Ending Paris

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Well this is a little late in coming, but hey I'm living in France and it's rubbing off on me!

Well I'm back in Nantes, back to work after a nice 3 week vacation. (thank goodness for the strike! I'm anticipating the next one and going to have a party) New Year's in Paris was ok, the wind was blowing hard on the bridge next to the Eiffel Tower which made it rather cold, but we were happy to chat it up with a really sweet Venezualian couple while drinking real French champagne from the bottle. However, about 3 minutes before midnight, we started noticing that the crowd, and I mean crowd, was moving and pushing us off the bridge and we discovered it was police evacuating the bridge. Why? We don't know for sure, I was able to maintain a front row spot for the Eiffel tower, yet I missed the strike of midnight due to the madness. The city also failed to do fireworks for the first time in years and I have a feeling it had something to do with the evacuation. Apparently they didn't do fireworks in Nantes either. So we watched the tower change lights and shine and then headed back for the long journey to the apartment which includes the following in a very brief manner: getting lost to find a metro, waiting in a line more crowded than ever for the metro that stretched into the street and then deciding to walk, walking to the champs elysees and then realizing it's too far to walk, almost getting pickpocketed by a jerk whom I then called an asshole really loudly and pushing him, walking away from the champs elysees, and finally hailing a cab that charged us automatically 30 euros to go anywhere. We got home at around 3 in the morning and needless to say we both were a little annoyed at that point. Lauren was quite happy to come back and get ready for a 7:30 am train as she was extremely unhappy in the apartment after I saw a rat running around in the apartment 2 nights prior. I don't think this was her best trip to Paris. I decided to take a later train because I was way too tired to get up and really the rat didn't bother me enough to lose sleep over.

So that's kinda how the trip to Paris ended, I enjoyed myself and saw some things I hadn't seen before, including a free exhibition that was really impressive about Jacques Prevert, the artist of all artists in France during the 40's. That is one thing I really like about this country, there are many things for the public to come out and do and many times it's inexpensive if not free.

So I came back to Nantes on Thursday the 1st and pretty much slept the entire day and on Friday I started back up at the gym and a more normal lifestyle again. Yesterday I started back up at work only to learn that my first class was on a field trip or something so I came several hours early once again for nothing. I've only seen that class twice this whole time. Oh well. Today is just another normal day of two hours of work, going to the gym and making myself a little dinner while planning my adventures for the up and coming weeks!

Hope everyone had a good new year and keeps to their resolutions! Mine is to prioritize and really decide what's important in my life.

Miss you! xoxo
Cara

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