trippy

Royale with Cheese

Firstly, I guess I should explain my lack of posting. Once my brother's wedding was over, I didn't have the internet in my room for a long time. My parents' computer sucks, so I didn't want to have to use that ever. And I was never at a computer at Nathalie's house long enough to post a good post. However, I moved the DSL modem into my room recently, and I have just been too unmotivated to post until now. I sincerely apologise, and I will of course try to post every day or so from now on. I really do enjoy writing on this. Please don't hold it against me...

So my trip to Paris was uber great. I know I told you I'd have pictures, but I don't have a server or a good place to put them, so no pictures (for now, at least). The flight to Raleigh, NC, was pointless, but the flight to London was very fun. We flew in a 777, which means that we all got out own little personal TVs on which we could choose what to watch. And we even got our seats changed to front-row seats so that we had a lot more leg room. The arm rests were stationary, though, which made it pretty hard to sleep.

For our layover in London, we took a really fast train from Gatwick Airport to Victoria Station. This, of course, was after I waited in a huge line of people wanting to be imported into Britain. But Nathalie has a French passport (having been born there), so she got to go through the much quicker European Community line. She got our plane tickets and found out where to go as I waited in line. Then she waited some more for me. From there, we walked to Buckingham Palace and then through a very large park to a nice area of the city on our way to Tralfagor Square. We looked around at all the sites in the square for a while, then we decided to walk back to Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guards. Taking a large detour, we ended up walking near Westminster Abbey (Big Ben and Parliament), and through another large park where we saw a huge gathering of Buckingham Palace guards doing their jobs (walking around in a circle?). We then went to the changing of the guards, which was the most boring part of the entire London Experience. It was just a few guards walking back and forth, back and forth. Then some more guards came and watched them walk back and forth. We left that and ate some pasta before heading back to the airport. The airport was bad. They wouldn't tell you what gate your plane was leaving from until about 30 minutes before departure, which made us really nervous because we kept wanting to sleep while waiting for the flight to be announced on some big LCD screen. We eventually made it to our flight and flew an hour across the Channel to Paris.

Once at Paris, Nathalie's parents picked us up from the airport. Customs in Paris was very, very simple. I basically just walked right through (no line to wait in at all or any questions to answer). We took about an hour-long train ride to the subway station next to the apartment in which we were staying, where Nathalie and I got our week-long subway tickets, which we used to get around Paris the whole time we were there. We put our stuff away, then ate dinner, after which we wanted a short nap before heading out to see the city for the first time (it was about 9:00 p.m.). A few hours later, we were woken up by her parents, and they told us we shouldn't go out because we were so tired, so we just went back to sleep for the rest of the night.

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This has been Paris Trip Part I. Part II will be coming soon (later today or tomorrow).