it's a small world after all :)

Hello...so, as you can see, that was the last blog post I actually drafted out while we were spring-breaking, as Paris required so much of my rapture, devotion and attention that by the end of every day I was in such a euphoric state of exhaustion that I simply collapsed into bed grinning from ear to ear.

I am in LOVE with Paris.  The city...aaah.  It wasn't everything I dreamed it would be...it was better, it was worse, it was different, it was how I imagined it...the city defies imagination just as much as it inspires it.  I kept feeling like everything was surreal and I seriously couldn't believe I was there for most of the six days we had there.

When we arrived at Gare Lyon, we went to the Ministry of Economics and Finance to meet our lovely hostess for the week, miss Claire Botella.  She was kind enough to lend us her beautiful little apartment in the tenth arrondissement (neighborhood) for the week!  After we got her keys, we went to drop our things at the hostel we were staying at for one night (while she was still in Paris and needed her apartment).  The hostel was way the heck out in the middle of the 18th, and was a total shithole, but we literally changed clothes and headed straight for the #1 Parisian icon tourist destination...the Eiffel Tower!

We took a Paris Métro to get there and my first official sight of the tower was as the train exploded out of the underground to street level, with the tower directly outside the window.  I seriously teared up and almost died right then and there of satisfaction.  We got there around 4:00, just in time to climb it for sunset.  That's right...CLIMB it.  We CLIMBED the Eiffel Tower.  Let me tell you, that is one hell of a natural Stairmaster...my legs were killing me for the next 48 hours!

This is where the "it's a small world after all" part comes into play: As our group reached the top of the second level, out of the souvenir shop popped my one-and-only flatmate Nicolle and the rest of her spring break group!  I stopped dead in my tracks and immediately shouted "NICOLLE" right in her face.  She turned, did a HUGE classic double-take, and shouted right back in my face, "LIZZIE!"  Then we ALL started jumping around and shrieking and laughing about how small the world really is when you're tourists in Paris.  We were super super super excited about it, as we weren't supposed to overlap our time in Paris by much at all...I guess the whole Montpellier debacle was a little God moment helping us get to that awesome encounter on La Tour Eiffel :)

Anyway, we watched the sunset on the tower, took a million gazillion pictures (literally, I promise you), and were getting ready to head down when all of a sudden the lights show started.  I was breathless the entire five minutes, just completely in awe of where I was and what I was doing and how so many dreams had all culminated in just one day.  We descended and I literally felt like my insides were having their own little light show, I was so happy!

Peter led all of us to an amazing restaurant he had eaten at on his first trip to Paris, called Le Royal.  For 12 euro we got an appetizer, entrée, dessert, and three glasses of wine apiece...I had a chevre crépe with salad for my appetizer, choux (spinach, cheese and meat made into a sort of layered soufflé type thing) with rice and tomato remoulade for my main, and a to-DIE-for pear tart for dessert.  Not to mention I had an amazing time conversing with the proprietor, waiter and bartender, all of whom thought my French was great and had many helpful tips and suggestions about what we needed to see and do in Paris!

Exhausted, we headed back to our hostel for a night of sketchy sleep...I covered my pillowcase with my towel and made sure every inch of my skin was out-of-contact with the questionable sheets...but it was so much more than worth the ickiness to dream about the fact that I was in the City of Light and my adventures had just begun!!

That's enough for now, and Paris is too amazing to be wrapped into one post...expect more soon :)