Ibis Jouy en Josas Velizy

... in Paris!

Our first day in Paris, we planned to go the Musee de Orsay, but the line was crazy long, so instead we booked tickets for the following day. We then walked around the Champs de Elysees, saw the Arch de Triumph, and walked past the Louvre. Oh yeah, and we bought an air mattress – very important. I also ate my first crepes (ham and cheese) and have picked out my next one – banana and nutella. YUM

... of where I had been going. Perfect. A mile later I found the RER line and fumbled with the ticket machines while an impatient French man behind me kept asking me if I was going to be done buying my ticket anytime soon. Jerk. As if I was purposefully taking my time exploring the many ticket options or something. Damn machine wouldn't take my Visa card! Finally with my 11 Euro ticket in hand I found my way to RER B and boarded. About half an hour later (during which I was stared ...

... fully explore the tiny side streets (steering us away from cars, buses, and pedestrians thank goodness) and discover "vintage" Paris. One street that we stopped at is exactly as I imagined Paris would be- there are fruit, vegetable, chocolate, tea, and meat markets all lined up in a row for shoppers to get the best item from each store and move on. The only storefront that didn't fit with my image was a sushi place... On ...

... and supports totally exposed made me feel a bit uneasy. Regardless, I tried to acclimate and admire the gorgeous view as we waited in line for the second elevator that would take us all the way to the top. We were crammed into the second glass elevator and shot straight up. We went floor after agonizing floor, getting higher and higher, wondering if we would ever actually reach the top. It was worth it, though. As the doors opened and we all plunged out of the ...

... church on top of a very large hill. So after a wander through the church we took to the streets and found the artists of Montmartre. It was beautiful! A square filled with artists painting people's portraits and restaurants. We sat for over an hour (well deserved!) drinking and just watching people. I really loved it and Jeff really wished his Dad could have seen it as he really would have loved it. Then it was back down the stairs in search of the ...

... On the first floor, there are two oval rooms, each with four giant canvases of Monet's water lilies displayed in a 360-degree view and natural light streaming in from the ceiling (see my short video). I loved it! I'd estimate that each painting is about 36 feet long. Huge. They're slightly curved to fit the rounded walls. The downstairs featured artwork of Monet's colleagues, and I discovered an artist I like, whom I haven't noticed before: Marie ...

... Madelines and the Metro home. Walked by several small shops and got an assortment of cheeses and a bottle of wine for dinner. There are more types of cheese in this one small shop than in the whole of Canada. OK aybe I'm exagerating a bit... but only bit. Going to have a quiet evening. Tomorrow night we'll venture into the Indian restaurants of Passage Brady.

... good food and fantastic friends. It was even a good time to practice more French as two other ISEP students were also invited - Vincent and Clement (a new face, for me at least). As it was Clement's birthday (unbeknown to us before the dinner party) a small number of us including Aisha, left to have a birthday shot with our new friend at a small bar where a friend of his was performing. It wasn't much and we were only there for about a half hour, but it was nice to ...

... than expected :-) (The next day, we did some breathtaking laundry, sorry no photos of it, and tried to leave Paris to Croatia. As Marina mentioned earlier, Croatia Airlines wasn't making it easy. First it took them forever to figure out how to accept our tickets because we used a EuropeByAir FlightPass for a cheaper ticket. Then we crossed our fingers that they wouldn't notice one of our bags was 5 kilo too heavy. They didn't seem to care. We did finally arrive in ...

... sign lights up. Do not make that mistake here. Think of yourself as a deer in this place. You can never hope to understand the rhyme or reason to it, so just take a few glances when that light turns green and get across the intersection as fast as you can. Pay-to-****. It costs 40 euro cents to **** if you find yourself out on the street with a full bladder. Fortunately, I didn't have to go that bad. I almost did, but when I got up there, I realized that not only ...