Lovin' Those Arches

Hey everyone! I'm in Paris! It's the weirdest thing. All day I walk around and I'm constantly inner-blogging, then I sit down to write and. . . nothing.

So I guess I'll go chronologically 'till I go tangential.

Yesterday was lovely. I hiked up to Saint Something's from my hostel and got a panoramic view of Paris. Walked around. Watched artists do their thing. Quite fun. There was one artist that I was especially impressed with! He would cut out pictures of people. That sounds really easy when I write it, and I don't know how to describe it better. I'll try: he would cut out the silhouettes (is that a french word) of people, but then also with details like jewelry or hair or chins or whatever. It was AMAZING. And he was SO FAST. I've never seen anything like it before. But that's not the reason why I was super impressed with him. I mean, it's part of it, but not the whole reason. He was also super kind and generous. There was one little girl who was watching for a really long time, and when he finished with one he gestured for her to take the seat. She was about to, but then her mom pulled her back, saying they couldn't pay. He said, "no, free. Free." The little girl took the seat and he cut out her picture in about 2 minutes, meanwhile the mom was trying to scrounge up money to pay him. When he finished, she tried to hand him what she had found (about 7 euros when it usually costs 10), and he refused it. He kept saying, "No, free. Free." It was. . . really impressive. I actually hiked all the way down the huge hill, went to the ATM, then hiked back up to get mine done. Not only is he a great artist, but he's the kind of person I want to support. I heard someone behind me say, "He's skilled and nice? This guy should get a medal." I completely agree. He was awesome.

Side note, when I was hiking back up, I came across a capoeira thing that I stopped and watched for awhile. That was fun.

Ya, wandered, went back to my awesome hostel, showered, wrote lots of emails, and slept with the intentions of starting my day bright and early the next day.

BUT the next day (today) didn't go quite as I planned. First, I woke up to find that my credit card had been blocked, so that's always fun. I spent the next hour or so running back and forth across the street between my computer in my hostel and the phone place across the street. I think the guy that ran the phone place was really confused. I kept needing one more piece of information, so I'd say, "okay, bye," hang up, run across the street, look it up, run back, call back with my new information, talk to a NEW person, get told I need different information, etc. etc. It was a bit of fiasco. But it all worked out! And guess what! I have big news!

Ready...????

Here it is: I AM eventually coming home!

Bought my plane ticket.

There was a really good deal, and it would have been really, really dumb of me to pass it up. So I bought it!

I will be arriving home on AUGUST 16th at 21:42 (9:42pm). To San Jose. Can someone (family and/or Stuart) come pick me up?

So after that was all settled - oh, I forgot to mention that while that was all happening, I almost burnt the hostel down with the microwave, woops - I packed up to move to my NEXT hostel. All the hostels in Paris were completely booked, so I had to change. None could keep me for the whole time. I'm really lucky that I even GOT one.

So I packed up, went to my new hostel, dropped all my crap up, and then went out into Paris! First stop: Louve. First mistake: going to the Louve on "museums are free day" i.e. first sunday of the month. Whatever. Live and learn. It was really cool. Museums are getting increasingly easier now that I know what I like and what bores me. Is it bad that some stuff in the Louve bores me? Probably. I'm not very cultured. Woops. Is it bad that I spelled it "Louve" three times when it's "Louvre"? Like I said, not cultured.


Anyways, I found some parts of it absolutely fantastic. How could you not? I'm going to post some of my favorite pictures. They're not pictures of the art, because you can google much better pictures than I got, but they're some of my fav pics from the visit.

(ummm, turns out that uploading pics is REALLY slow. Maybe I'll come back to this...)


(this is me coming back! here are funny pics for you!)

Whoever can tell me why this statue reminds me of the move The Wedding Planner wins!

I just imagine him going, "Mom! Can I wear the hat? Mom! Mom! Let me wear the hat, Mom! Mom!"

Everyone taking pictures.

Someone taking a picture with the sign POINTING TO the Mona Lisa. . . He could just go down the hall and take a picture with the real thing. 

Can you find the Mona Lisa?

