J'adore Paris! Granted, I was only there for three days in the winter (it didn't drizzle), but I think I can say I would love it any other time of the year. I had an amazing weekend. It went by so fast, I almost can't believe it really happened. I was so excited to be there. I kept thinking how I'd seen pictures of Paris in my French textbooks in high school and couldn't believe I was actually there. It was so surreal. This whole experience has been surreal.
Our hostel was great, as far as hostels go. We were all happy with the quality, and excited to be in one giant room all together.
My favorite spot was Sacre Coeur in Montmartre. I wish I had more time to spend in Paris, because I would have liked to spend a
whole day in Montmartre. A tour guide showed us the Sacre Coeur at night, and it was incredible. The church is a blinding white. The coolest thing about it is that the more it rains, the whiter the stones become, so as time goes on the church gets whiter and whiter. It has a tragic story though. When Paris closed its gates and succeeded briefly and became a fairly successful socialist country, a traitor was paid off by the government and there was a massacre. The socialists were all executed. Where the Sacre Coeur is now is where the government rounded up socialist leaders and executed them. Those that survived were forced into slave labour to build the Sacre Coeur. There's a plaque in the church saying the church was built to forgive the sins of the socialists, not the government. It's tragic. But the church is absolutely breathtaking. It's composed of all different types of architecture, Greek, Roman, Taj Mahal-esque, to represent unity.
Incredible. 
I saw the Moulin Rouge. It wasn't what I was expecting, but still very cool. It now costs about 80 euro to go see a show there. And did you know that there are over 2,000 prostitutes working in the red light district any given day?Toughcompetition.
Another of my favorite things in Montmartre was the man stuck in the wall. There is a story about a man who was able to walk through walls and he went to the doctor for an explanation. The doctor gave him a pill to make it stop, but the man wasn't ready to give up his ability. He liked walking through walls, and it made his affair with his neighbor's wife much easier. One night, before seeing his mistress, he had a headache and took an asprin. Except it wasn't an asprin, it was the pill the doctor gave him. So as the man was going through the wall, he got stuck. And he stayed there, and, presumably, died there. But his friend came to visit the wall every day and play guitar for him. I thought it was a cool story.
Of course I saw the Tour Eiffel. I never knew it was brown. For some reason I always assumed that it was a kind of greenish grey like the Statue of Liberty (which I have never actually seen, and it occurs to me that I really should start to see some of the landmarks in my own country). It really is enormous. I was giddy just looking at it.
Notre Dame. Very cool.
Fontaine de Sainte Michele. Sainte Michele is the one who cast Satan back to hell.
The Pont Neuf bridge is funny. Henry IV threw a big party for all his friends and got them stinking drunk. He hired a sculptor to recreate his drunk friends at the party, and put their likenesses all along the bridge. What a way to be immortalized.
We saw L'arc de Triomphe and the eternal flame. Funny story: there was an Australian tourist who once fried an egg on the flame. He was put in prison for one night. But what a great story.
The Louvre was very intimidating. It's impossible to see everything, it holds so much art. I spent my time in the classical Greek/Roman wing. Naturally I saw the Mona Lisa, but to be honest, it's not that impressive. What is impressive is the amount of people who crowd around it constantly. But my favorite was the Roman sculptures. I saw the Venus di Milo!
The Palace of Versailles was very cool. It's unbelievable to imagine living there, especially considering the state Paris was in at the time. Disgusting really. But the Palace is incredible. And I found my room:
In general I wasn't too put off by the French people. I've heard bad things about them, but some of them are very nice. I think they appreciate when tourists try to speak French...unless you're abismal at it. But there was an older gentleman in a pastry shop who thought I was fluent in French. It was a highlight.
I definitely prefer the tube to the metro. The tube is cleaner and doesn't have as many sketchy/creepy men. There was an interesting poster in one of the metro stations
though:
One thing that really struck me about Paris was the amount of homeless people. Once when we were on the metro two young girls came on and made an announcement. It was in French, and I didn't understand everything, but the gist of it was that they needed money because of some tragic story. When the got off at the next stop, they were yelling to their mother. What kind of mother would have her children doing that? I was just so taken aback.
Anyway, my time in Paris was amazing. If I spoke fluent French, I would definitely want to stay there for a longer period of time. But I do like being home in London. I think traveling has really made me appreciate the small things in my life, the comforts of home, the familiar.
Time is flying by. Only a month and a half before I come home. It doesn't seem possible. I think this has been the fastest semester I've ever had.
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