Paris

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Paris was interesting. At first I didn't think that I was going to enjoy it after my first afternoon and evening there. After coming from a bunch of smallish beach towns (compared to Paris that is), Paris was a bit overwhelming as it's such a huge city. After a bit of trouble trying to figure out the metro system there (just wasn't used to the system they used there) I made my way to my hostel which was located in a not so nice area. The hostel was decent I guess, but for some reason I ended up being in rooms with only spanish speaking people who knew practically no english. The first night I went to sit underneath the Eiffel Tower and watch the sunset. Not quite as romantic by myself, but still very cool to see. The whole tower lights up at night and at 10pm the whole thing starts flashing with 20,000 lights installed all over it. My first day it ended up raining on and off for the entire day (my first rain of the trip actually), but I went to a famous cemetary (called Père-Lachaise) to see Jim Morrison's and Oscar Wilde's graves, plus a bunch of Holocaust memorials where were somewhat grotesque looking, but moving because of their appearance. I spent the afternoon in Luxemburg Gardens watching people walking around until it started raining again. So I headed back to the hostel and got some dinner from a brassiere. The next morning I went on a walking tour of all the big sights in Paris and saw Notre Dame, Arc de Triomphe, the Louvre, etc. Met a few cool people on the tour and ended up going around with them all for the rest of the day after the tour ended. We went up to the second level of the Eiffel Tower which had some amazing views of Paris. That night we went on a pub crawl run by the same group that does the tours and I ended up having a few too many drinks, but it was a lot of fun though. This morning I got breakfast and got on a train to Brussels, Belgium and then on again to Bruges where I'm writing this.

After leaving I still think that Paris was not my favorite city. The people were friendly enough and seeing the famous sights was great, but I definitely didn't have as much fun as most of the other places I've been. Not too sure why really. The Parisian lifestyle is attractive though, with so many brassieres and bars everywhere along the sidewalks and the beautiful buildings all around.

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Photos

Champs Elysee
very very expensive street with very very expensive things