The one. The only. The Paris.

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I love you. Your comment made me laugh for the first time in.. about 3 hours. congratulations. you win!

So! Since day 3, thigns have looked up- at least for me. We got to Paris at 10ish am on Monday, which gave us the entire day, basically, to walk around and see the sites. The two ladies were kind of still on edge, but seriously- i was in paris and nothing could bring me down. plus, once we started walking, they got better. it also helped that our first tourist destination was Notre Dame, which is archetecturally pleasing, which made Altenburg happy.. finally. Because, as for myself, once we arrived at the train station and we walked out into the sunshine on the trainstation platform, I was in love. this city is unbelievable. after N.D., we walked down the siene to the louvre which i had been to before, but i had NEVER seen it like this. it was a beautiful sunny day and i was blown away with the enormity of it all and how absolutely.. beautiful it was! it made me happy. in fact, i'm still probably floating on THAT cloud. BUT WHATEVER. it's a great cloud to be on. 😊

then yesterday, we tried to find something to do for the afternoon and were sent to this beautiful area (i can't think of what it's call and i'm paying for the internet by the minute, so i'm not going to look it up right now.. but i really enjoyed it) where we spent part of the afternoon, until about 330, when altenburg complained that she thought she was getting heat stroke (which i'm faaaaairly certain you don't "think you're getting"... you just get it and start feeling faint and puke all over the place.. but WHATEVER. i'll let it slide. again.) and asked if we could go back to the hostle. we complied, figuring that once we dropped her off, carin and myself could go out for a little while and just.. BE in paris. but the route we had to take to get tehre was a little.. haphazard.. but we got there and altenburg was even more snarly.. so as i thought we would, we dropped her off then left, each gettign about 1/2 an hour of internet time before we stopped by a corner bar/restaurant and got cappachinos.. and ended up sitting there and talking for 2 1/2 hours or so. we basically just complained about her back and forth and brought up things that she had said in the last few days that were just ridiculous and.. it actually made me feel a little better about the whole situation because (although i figured) we both felt the same way. and! i realized that i kind of treat/respond to altenburg the same way i do to my mother- i hear her out and nod appropriately when she's giving her side of a story/situation and then say "ok, well this is what i'm going to do/what is going to happen/how i'm going to be proactive and fix xyz/etc..."

it works. and it makes me laugh a little inside. 😊

TODAY! she started gettign really... tense towards carin and i and we really couldn't figure out why. like, when we got to versailles, it was POURING rain and none of us brought rain gear, so carin and i were desprately hoping that they would have ponchos there to buy.. and they did! we both bought these ridiculously HUGE ponchos that just SCREAMED american tourist, but it was so fun! we didn't care, and why should we? it was obvious we were tourists anyways, we might as well get a good laugh and a few AWESOMELY horrifying pictures to go along with it! but lindsey was humilliated. like- she didn't want to be seen with us. she voiced her horror and spent the rest of the day pissed and once we were almost back to our hostle (carin and i both still in our ridiculous ponchos), carin asked why she was so embarassed and she was like "because that's not socially acceptable" and went on to say that she wished she had brought clothes that were FAR nicer and what not.. it made me laugh inside. i would have laughed out lout, woudl it not set her off even more, but i think carin was a little hurt.. so i kept nudging her the rest of the way home and making the same silly poncho movements and noises as we had been making all day, just to kind of remind her that she shouldn't let lindsey's insecurities ruin her trip, too. i think it worked.. at least partially.

when we got back, lindsey said she'd be back later (again) and carin and i went inside, only to have her burst in about 15 mintues later (we were expecting it to be closer to an hour) and eventually appologize for being weird to us earlier, but she thinks that the three of us just expected different things out of this trip, but she couldn't pinpoint exactly (or even vaguely) what she was talking about. i'll update you later once she finally comes out with what she meant. it should be a good show. i'm not mad. again- i kind of treat her like my mother- i'll hear her out and then continue as i would even if she hadn't said anything. because, seriously, this is my trip too.

as for the drinking- done. i bought a 35oz heinekin (sp?) this morning to take to versailles with us and she saw it as i was checking out and she was like "heinekin, eh?" and i said "yeup" and just kept on trucking. i just finished it before coming down here and am about to head across the street to meet up with the two of them and drink more. just despite her. 😊

Good news is- (big surprise) carin and i are getting along just jolly-ly. and we can constantly give each other "did that just happen!?" looks. it's wonderful.

i hope everything is going well with you, miss. i'm glad to hear you had a good date! and jealous that you got to ride a bike! 3 times! again, i have yet to actually set up a real blog (mainly beacuse shit's expensive here), but i'll get on that eventually.. then you'll have a day-by-day account of all the OTHER things we're doing. other than wanting to kill each other. 😊

love you! <3.

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