PARIS!

Clearly I am terrible at keeping up with my blog. Sorry guys. I promise I'll try a little harder this time. So, yes, I am finally in Paris after traveling for 294,543,764 hours, and ohmygod I'm so in love. Riding home from the airport to the cute little hotel where we are staying for two weeks was probably one of the most exciting times of my life. I may have taken 45,565 pictures in that fifteen minutes alone. Our hotel is tres charmant, and I love my roommate Alex, who is from Jersey and knows my roommate Andrea's best friend Christine (small world) My outings around Paris are usually with Alex and Maddie, the Chicago form of me, but with better hair. Everywhere you look there is something to take a picture of, something exciting happening, some awesome/crazy/weirdo outfit. Just the other day I was riding on the metro with a man singing Que Sera and Guantanamero for some money... reminded me of my family, and I almost started crying right there. BUT I didn't, haha.
I like our living situation as it is, because there is always someone around to talk to or to go out with. However, I'm ready to STOP speaking English!!! Sometimes we try to speak in French... but we end up going back to English.
So the other day we took a cruise on the river Seine. We had to take the metro there - by the way, the metro is GREAT. So easy to use/understand and CLEAN but please for the love of GOD DON'T TALK ON THE METRO. Seriously. French people don't talk on the metro. At ALL. And if you do talk, you're probably an obnoxious American.

Anyway, we came out of the metro station and.... there it was. The Eiffel Tower!! I'd be lying if I said I didn't tear up a little bit. It hardly seemed real to finally be here. In fact, it still feels just like a vacation, although we all agree we feel like we've been here for a month rather than a week. It's not that time passes slowly, but that from the remaining jet lag, the constant walking... it's tiring.
Back to the cruise. It was touristy, clearly, and there was a French couple making out in front of me, but the cruise had other highlights as well. We got to see the Louvre, the Musee D'Orsay, Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, etc. It basically hit the big highlights of the city.
I finally quit trying to live out of my suitcase and unpacked today. Only to have to pack again on Friday, but I was driving myself nuts!
Saturday we took a day visit to a chateau called Vaux le Vicomte, which we learned was actually just a house built by some rich guy. Then Louis XIV got jealous that his house was better and had the man arrested and kept him in jail while he redecorated and moved into his newly usurped real estate. Now's it a museum and it's beautiful.
Saturday night's festivities included mingling among the French at local bars... but our favorite place is still Cafe L'epoche, located, yes, tragically, in the Moulin Rouge district...(I'll tell you about it later) but populated with hip, young French people who LOVE karaoke. When the occasional English song comes on, we LOVE it. We've already sang twice... once Spice Girls. C'etait branche (trendy) and very fun, malgre qu'il est dans le district louche.
Our hotel is perfectly located, and I feel very safe walking with my friends. We are right next to the Sacre Coeur, which is not only a beautiful church but holds an amazing view and is a hot hangout spot for young French kids.
Yesterday we bought our first monthly metro passes which means that I can FINALLY start wearing heels... haha. Our language classes start today and for some godforsaken reason I ended up in the advanced section, so at 2pm I'll be trying to convince myself that I can actually speak French. I must admit though, if only out of necessity, my French has improved greatly already.
I have class everyday this week from 2-5 and that's it. So hopefully I'll have some time to blog around.