Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

It is almost time for me to end my relationship with Europe. Only one day left.

I suppose this is the time in which I am suppose to reflect over my trip and talk about all the things I've learned. But I will spare you the "Lessons I Learned In Kindergarten" speal and instead sum up everything I have learned in one sentence:

In the words of Dorothy, I click my heels three times and say "There is no place like home."

I love to travel, and this will not be the last of the travel excursions for me, but it will always be nice in the end to go back to the one place that makes you feel like no where else in the world - your home: the one place that you feel comfortable in your shoes, where you can speak freely and everyone will understand you, where you can always count on someone to be around the corner if you need them, and where can walk through the street without a map in hand.

Tomorrow I will probably do all things French one last time: eat a baguette, drink a cafe au lait, picnic under the Eiffel Tower, etc... And I will think back on the all the people who have contributed to my trip and made it what it was: Margot, the first person I met in Paris and my tour guide;of course Eva, my travel buddy; Melanie, who couldn't stay awake; all the Sevette's - Martine, Eric, David, William, Robin, Lea and Lea, grandma and grandpa Sevette, and cousin Jeremy; the crazy German in Switzerland; Patrick, who put me up for 8 days in London; Everyone in Wales - Rike, Danie, Daf, Medea, Yann, Lena, Slavi, Vesna, Yeajing, Boylan and Anna; Eric, my fiance (!), in Greece and crazy British Bryan; Nora, Chris and Soph in Athens; Celeste and Helen in Budapest; Emily, from the train to Vienna, Liz in Vienna; Steffi in Germany; the California boys in Amsterdam; Andrew, the Fat Tire Tour Guide, as well as Lowie and the two girls from the tour group; and of course, LaShawn. And I am sure there are so many more people that I am forgetting about. Thank you to each of you for making my trip what it was - a trip to never be forgotten.

Okay, so maybe I didn't really save you from the speal. Oh, well. You read it anyway.

The Effiel Tower has just said good night and so must I - Good night all.

Digging Things Up From the Past

Catacombs on Friday the 13th anyone? I did. Here's a brief glimpse:

Those would be real live bones. CREEPY!

I've been staying with one of my old roommates from college for the last couple nights. We haven't seen each other since graduation. She moved to KC for law school, I was in St. Louis, life happens and we kind of lost touch. Then a couple days before leaving to come abroad one of our other roommates from college called me and said "are you going to see LaShawn while you're in Paris?" I was like "LaShawn's in Paris?" So, facebook to the rescue, we now have been able to spend a couple days in Paris together, catching up and hanging out like old times - her studying and me not so much.... Tonight we got to celebrate because LaShawn just landed her first law job today - Congrats LaShawn! Doesn't her degree sound so impressive: International Business Law and something to do with France too. We celebrated with a great Thai dinner. (I'm about done with the French food)

We also tackled the Louvre tonight - so impressive. I enjoyed it even more than I ever imagined. Probably helped that I had my own personal tour guide in LaShawn.

Insert from LaShawn: (she made me promise that I wouldn't delete it)

Thanks Nicole for dinner!!!! mmmm Thai fooood :)

Thanks LaShawn for putting me up for 4 nights. It's made my last days here even more memorable.

Love In An Elevator

Or, love FOR the elevator is probably more appropriate.

I started yesterday off with a little breakfast, checked out of my hostel and spent a little time on the net, before heading off to conquer Sacre Couer and Marmarte. I decided I was going to walk since I seemed to misplace my metro pass. (I should of known then it was a set-up for how the rest of the day would go.) I walked what seemed like 3 miles to my chosen destination, through a somewhat seedy area, only to discover when I got there that I didn't have my camera... (panic!)

Assuming that I left it sitting at the computer in the Internet Cafe at the hostel I proceeded to head back (by Metro this time) and recover it. But of course, it was no where to be found and no one had turned it in. So I sat and sulked a little, thought about crying (but didn't), and decided I was going to have to move on. I bought a disposable and headed back to Sacre Couer. I decided that maybe a little spirtual time in the church was what I needed. But spirtual it was not. Instead I watched as one by one the "moderator" of the church, kicked out any woman that walked in without her shoulders properly covered. Shouldn't we be welcoming everyone into the church? Ugh, I won't go there.

I enjoyed the rest of my time on Marmarte and decided that if I was going to be in Paris for 5 more days I was going to have to have a camera - and not just a disposable. So, I made my way to St. German Blvd and bought a Sony Cybershot. $170 euros later, I feel better.

Tired and hungry I headed back to the hostel to use the internet and upon finishing up one of the staff asks me:

"Are you American?"
"Yes"
"Did you lose something?"
"My Camera!"
(pulls camera out of his draw)
"Are you frickin kidding?! I just bought a new one" (as I hold up my FNAC bag)

Figures, right?