Whatever, this is just one of the best museums in the world. I'm sure the stuff here isn't really important. Let me just throw my crap on this ancient statue. Nbd.

So...from there I got on a hop-on-hop-off bus. It was a very touristy day. And I rode it around and I saw lots of stuff.

At one point I got off to try and find myself a new purse (remember, my other one got stolen?). So I was walking around and decided I was hungry. Got a really, really yummy crepe with ham and cheese and egg. Twenty minutes later, I noticed I had dripped all over the top of my pretty blue dress! Shoot! But I was very calm. I was like, "It's okay. I know you really like this dress, and that you got it in Barcelona, and that it matches your eyes, but it's okay. You can just turn it into a skirt." Then I noticed that I had dripped all over the bottom of it too and I was like:

(Sorry, I know that reference doesn't make a lot of sense to people not in internet-youth-world, but I was bummed). 

(I just realized that I can re-size images quite easily, which makes the uploading process a lot easier. So I'm going to start making them all small, so they upload easily. I hope that doesn't bother you.) 

So I kept walking around, feeling dumb in my pretty stained dress. I got back on the bus and rode around some more until the little speaker in my ear said, "You can get off here to do shopping." And I was like, "Shopping!" So I got off and wandered around. But everything was really expensive. And EVERYTHING was on sale. I don't know what's going on. . . probably pre-fourth-of-july or something (kidding). So everything was crazy and expensive, because 50% off of a LOT of money is still quite of bit of money. But I DID find face wash! So that made me quite excited. Because it was a brand I recognized! So I didn't even need to figure out what was for what. The last time I tried to do that, I bought what I thought to be lotion, but it turned out to be naire-ish skin poison that kills your hair. Only discovered that AFTER I rubbed it all over my sunburn. Did I tell you about that one? So, facewash was a success. But they didn't give me a bag. And my purse is packed with like four different maps (Louvre, metro, city, hop-on-hop-off) and it's a super small purse. So I'm walking around on fancy-pants street in my stained dress carrying my facewash without a bag. I know, I'm all class. 

Kept walking. And eventually found. . .

H&M! Which, I recently learned, isn't American! They're European! So I don't need to feel lame about buying their stuff while I'm abroad. So I went and got myself a cute (cheap!!!) new dress. But now that I had my new dress, I didn't want to wear it for only a half day, so I decided to save it for tomorrow and just kept wearing my stained formerly pretty blue dress. I know, I'm such a girl. 

Then I went triumphantly to the Triumphal Arch with my new dress and facewash.

Then I got on the bus. 

Riding around on the bus is fun. It gives me a good feel for the city and I like being able to hop on and hop off whenever I want. Freedom! I'm going to do it again tomorrow, and then metro the rest because I'll know what I want to see and what I don't. 

Oh! Saw this! Nbd. 

Then eventually the bus stopped, and I caught the metro home.

To the crappiest hostel I've ever, ever stayed in. It doesn't even have outlets. Yep. Not kidding. But whatever. I should be thankful to have it. I AM thankful to have it. 

Another one of the amenities that it's missing it wi-fi. So I packed up and left. I don't mean everything, I mean my little bag with my computer in it, so I could come here and talk to y'all! Otherwise, my head gets clouded. And I miss you. But guess where I am. I'll give you a clue.

It's McDonald's! Okay, that wasn't a clue. It was the answer.

The area that I'm in is kinda sketchy. It actually does feel like Oakland. (East Bay!!). So walking around, I was SO THANKFUL when I finally saw those lovely golden arches in the distance. So I came and got dinner (gross, but somehow good) and have been on the internet ever since. I was hoping to avoid Micky D's, but whatever. It's full of French people, so I'll write it off as part of the experience. And it's playing American music, which I didn't realize I actually missed. So that's fun. 

All together, Paris is lovely. In the wise and accurate words of one Jazmin Aguilera, "everything look[s] like a postcard." I find myself continually going, "wow! it really looks like that!" I can't wait to see more tomorrow.

Love you all!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, ya. . . that's me. Going to go back and add pics for you.