Journey to Paris (June 22nd)

Our first morning of this ten day adventure was going to be an early one. After a very sad goodbye to the St. John's crew, I made my way to my room around midnight. My alarm was set for 2:45 am. I laid in bed, but couldn't sleep. Maybe it was the excitement, or just knowing that I would have to wake up in two hours time, but sleeping was out of the question. After a refreshing early morning shower, I was ready to walk out the door ay 3:45 a.m. Jennifer, Shelley, Jenn, and I took a taxi to the Termini train station where we climbed aboard a 4:30 a.m. shuttle bus to the airport. Upon arriving at the airport, we checked our passports and boarding passes with a very grouchy young man. It's 5:00 a.m. We're all tired buddy. No need to be Mr. Grumpy Gills. Our seats for our flight with RyanAir weren't assigned, so first come first serve. We sat down in line and prepared to board...in an hour. While in line, we made friends. What's new? A young man behind me asked me about my Crossfit shoes which led into a pretty lengthy discussion about Crossfit. Turns out, this guy and his two friends are avid Crossfitters. Small world. Conversations about out favorite WODs (workout of the day) and complaining about how hard Crossfit is kept us busy until it was time to board the plane.

After a brief walk on the tarmac, we secured seats. I tried my best to catch some shut-eye, but was unsuccessful due to two small children in front of me playing the loudest game(s) of UNO in history. I could probably rant for a solid five paragraph essay on parenting in public and what makes me angry, but I'll spare you. Our plane touched town in Paris two hours later and as we walked outside, we were almost blown away. Surprise. Paris is extremely windy and cold during the summer months. We knew coming in that it would be chilly, but we did not expect the 25 mph winds.

Our first day in Paris began in a line. One of many. We waited in a long line outside the airport to board a bus that would take us to the actual city. For whatever reason, (it was cheaper) the airport we flew into was way out in the boondocks. For the next hour and a half, I dozed in and out of sleep. At this point, I had been awake for 26 hours. Someone neglected to tell me that I would have to forfeit sleep during my European escapade. Unfortunately, the bus to the city was only the first of many legs of our journey to the hostel.

Now, I'm only going to go into detail about the metro system once or else my blogs would be extremely long and boring. Paris has 10 metro lines with more stops than I care to count. To get to our hostel, we often changed lines. Our average metro journey to the hostel each night was about 30 minutes. I don't particularly like metros. And by "don't particularly like" I mean hate. Paris forcefully increased my tolerance for the metro system, and at times, my appreciation. We arrived at our hostel around noon or so. After checking in, we took the smallest elevator I've ever been in to the 6th floor. It took us three trips (with four people) to get everyone upstairs. Jenn and I were in one room and Jennifer and Shelley were in the adjacent room. We quickly set out things down and sprinted downstairs to the McDonald's directly below us. Literally. We were way too hungry to care that it was McDonald's; no need to judge.

Today would be one of the longest days of my life, but I was in Paris so it didn't matter. We started our hike at the Sacre Couer Basillica. A truly beautiful building, and gigantic. Walking up the hundred stairs or so to the Sacre Couer, we passed many persistent gypsies trying to sell us everything from hats to Eiffel Tower key chains. No gypsy. Inside the Sacre Couer is beautifully decorated. After a brief walk through, we continued our walk towards the Eiffel tower. We passed through the "Red light district" and saw the famous Moulin Rouge...from the outside of course. To be honest, walking through the condensed "city" part of Paris, I wasn't particularly impressed. From my brief time in Europe, I have confirmed that I would never want to live in a big city. No grazie. Our walk continued for four hours or so, and I was beginning to fade. When we finally made it to the Eiffel Tower (which was awesome) I was too tired to fully appreciate it. At this point, it was 7 o'clock and I had been up for 36  hours straight. We grabbed a "quick" bite to eat at a local creperie and hopped back on the metro to the hostel. I passed out still fully clothed at 10 p.m. 39 hours awake. New record.