So, new AND old camera in hand, I head to my new hostel for the night (couldn't get the same place booked for two nights). As I mentioned before, my luggage now successfully weighs more than me. And the metro I have to take has no elevator or escalator, only 5 flights of stairs to go down, then up, only to go back down again. REALLY not my day. Make it to the hotel, only to find that you have to climb a flight of stairs to get to the reception. What is with no elevators in France?

BUT, I do have my own private room with shower AND a TV, so I am in heaven. I walked to the supermarche, bought a bagette, some cheese, a bottle of wine and a chocolate tart and I was in for the night.

Only to wake in the morning with little bites on both my arms - BED BUGS!

But I'm not bitter. Not even upset really. Paris is just too cool to care about anything else.

I got up, took a TAXI to LaShawn's, got a Chi Tea Latte from Starbucks, bought a new metro pass and started the day anew: Centre Pompidou, Notre Dame and the Towers, Eglise on Ile Saint Louis, Muse D'Orsay, a stroll through the gardens at Hotel de Invalides, and dinner at a fantastic italian restaurant with fabulous vegetarian pizza.

And good news - bed bugs can't exist on an air mattress so I'm safe for the rest of my trip.

3 days!

From Fat Feet to Fat Tires

As I finish this trip up I am going to try to blog more and bring you all the fun details of my last week.

A week ago if someone asked me, "Nicole, how fabulous was Paris?" I probably would of anwsered, "Eh, it wasn't my favorite."

But, after one day, it is rising on the charts. Maybe it was because my first impression of Paris was after 36 hours of travel, exhausted, and cold and rainy, that I wasn't really all that excited to come back. Plus, I thought what am I going to do there for 6 whole days..... Well, I've been proved long.

I arrived yesterday and checked into my hostel, cleaned up and out I went. My plan, was to take the Fat Tire City Night Bike Tour. Now, as some of you may know, this was the company for which I orgionally had planned to work for, and how I planned to spend my summer in Paris. I was a little iffy to take the tour because it meant seeing what my summer could of been like, and I wasn't sure I wanted to go there, especially in my last week. But I did. And the tour was absolutely fabulous! I would recommend it to anyone who ever comes to Paris. Riding a bike through Paris, at sunset, is something out of a movie. And you finish the tour with a boat ride on the Seine, taking off as the Eiffel Tower "sparkles" for the first time of the night. And as I was sitting there on the boat, drinking wine and talking to our tour guide, Andrew, who just so happens to be from St. Louis (weird!), I realized something....

Things definetly happen for a reason, and life has a plan to it. Yes, working for Fat Tire probably would of been a blast, but had that worked out I probably wouldn't have seen all the places that I have, nor would I have met all the people that I have met. But more importantly, I would of probably left town before Eric and I were able to hash things out and I probably wouldn't be engaged right now. It's weird to think how close I was to having a completely different life rolled out before me.

Fat Tire Bike Company will probably never know what a significant role they have played in my life. Their rejection of my application lead me to the best 10 weeks of my life, and set me up for a future I am so excited to begin.

Alright, alright, none of you signed up to read about my theories on life paths, etc...

I will leave you this morning with the image of the Eiffel Tower shining at night.

And, if you can, try to picture 4 really horrible street dancers lip syncing to Michael Jackson's Billy Jean underneath the Tower. I watched in amazement for a good 15 minutes yesterday.

100 Kilos and Fat Feet

First sign that my trip is coming to a successful end: My luggage successfully weighs more than me at this point and my feet are swollen and covered with blisters.

Amsterdam was a successful trip. I would mark it as one of the cities that I would love to come back to and explore more extensively some day. Especially the outlying areas. The city is full of life and is like none other that I visted in Europe. And in truth, I think that Eva and I did a great job of picking cities that were each going to be unique and different from each other in our little mini excurion. Budapest was very Eastern Europe, with it's communist history. Vienna was a big romantic city feel, with excitement in the air for the coming Euro 2008 Championships being held in the midst of the city. Frieberg was a small rural town in Germany where you felt safe no matter how late you were out or where you were at. And Amsterdam was a party city, with sex, drugs and drinking laying around every corner.

And after a short stay with the Sevette's back in Beauvry, I am heading to my final destination before coming home - Paris. I will have a total of 6 days to dive into every crevious of Paris, and hopefully then some. Although I have a feeling that 6 days will only be enough to skim the top.

And before I go, there are a few things that I have forgotten to mention as I have been backpacking around the last 2 weeks. 1) I can add Octopus to the list of weird things I have eaten, and 2) first class trains have children swinging from luggage racks.

Okay, I feel better now. You are fully informed.

See you VERY SOON!