Bon jour!

I do stuff like … venture down to Paris for a few days.

So there is no way I could ever justly explain Paris to you through words on a computer screen, therefore I will just go over a few of the highlights and chronological events of the few days I was in France.

The traveling of course took up the most time; to begin our departure we walked to the central bus station downtown and took a double decker bus from Kristiansand to Oslo. I think the bus ride was about three and a half, maybe four hours. The bus dropped us off at the Oslo Torp airport, which was very convenient, and we went inside and waited, five hours later we went through security and waited another two hours before our two-hour flight left from Oslo to Beauvaisis. Once we arrived in France we took a taxi to our hotel for the night. The next morning we awoke quite early, had a quick breakfast and headed out to find the bus to take us back to the airport where we waited for 45 minutes to take an hour and a half bus ride to Paris! Once in Paris we took the metro to our hostel, which we kind of had a hard time finding but after some prayer and venturing we discovered its location.

A few exciting events, first of all, our hostel (St. Christophers Hostel) was much more pleasant than the St. Christophers we stayed at in London. Since we had already stayed at one though we got a 10% discount on our beds, lovely. Our first order of business when we arrived (after the girls getting their French haircuts at a local salon) was to find the grocery store. This didn’t take very long, however inside the tiny French grocery store took awhile. When we walked in we got quite a few stares, which we have come accustomed to. After a few moments of walking through the store I noticed a man that was mysteriously at the end of every aisle that we walked down. I kept an eye on him and after a few more minutes I realized that I was not just being paranoid he was most definitely following us and intently watching us. I looked at him a few times and he saw me, but instead of nonchalantly looking away he continued to stare. Finally we gathered our last few items and waited in the excruciatingly lengthy line where an elderly man was whistling and speaking to us in French. I glanced around and noticed that the creeper was gone, taking a big sigh of relief I relaxed a little; until I got up to the counter and saw him walk back into the store. At this point the girls and I were a little shaky and concerned about the weird man who was not trying to make it a secret that he was watching us. We stayed calm however and bought our groceries; as we walked past him to leave the store he said something to Rachel in French (which we obviously don’t understand) so we just keep walking quite briskly until we make it back to the safety of our hostel room. Just a little scare to keep us more aware.

A great thing about our hostel is that they have a free walking tour everyday that starts at ten in the morning. So we went on the walking tour and took the metro in order to see a ton of Paris. The sights were incredible and like most amazing historical places I just stood there thinking about what it must have been like during the war when all of the fighting must have taken place. We also saw a building where part of the “Bourne Identity” was filmed, which I thought Darrin would think is pretty cool so I took a picture of it. Our tour guide pointed to the Eiffel Tower from the Cathedral and we could just see the top of it. So of course when the tour concluded we tipped and thanked our guide as we made our way over the tower. It was so unbelievable to be standing next to and under the actual Eiffel Tower (which is the second most recognized structure in the world). We took some pictures and just sat and stared at it for a while. During this whole time by the tower there was dozens of men following us around trying to sell us things that we obviously did not want, that is what NO means. At 19:00 the tower lights up for the evening, we were just sitting on a bench having our French granola fruit bars (not my favorite) when we suddenly noticed people sprinting, not just running, full on sprinting. We looked closer and saw that the men who were trying to sell us stuff were all bookin’ it in different directions and behind each of them was a French police officer. I was kind of scared but at the same time it was kind of funny, I didn’t really know what to do so I just sat back and watched. One of the men sprinted straight out into the busy street to lose the police officer, and another one hurdled some bushes and ran the other direction. I didn’t see any of them get caught but it was an intense free show we got to witness. Later at the hostel we asked a French guy that we had met, Alex, what was going on, he told us that the police always show up at seven because those people don’t have the right to be there selling things. Oh hmm, then why don’t they just leave before the police show up? Silly Frenchman.

That night we just hung out, played a few rounds of UNO with our new friend and packed up to prepare for our six AM departure the next morning. Overall Paris was amazing.