I've been to London, I've now been to Paris... but, no... I have not seen your underpants (Paris part 1)

Hey Everybody,

One of the main missions of this trip is to meet people from all over the world. Ideally, this would lead to great friendships that would last a lifetime. Maybe, I conjectured, I would one day go to their homes and experience their culture.

Ironically, everybody in my ten bed room at the hostel in Paris is from the US and (I guess internationally) Canada. Fuck! That goal hasn't been reached.

Many of you may be asking, "What the heck has Zac been doing in Paris?, I'm so excited to find out!!" I would imagine the majority of you really could care less, and are reading this blog because it's something to do. Either way, here's what I have to report

I am nearing the end of my second day. I spent the first day walking around the Eiffel Tower. It's as awesome as it looks in the pictures. It seems to be the only thing over 5 stories in the whole city. I didn't go on top, simply because I thought it would be a waste of time. Either way, it was gorgeous. As I was walking around the area, I noticed a few things. There seems to be a pharmacy every 10 feet. This either means the French are sick all the time, or they are drug addicts. I hope the latter.

Today, I did the Louvre, the Arc de Triumph! (I feel that after the word triumph! there should always be an exclamation mark), and I did Notre Dame.

Some recommendations:

If you ever find yourself at the Louvre, get lost. I'm dead serious about this. The first thing I did was find the Mona Lisa. This was because I knew that the Mona Lisa was there. After I left the Mona, I literally stumbled upon some of the most famous paintings in the world. Granted, I have only seen them in books and movies, and have no idea what there name is or who made them, but I recgonized them, which wouldn't have happened if I had followed the map.

Notre Dame was great. The inside is gorgeous, but don't do the audio guide. It was pretty boring and there were no signs on when to listen to what. The best thing about Notre Dame is to climb to the top of the towers. It's 800 steps in total (so about 400 going up), but you do feel like quasimodo, especially if you have a hump.

People I've met:

In my dorm room I met these two guys from Virginia. They both lived on farms, and one lived on about 1000 acres of land. I spent a good hour grilling them on how a farm works, just because I haven't really met anyone who had lived on a farm.

I met a family from Virginia who moved to France 3 years ago. I did the towers tour with them. They were with a family from Boston that were pretty cool. It turned out that the mother of the family from Boston graduated from Syracuse. I guess they are right when they say that you can meet alumni all over the world.

I have a few more days in Paris, and then it's off to my favorite city, Amsterdam.

I hope all is going well for everyone.

Zac :)