Paris! Ooh La La

So Paris was pretty cool.  I took three different trains from Charles De Gaulle airport to the hostel.  It was very simple, except the excessive number of stairs that Paris has between train platforms and just throughout the town, due to the hills.  Needless to say, lugging around my 50lb suitcase, my 37lb suitcase, my 25 lb backpack and my purse was pretty exhausting.  Upon getting to the hostel, the first I decided to do was take a shower before doing anything.  I was shocked and amazed at how clean the hostel was.  Seriously, it was impressive.  I was in a room with five other girls and there was a bathroom in the room.  After that I took off to explore the area that the hostel in.  It was just north of the Sacre Coeur, an absolutely beautiful neighborhood!  If I were to live in Paris, that is the neighborhood where I would live. For sure.  I went and found myself a Panini to eat and went to the phone store to get a sim card.  Then I went back to the hostel for an early 8:30 bedtime, since I was so dang tired. 

This whole phone business is a big pain in my butt.  I had done a lot of research ahead to figure out how to take my iphone with me.  Well, I bought this little chip that you put in with the sim card to unlock the phone.  However, apparently the one that I bought from ebay was a fake because it doesn’t work.  I went online and found out that there are a lot of people selling phoney chips.  So now, I have this sim card that isn’t activated because it won’t register with my phone, and I need a new GEVEY card that can only be ordered online.  And since I don’t have an address yet I can’t order a new one for a while.  This is all a big mess, but I guess it’s good that I haven’t had any crucial need for a phone yet. 

The next day I took the trains all over downtown Paris and explored the places I hadn’t been too yet, such as the catacombs.  They were very cool and I just couldn’t believe how many thousands of bodies are buried under the streets of downtown.  I also wondered over to the Apple store to buy the European outlet plug for Henri.  I know some of you cool cats would definitely appreciate the awesomeness of that Apple store! 

Bones in the catacombs of Paris 

This underground ossuary holds the
remains of about 6 million people!

That night I had met up with some really nice people from the hostel and ended up going to sit on hill Montmartre in front of le Sacre Coeur with a Brit and an Aussie.  We had brought some sandwiches and wine with us, for our eating and drinking pleasures.  We just sat there for hours watching the sunset and chatting about the differences between our countries.  It was amazing because we all spoke the same language, but yet still needed to translate many things to each other.  I learned that a jumper is not in fact a one piece outfit to them, but is a sweater, etc… and I in turn explained to them words like Shenanza and extraviginanigans. 

View of the Paris sunset from Montmartre

Saturday morning, I went to a vintage market with a Swedish girl who was staying in my room.  It was a cool market but was in kind of a seedy area of town so we didn’t stay too long.  Then, we enjoyed a lovely lunch at a café behind le Sacre Coeur.  I spent the rest of the night just hanging out in the common room of the hostel talking with all the different people that were staying there. 

Sunday morning came and I had arranged to travel to Nantes with a Canadian girl, Laura, and her mom.  Laura is teaching in Nantes (a big city an hour by train from the city I will be teaching in) so we thought it would be nice to travel together.  We got to Nantes with no problems and Laura’s contact person picked us off an dropped us off at the hostel where they had a reservation for her.  The guy at the desk was a total jerk and made it the biggest hassle for me to get a room.  But no worries, I’ve got one and that’s where I am writing this to you now. 

I went and explored downtown Nantes a bit and there just so happened to be a fair going on this weekend.  I went to the fair and got a kebab for dinner and watched all the frenchies go on rides and eat churros, fried donuts, waffles with chocolate on them, and “American” licorice (which looks unlike anything I have ever seen before).  I think I’m going to meet up with Laura tomorrow to do some more exploring, but that I’m gonna spend the rest of the night working on application essays so I can hopefully submit them next time I get internet.