Before I launch into that, however, I'll go back to the beginning!
Sunday: One of the profs at the lycée very generously offered to drive me to Lyon to avoid dealing with the possibility of my Feurs - Lyon (and then from there to Paris, but the regional trains have been the more strike-prone ones) train being canceled the next morning, so I made a hostel reservation in Lyon for Sunday night. However, upon trying to check in to said hostel, I realized I didn't have my passport with me. They were willing to let me check in anyway, but the prospect of a week in Paris without my passport and also without my train discount card that I keep tucked in it did not seem wise, so I left my bag at the train station in Lyon and made the depressing journey back to Feurs. I found the silly passport in my coat pocket, where I'd left it in preparation for my earlier failed journey to Lyon. Not the best start to the trip, but on the bright side, it could only get better from there!
Monday: Thankfully I needn't have worried about getting to Lyon on Sunday, since both my Feurs - Lyon and Lyon - Paris trains were running on schedule Monday morning. I got to Charles de Gaulle airport in plenty of time to meet Brooke and Josh after their overnight flight, and we made our way to check in at our hotel, which turned out to be about two blocks from the Moulin Rouge and thus right in the heart of the red light district. Though that may seem sketchy, it's actually one of the safer areas of Paris to be in, since because of its sordid reputation many policemen patrol there at night.
After dropping off our luggage, we hastily tracked down some lunch from a street vendor and set forth to explore the Montmartre area with no set plan in mind. At the foot of the steps up to Sacré-Coeur, Brooke and Josh got scammed by some guys who grabbed our arms and started weaving thread bracelets on our fingers and then demanded money for them; I was speaking French with the guy who accosted me and accidentally-on-purpose misunderstood him when he asked for 5 euros for something that wasn't worth more than 50 cents, so he made me give it back. While I was trying to get free, though, I didn't realize that Brooke and Josh had not been so lucky (or their bracelet-maker was not so willing to take no for an answer), so that made for a less than auspicious start to their trip. Note for the future: take a nice picture from the bottom of Montmartre, then find a less touristy way to go up.
To avoid dealing with tourist traps on the way back down, we decided to take a more circuitous route back to the hotel before getting cleaned up to meet Caroline for dinner. We followed one of the paths laid out in my Lonely Planet guidebook, which took us past the Lapin Agile. Unfortunately, Schmendiman was nowhere in sight! That tricky bastard.
We met Caroline outside the métro at Odéon, where she was just coming from classes at the Sorbonne. I had wanted to introduce Brooke and Josh to classic French dining, so after wandering around a bit we settled on Le Menhir, a créperie/fondue restaurant near the touristy Blvd Saint-Michel. It was delicious... or at least, Brooke and Josh tell me it was, since I had the onset of a cold and couldn't taste anything :P (On a side note, French cold meds are miraculous, and I thankfully have since regained both senses of smell and taste!).
After dinner we were tempted to go home and crash, but the prospect of seeing the very nearby Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris lit up at night was irresistible, and we strolled over to marvel at its splendor. Even though I've only been in France a month, I feel like I've done a more than healthy share of cathedral/basilica marveling, but Notre-Dame de Paris really is the cream of the crop. Especially at night without all the throngs of tourists, you really can sense its magnificence.
However, being up since 5:00am for me and the overnight flight for Brooke and Josh finally caught up with us, and we crawled home to get some rest, since the train to London was early the next morning.
Tuesday: Bright and early at 7:00 in the morning, I escorted Brooke and Josh to the Gare du Nord (where they make you use three separate metro tickets to get from the metro line to the train station! Yeesh), then crawled back to the hotel for a few more hours of sleep. I should have been a good little tourist and taken advantage of being up before the crowds, but it sure was nice to rest. Good for the cold, too! When I finally got my lazy ass in gear, I dropped off my bag at the hostel before meeting up with Maddie and Nick, a couple fellow assistants in France from UGA, and Rachel, Nick's friend who's an assistant with him in Cherbourg. We headed to the Latin Quarter and found a delicious falafel stand, then walked a good ways over to their hostel to meet up with some more Cherbourg assistants and spent some time chatting in a nearby café. They later headed out to a concert (Suckers and Yeasayer, who apparently I should look up) and I went to Caroline's for dinner (pan-seared fish and pasta, yum).
Wednesday I day-tripped to Rouen, and today I went to several museums (Musée Marmottan-Monet, Musée Nationale du Moyen Age) and spent a good hour or so inside Notre-Dame de Paris, but my paid internet at the hostel is up so I have to stop for the night! Tomorrow morning I go to meet Brooke and Josh at the Gare du Nord, and I'm really looking forward to seeing them and hearing all about London.
me want falafel
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