I did get some directional help from a nice girl at the airport who gave me a crash course on using the Paris Metro and eventually made it to my destination.
Lucky for me the other two Americans I am traveling with were already there getting checked in, Elizabeth (you should remember her from the Rovaneimi adventure) and Natasha. We settled in and went out to see a church nearby. We walked around for a while and eventually had dinner at this little restaraunt that offered traditional French food. I am all about trying the wierd and crazy stuff so I ordered the Steak Tartar, seasoned raw meat. It was good, too many onions for my liking but decent enough. Looking back I do realize how dumb it was to order raw meat from a cheap french street restraunt but I got lucky and didn't get sick. Adam showed up around 11:00 pm, minus his luggage, he has the worst luck when traveling.
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I have never thought that I was hard to please on this trip, I ate wierd food in Finland happily, I hang out at airports for hours on end with a smile on my face and a coffee in my hand, I sleep on a hard twin size bed for weeks at a time, I sit in the back of a crampt car content to stair out the window at the forign landscape, but I will say I am not a fan of Paris. To me the town felt dirty and crampt and cheap. I do not know if I just missed all the good areas or what but I do not belong to the group of people that dream of returning to Paris.
That being said the attractions that make Paris famous are pretty awesome. One cannot understand just how massive and glorious the Eiffel Tower is unless your are under it, on the top and seeing it at night, it blew my mind. The Louvre Museam was on my must see list of things to do while abroad, I am glad I went even though everyone said it was overrated. It is a life changing expierence to be around that much art and cluture even if you arent particularly into art and culture. I loved the paintings and antiques and displays that I saw, I even saw Marie Antwonette's dinner set (perhaps she ate cake off of it? :P) and of course the Mona Lisa, the painting was by itself on an entire wall with a sea of people surrounding it. Being the somewhat aggresive person I am I elbowed my way right in and got some good photos, and a selfie with her.
The architecture in the city is amazing and it has countless gardens and sculptures and fountains but when you are being constantly heckeled to buy trinkets or worried about getting mugged is it really worth it?
I am glad I went, and even more glad it was for only 3 days. It was an expierence of a lifetime that I only need to expierence once.
On the plus side Adam got the right ticket from Paris to Rome and my good travel luck trumped his bad luck and we made it to Rome just fine.
