paris.

the eiffel tower, hecker, and i

hecker and the arch of triumph

notre dame

pantheon

mosque

food. yum.

Day 1: The weather was amazing, and we were both pleasantly surprised at how polite and helpful the french were being to us. Considering all of the horror stories we've both heard about the "rude Parisians". We experienced nothing of the sort. So Paris is an incredibly large city, and Hannah and I somehow managed to master the metro system which kinda gives us a little street cred in my opinion. On this day we saw everything. The eiffel, the arch, the pantheon, notre dame, you name it we probably saw it. Oh, and it was extremely warm for this time of year. Crazy!

Day 2: It was raining. boooo. So we hopped onto the Metro down to the Mosque, originally planning to go the the Hammam we couldn't find it due to our lack of speaking french. So we paid 3 euros to walk around inside. Might I say it was an incredibly peaceful place of worship, very serene. Somehow we ended up in the prayer room - which isn't necessarily respectful or allowed. Nonetheless it was really interesting to see a woman praying, it was really peaceful. After our time at the mosque we walked over the to famous shakespeare and company, the to the Louvre to avoid the rain. The Louvre was full of people and pushing and body heat. We weren't there for long, but we found a less populated room and sat in it for a while admiring the great works.

Day 3: By day three a massive blister had formed on the bottom of my foot and walking was less than fun. Poor Hecker had to put up with me and my old lady paced walk. We made breakfast in the apartment we were staying in.. French toast haha! We took a slow morning and enjoyed the warmth and dryness of the indoors while it was rainy and gloomy outside. When it cleared up a little we walked through an array of cultural neighborhoods over to a Basilica near our apratment. It was up on a hill! So great to see Paris from that point of view. There was also a really wonderful park beneath it that we wondered through on our way to more things. At some point we got really sick of the weather so we decided to go on ahead to see a movie at the movie theater (if you know me, you know that is an extreme last resort). Luckily on our way to the theater we stumbled upon the Palais de la Decouverte, a hands on museum! We had so much fun walking around playing with things. We were the only adults not accompanying children but it was great! The we decided we wanted to find some beof bourguignon, after looking up the best place to get it we sought it out. And hour and a half walk later we found out that the restaurant was closed.

Day 4: We went to the Hammam, as previously mentioned. We found it after a little google research. The entrance was behind the pastry shop in the restaurant in the mosque. It was wonderful. There were 3 rooms, each saunas but the temperature got higher in each room. We sat in the first room for a long time, occasionally splashing cold water on ourselves. Then moved on to the warmest room where you sit, then dip in a chilled pool and repeat every once in a while. After that we found the gommage table, which exfoliates your whole body and your skin feels like a baby's bottom. I have never felt so clean in my entire life. After the bath house we decide it would only be proper protocol to indulge in the turkish food offered at the mosque. Couscous, chicken stew, coffee, and desserts. It was probably my favorite part of Paris, the bath house. After this we headed back to the bus station to catch our bus to the airport. We arrived in Kaunas, Lithuania at around 11pm and caught a van back to Klaipeda at 12am. It snowed all through the countryside and was so fun to drive through. The van was freeeezing, so sleeping was kind of hard to do. We arrived in rainy Klaipeda at around 3am an by the grace of God caught a taxi to get back to LCC!

I'm still trying to catch up on sleep.
Paris was beautiful and everyone should see it at least once!

I come home soon! I can't wait, gettin' pretty dang antsy.

love love, paige.