The City of Lights

Paris, FRANCE
I LOVE Paris!!!! love love love it! As of now it is my fav city that I have visited (after San Francisco, of course). The history, the architecture, people, food and obvi shopping are for lack of a better word incredible. It wasn't to terribly difficult to navigate around the city; I was actually a little shocked that it wasn't massive. The also have a very efficient and clean metro system that makes travel even easier! I guess I'll just have to learn French!!! I loved it here so much that I stayed several days after Ashley left to go back home to San Jose, which, by the way made me rather sad. I miss my perfect traveling buddy. For the first day after she left I walked around Paris with a bit of an empty feeling in my heart... I would tell our inside jokes to myself and mentally point out silly things we would have talked about... somehow, it just isn't the same without ya, Ash! :) Proud of you! haha!
After several days of exploring the sites and sounds of this beautiful city of lights I finally decided to leave and thankfully, with the help of a travel agent I was able to find semi affordable train tickets to Belgium and Luxembourg. It was the best 5 Euros I have spent! Prior to stumbling into the travel agent office I spent 4 of the most frustrating hours trying to navigate French websites attempting to find a way out of Paris without having to sell my soul...
A day or so before I was scheduled to leave I met some pals at my hostel and one gave me his museum pass!!! What a guy, what a guy! Thanks to this lovely little gift I decided to do some power site-seeing with another friend I met in the hostel. We somehow managed to devour the D'Orsay Museum with it's spectacular exhibit of the opera house, the series of temporary exhibit of small, moderately disturbing drawings featuring men with the heads of chickens and other foul committing murder and other sinister acts...and other permanent exhibits. After that we made our way to the SHOAH Jewish Memorial Museum, which had tighter security than LAX (yah hard to imagine...) and finally the Picasso Museum! I loved it!!!! We had a great time trying to interpret the art and an even better time watching people mistake the mirrored walls for unexplored hallways. After all that, there was still a bit of daylight left so we decided to book it across town to see Pere LaChaise Cemetery to catch a glimpse of Jim Morrison's grave. Despite all the sprinting, we made it to the cemetery just in time for them to close the gates as they kicked out the final patrons.

My last day in Paris!! What more could a sleeping girl ask for but a plastic bag symphony from the other travelers in my hostel room as they packed their belongings to leave at 4 AM? Really, people?!?! Today I took the baguette that was provided for breakfast and made myself some french toast!! Apparently it isn't so French because there isn't a stinkin' joint in the city that serves the stuff!!! I also went on a MASSIVE adventure to literally 6 different electronic superstores scattered across Paris in search of the perfect new camera! I may have mentioned it before or I may have avoided the sad subject but my camera met a tragic end on our first day in Tuscany as I set it up to take a picture of our homemade meal crafted by jenny, Ashley and yours truly! I guess houses that have been built on the tops of hills can get a bit breezy when you open all the windows and doors... I set the timer for ten seconds and at the count of 4 my poor, little camera had already developed an entirely too close relationship with the hard tiled floor... All heartache set aside, I was able to purchase a fab new camera under the direction of my two at-home camera gurus. She was a beauty! Canon SX200IS phew I <3 her! Amongst other sites and sounds I was able to make it to the cemetery and see Oscar Wilde's grave as well as Jim Morrison's and several other graves of prominent individuals. Generally I have a peaceful and comforting feeling when I visit cemeteries but this was fairly overrun with tourists, which left it feeling like a component of Disneyland... not exactly the reverent atmosphere I was expecting... but then again, I too was a tourist contributing to the hustle and bustle.