:: deux femmes : paris, day 1 ::

Wah wah wee wah! (See Borat please) The flight to Frankfurt was fine (except for the lack of any TV screens and the personal lights being out - i.e. forced sleep time for a long time), and we eventually got on a train to Paris after some drunken German night shift workers helped us find the right train. We don't speak any German, and German isn't exactly easy friendly for the "just read it and try to figure out what it says..." approach.

Our hostel in Paris (Peace & Love) was good. Everything in Paris is very small, so our hostel was fine in comparison. The main floor of the hostel was a bar, which is filled with residents of the hostel, locals and random people - it was always an interesting mix. Unfortunately our room was on the 5th floor (elevators are very rare in Europe, so stairs it is with our luggage), but needless to say it helped us get in shape for our trip. We did have a nice view from this high up of the Seine and the surrounding area.

Even though we were tired we were determined to see what Paris had to offer. We walked around Place St. Michel, which is central to Paris and houses many of the major attractions. Our first French meal consisted of the richest pizza ever and an amazing raspberry tartlette, along with overpriced Coca (its like gold to th-ese people - ranges from about 2.60€ to 5€, which is about $4 to $8 for 50cl, less than a 20oz bottle...) and French café. We attempted to do a boat tour by night of the Seine, but we were too late. Instead, we walked around Paris and met some lovely boys (American, French and Uzbekistani, all who currently live in Paris) who we went to see Borat with. During the movie Michelle caught the boys speaking Russian, which is how we discovered the Uzbekistani Eduardo. Michelle proceeded to speak in a language unknown to Carly and the other American for a while, which was pretty sweet. After the movie the boys gave us an amazing night tour of the City of Lights. We saw pretty much every major attraction that night from the outside, it was so beautiful! What a great 24-hour day.