Intro & Days 1 and 2 in Paris

This is my blog about my travels in Paris and other places in Europe! I hopefully will manage to send individual letters/emails/postcards to people, but this will allow me to share with all of my friends what I've seen and done (without writing the same details a million times), and also to help myself remember it all. I will try to make it interesting. Please comment!--thoughts on what I've done, suggestions of things to do, anything.

If you want to get in touch with me:

skype id: casey.lange

cell phone in France (though it will be expensive to call me): +33 637 865 039 (so from an American phone: 011 33 637 865 039)

You have my email.

Day 1: Friday 19 Mar -- Getting settled in the 12th Arrondissement, elevated park

• I came to Paris a week before my study abroad program officially starts, with the hope of having some time to explore the city on my own, get oriented, and have fun before classes start to dictate my schedule.
• Got into Paris at 9:20am local time. Found a plan par arrondisement for the bus and metro system.
• Headed to my hostel (Hostel Blue Planet) near Gare de Lyon in the 12th Arrondisement and checked in.
• Decided to spend most of the day exploring that neighborhood and also finishing my last final paper (on Nietzsche and Ernst Junger) from winter quarter.
• Felt a bit disoriented/anxious at first; the sky was overcast and the area I was in seemed mostly just dense and grimy. I think this was mainly due to not sleeping on the plane.
• Stopped in at a place called Cafe Maryland; it seemed like a good enough place to have an expresso and work on my laptop so I did for a bit.
• The Promenade Planté along Avenue Daumesnil (near Boulevard Diderot) is pretty has good views, and is a very good place to nap;I slept for an hour or two there and felt much more optimistic afterward.
• Went back to the hostel, got my bags into my room, and talked a bit to a couple of my roommates -- Laird from Missouri (? -- might have been another U.S. state) who has been studying French for the past semester in central France, and Andrew from Australia who is traveling around the world having recently toured the U.S.
• Found a nice cafe/boulangerie/grocery called Cafe Jean. Might be a part of a chain? Sort of a Starbucks atmosphere. They have free wifi so I got an expresso and baguette and spend a few hours of the evening sending emails, figuring out how to use my phone, and finishing my paper.
• My hostel is only a 10-minute or so walk from the Bastille, which I was told had a good nightlife, so I decided to walk up there and explore (around 10pm). It wasn't great. After a little searching I did find a couple of streets packed with bars, and I did go into one for a bit. But since I was alone and didn't really know how to start up conversations with people, it was pretty boring.

Day 2: Saturday 20 Mar -- City center by foot, Sacre Couer, Montmarche

• This day was a lot more fun on the whole.
• Joined Andrew the Australian for a free walking tour of the center of the city: Place St. Michel, Notre Dame (at a distance), Pont Neuf, Pont des Artes, Institut des France , Louvre, Palais Royal, Jardin du Tuileries, Orangerie, Musee d'Orsay, Obelisque, Eiffel Tower (at a distance), Champs Elysees, Arc du Triomphe (at a distance), Petit Palais, Grand Palais
• Since it was a free tour we didn't go into the interior of any of the buildings, but the tour guide pointed them out and told us a lot about them. It was pretty interesting and gave me some orientation and ideas of places to go back to.
• During the tour met a Slovenian and and Argentinian, both traveling alone but staying at the same hostel. After the tour walked around and talked with them for a while; it was pleasant. We split off for different places we wanted to go. I probably should have tried to go somewhere with them or maybe meet up for dinner / bars later, but wasn't sure how to do that gracefully.
• Went to Sacre Couer around 5pm. Climbed to the top, enjoyed the view, went into the church, and then sat in the pews for a little while listening to a chorus of nuns singing (which was beautiful, or at least sort of otherworldly).
• Walked west into the Montmarche area. I liked it a lot and I think I would enjoy going back there. There were shops with some cool jackets I considered buying.
• At the Elysee Montmarche (I think?) there was some reggae act (Max Homeo or something like that) playing, and a block-long line of people waiting, mostly young (teens and twenties). Talked to a guy waiting who seemed happy to practice his English, so we conversed for a few minutes. I asked about Lylo but he didn't know what I was talking about.
• Went into "Edward and Sons Olde English Pub". Talked to a couple of French guys (mid-twenties), one of whom spoke English. They were friendly and invited me to join them as their friends started to show up. Had my first experience of the kiss-both-cheeks greeting, which each of the girls did with me when they arrived.
• Turns out France is a big rugby nation, and that night the TVs in the bar were playing the final match of a sort of rugby world cup, between France and England. Soon the place was packed. It was pretty exciting; everyone was very enthusiastic and I made (English) small talk every so often with people in the group I had met. France won.
• After the match I walked along into the nearby red light district, filled with porn theaters, sex shops, and strip clubs. I was too tired at this point for any deeper investigation, though a one or two stripclub front-door people tried fairly aggressively to get me inside. I declined ("Non merci, non merci!") and went home.

But now I have spent too much time writing and not enough time seeing Paris. Hopefully coming posts will be filled with fewer mundane details and more descriptions to cool stuff and my reactions to them.

Also: soon I will start taking pictures! (Until now my camera wasn't charged.)