Day 3--City Tour, shopping, and metro craziness.

Man, was it good to sleep.
I've never been so happy to get in bed in my entire life. Even though it doesn't get dark here until 10:30pm, I was able to fall right asleep, and I stayed asleep all night. (except for when a crew of intoxicated French rugby players rolled in around 2am. These walls are paper thin, and they were yelling all sorts of things. It's a good thing I was exhausted.

Today, we began with our breakfast at the hotel. I indulged myslef in a chocolate croissant, a fresh baguette with jambon (ham) and a cup of tea. It was very tasty!  We proceeded to our bus, which was waiting for us, and drove into the city to meet our local guide for the guided city tour. We met her in the very famous Bastille square. As you know, the storming of the Bastille is an important moment in French history, and it marked the beginning of the french revolution. We saw the original markings from the bastille's old foundation. (it was a jail for VIP criminals). Then we continued throughoutthe city, stopping here and there to take pictures of the different monuments and buildings. We saw several universities in the different districts of the city; the engineering school (holla to my umd buddies!) and the art school. We also drove by the very famous and beautiful gothic church, The Notre Dame. We visit there for mass tomorrow.
We drove by the Eiffel Tower, and all of the girls got really excited and took millions of pictures. After seeing napoleon's tomb, the pantheon, and the opera house, they were finally at the Paris hotspot. Fun fact: he Eiffel Tower was built for the world's fair back in the late 19th century. They were going to take it down because Parisians saw it as an eyesore. However, much to their dismay, it remained. Now, I don't think any of us could imagine the city without it! 
We went to the main avenue of Paris for lunch and free time to shop along the champs d'elysse--kind of like 5th ave in NYC. Ate lunch with my mom in a littl cafe called Henry V. The waiter offered us strawberry champagne, and we decided to go for on glass...but he didn't tell us the price. 15 € later, all we could do was laugh. It was well worth it--by far the mostt delicious drink Ive ever tasted! We also got jambon and a baguette. Yum! Then I bought these awesome pants from a store called "Promod", and went back to meet the group...only to discover that the cashier hadn't removed the security device from the pants. I had to run down to promod from the Arc du Triumph--very cool (the arc, not the running)--and mad it back to my group. We moved together down to the river Seine, where we got on a boat for or own little tour Down the river. It was quite beautiful!
After our ride, we hopped on the metro to go to dinner at "Flam's". It's basically a cross between a crepe and pizza. Bon APPETIT. It was scrumptious! We got on the metro again, only we had to transfer aftr two stops. We were doing fine...until we had to make one more transfer. Our LAST transfer in Paris. It was peak rush hour, and we had to cram 40 people on the tiny metro car. Now. We weren't thinking we would cath the next train, because the platform was very full. But our guide insisted. The train pulled in, and we had only 5 seconds. People were taking forever to get off, so some girls started to push on. The buzzer went off for the train's departure, and the doors slammed on me, and left a chaperone and our guide on the platform. Luckily the doors let me squeeze on the train, but still, very frightening.
The parisian's reaction?

Bitter, dirty looks and rage.
(beware of mini rant)

We were so stressed about getting all 40 of us on the train. They were stressed about...oh...Lord knows. All I know is that the man I was squeezed next was muttering something in French about "dumb Americans". Once the train cleared a bit after two stops, I couldn't help but be a little discouraged and annoyed myself. Here I was, trying to herd 40 Girls, and trying my best to be respectful to the passengers around me. Everywhere we have gone, the people serving us have been kind of dry and unpleasant. Honestly, I'm offended. I don't appreciate the European outlookbon Americans at all. The more I realize it, the more it upsets me. Stereotypes will be stereotypes--there's a reason we are labeled as ignorant. Some Americans are! But there is a true difference from ignorance and lack of knowledge. There certainly are people in the world who never want to leave their way of thinking and don't want to understand how others in the world think and live. But I am not one of those people, and the other girls on this trip ate NOT those people. We have already learned so much after just 2 days: phrases, history, food culture, social culture, the list goes on. We came on this trip because we wanted to learn and explore, and we have successfuly done that thusfar. On the metro, a young Frenchman noticed that I looked distressed and asked me why I was with so many people. We began to talk, and I was explaining to him how we were a large group from the US, etc etc. I explained how the metro works the same way at home, but that these trains don't wait as long at the stations as the DC trains...He was very friendly, and understanding of the situation we were in. This man was not being ignorant--he was trying to be knowledgeable about these Americans on the train with him. It reminded me that though I was annoyed, first impressions are deceiving. It goes both ways.

Sorry about that...-hope you skipped ahead if I bored you! 

Anyways, we got back to the hotel, our lost chaperone and guide caught up, and here we are. The metro incident and personal observations were completely cancelled out by the beautif day. The weather was nice, the tour was lovely, the food was good, and Paris is still one of my top favorite cities. We are visiting the Notre Dame for mass tomorrow an then moving on to Avignon. Oui!