hot dog. When I got it, it was covered in white cheese, but I saw something glowing underneath. After cutting through, I realized that I had a bright neon orange hot dog. After noticing that I only ate the dry bread around the hot dog, Harrison looked over at my plate and said, "are you going to eat that?" Delicious. My rule of thumb has failed in Paris. Better stick to the baguette. Also, I want to add that I like the Panera baguettes better than French baguettes. Over here I feel like I am eating a baseball bat.

Our time is running out again. I will continue tomorrow. It should go quicker now that we are getting more comfortable with the city and our movements are less hectic.

Lauren & Harrison