Etap Hotel Paris Porte De Pantin

... on the palace and gardens. I notice that there is a rest area here as well and I figure I better stop before I watch the fountains and tour the palace. This line looks shorter but it still take about 25 minutes to get through the line! This is incredible!

I walk back to the gardens and pick a place to sit near the Apollo fountain. This is the one I want to see start up. I sit on the edge of the pool and decide it would be better if I don ...

... I tried to go to bed. Though I still cant get to sleep before midnight, no matter how tired I am. This morning I made sure I utilized the free breakfast that the hostel offers, having 2 bowls of cereal and stealing some baguettes, butter and jam to use for sandwiches later on in the day. Then me and Liz set off for our second day of exploring, with our first stop at the Arc de Triomphe and Place de l'Étoile (or star square, where the famous roundabout circles ...

... within minutes of each other. But one quick call later, we were buzzing off to the supermarket. Our BBQ host has NO FOOD! what? It was 9:50pm, 10 minutes before the store closed. Team Palooza made its way through the aisles grabbing bottles, sausages, meats and goodies. OMG! By 11:30pm we were feasting on some fine barbeque and laughter. By 12:30am the guitars were out and we were making quite a ruckus. By 1:30am, they called it a day..and I leaned into the finish line!

... After the Eiffel Tower, we went to a bar next door to the Moulin Rouge and hung out for a little while (most of us still struggling to speak to the French people there). The next morning we woke up early for a trip to Versailles ...

... and had breakfast by going to our bakery that was found by research (likely Rick Steves). The Bastille area seems to be less touristy, so we were able to get the good stuff, not the over-priced tourist pastries. We had a nice coffee in the morning while we waited to meet Linda (Brother in law's cousin). Of course, since there is a strike going on, transport right now is extremely unreliable and thus we cannot go to Versailles. She actually had to walk to come see us because of the ...

... that probably have nothing to do with why you are there. There is a waiting room outside the reception area, but if it's your time, and your turn, you are not going to be in the waiting room. Two minutes later, you are greeted by the physician, whose door opens directly into the reception. You are invited to sit down at his desk to discuss your history and your symptoms. He then invites you to step into the examining room-attached to his conference room. The doctor ...

... I knew that wasn't true because my host mother had suggested train travel to me in the first place and people travel into Spain by train all the time. I knew that traveling by plane would be the answer to my problem, but at first I didn't find anything cheap enough. I talked with my mom about the problem and asked her advice on the situation. She told me to go ahead and look for more plane fares from Marseille, and to look for something ...

... I had a ball of a time just wandering around Paris - watching the Parisians walk their prissy dogs, listening to jazz in a bar, painters capturing the inescapable ambience. Paris is a beautiful city - parks, rivers, monuments... one could spend many happy weeks taking it all in. A sad trend in major cities today, tourists are destroying the pristine, European atmosphere that they are coming to enjoy. The tour busses, mass-produced souvenir vendors, and ...

... being stuck on my tour bus for an evening tour (her and her sister were the only people on the tour bus along with my family). I am amazed by the quantity of hot girls in Nice .. today was the first day I went around the city (and to Monaco, which is actually another country, of which you will hear about later). Okay, lets start with the breakfast room girl. Okay, she's a hotter grown-up version of a girl called Christina who I grew up wanting to do. This girl ...

... one off the list. Yes the line was long, but still only took about 20 minutes. There was no line for walking up and down the stairs, but yikes that is scary looking. It is really tall. Once you are on the observation deck, the world below is for the ants. The cars and noise and people are blocked by the sound of the wind whipping around you. Of course there was also a line to wait for the elevator to go back down. But what can one say other than C'est La Vie ...