Paris

we arrived in paris yesterday morning on a night train from madrid. like we mentioned before we were unable to book tickets together in the same sleeper car so we were hoping to ask someone in one of our cars of four to switch beds with us. well, we soon found out after boarding the train that in spain it is illegal to put men and women together on a night train! grrrrrrrr. so, michael was in an all male cabin with 3 other guys: a frenchman who spoke no english at all, a frenchman who spoke great english due to his love of american sports and american televised poker, and an 18 year old boy from arkansas traveling europe with his girlfriend. i was in a female room with a french mother and her daughter (around 8 years old maybe) neither of which spoke any english, so i did a lot of reading.

our first day in paris we spent trying to get to know the city. we first went to the eiffel tower (of course) and had a late breakfast/eary lunch at a near by cafe. after lunch we traveled around the city to see the arc de triomphe, walked along the avenue des champs-elysees, and more.

later on, as we headed back to the eiffel tower we stopped at a fruit stand for strawberries, a bakery for bread and a final store for a wheel of brie and we picnicked on the lawn spread out from the eiffel tower. it was a delicious, cheap, perfect dinner.

today we went to the louvre after stopping at a bakery right near our hostel for croissants. after the museum we went to see notre dame where we had lunch at a side walk cafe near the church and then took a long walk along the river.