I See Paris, I See France...

While Violet is catching some ZZZs here at our hostel in Paris, let me bring you up to snuff on our trip here in Europe. Before I begin, let me just say how surreal it is at times to suddenly realize that, hey, I'm not in America right now. Maybe I've been in too many places over the past year. Maybe I've become too desensitized to everything going on around me. Or maybe the world around me is becoming more globalized and all cultures are starting to intermingle into one. Whatever the case, Europe doesn't seem like the scary, foreign place it used to when I first set foot here years ago.

I think the key to traveling (as well as living life) is to not listen to what a lot of people tell you. For the most part, you'll find that the people who are giving you advice really don't know and are just repeating what they've heard from incorrect sources. Take it upon yourself to experience new things in life and find out on your own how the world really works. Then you'll see that this world really isn't a scary, horrible place after all.

Enough philosophy for today, and back to the drama at hand. After Shane's family left for the evening last night, we must have had a few German beers in all of our systems. The hefeweizens are wonderful here... they're like liquid candy to me. Even the darker (dunkel) weizens are something to fall in love with. We probably didn't go to bed until midnight, which was probably a mistake since everybody had such a hard time getting out of bed this morning. I thought we were doing good on time this morning to catch our train, until someone told me it was 7:10, and the train left at 7:22. Oh, it was time to start practicing those German cuss words from my book (which, by the way, has become a big hit around the apartment in recent days. Even Andrea's German mom (who knows little English) had caught word of it and requested that I bring it to her to read. These Germans love their foul humor).

After another ride in a car with a German maniac behind the wheel, we made it to the train station with 2 minutes to spare and caught our 2 1/2 hour bullet train to Paris. It was insane to watch the world outside pass by in a blur. Someone told me that the train was traveling at speeds around 320 kph, which is well over 200 mph. Kinda puts Phoenix's new "light rail" to shame, doesn't it?

Once in Paris, Violet and I took off on our own to do some exploring. We found some odd joint near the train station that served omelettes and salad and gorged ourselves on that since we had missed breakfast. Then we jumped the Metro and went to Notre Dame to check out the gargoyles, then over to Centre Pompidou to check out the bizarre building housing modern art (all the air ducts, elevators and escalators are on the outside, almost as if the building threw up). Continuing my mission to never pay to use the bathroom EVER, I spent 10 minutes trying to figure out how the automated self-cleaning toilettes work in Paris. Then it was over to the Louvre for my photo session and some cheeseball "The Da Vinci Code" shots of us pointing out the location of the Holy Grail (psst: it's under the upside down glass pyramid!)

And now we're in Montmartre at St. Christopher's Inn, which has to be the nicest, most kick-ass hostel I've ever laid my eyes on. They just opened this place a month or so ago, and it is a backpacker's dream come true. The building has an odd look, like it's wrapped up in twine. But inside, all the dorms are colorfully painted with "theme" rooms (mine is the "Notre Dame" suite), and there's an American-themed bar called "Belushi's" downstairs filled with Animal-House and other movie references. Like I said, globalism thrives big around these parts, like it or not).

Violet just woke up, so it's off we go exploring Montmartre, or "Amelie World" as I like to call it. Montmartre is the site of the original Moulin Rouge and was a breeding ground for many important art movements, including Impressionism, Cubism, and Strip Tease-ism. Should be fun to check out.