It's raining.

Well, it's raining again today, which is fine. Perfect day for a museum. :) It's supposed to stop by 6 though, so it's all good.

Yesterday we left at around 12 and took a long, long leisurely walk over to the Eiffel Tower. (It wouldn't have taken so long, but it was a very leisurely walk. ha ha) We stopped in some stores on the way, and took in more of the sights on the Paris streets. It really feels like we live here because we're walking the streets to get places, living in an apartment, goinjg grocery shopping. To those interested in coming here - I highly suggest it. It takes you away from feeling like a tourist, and puts you into a more relaxed residential state of mind with tourist ideas, but not the hustle and bustle that comes with it.

On the way, Sarah and I wanted a beer. We happened to stumble across L'Academie de biere. Academy of Beers. We figured they'd have some good beer. Man, were we right. The best beer I have ever had. The girls all got different fruit flavored beer - berry, raspberry, peach, and strawberry. I got L'ambrusa - a french brewed beer. It sort of was a combination of Blue Moon and Oberon, but a little different. However, if an orange slice was thrown in, it would have been heaven. ha ha. We had great french fries there, too. We couldn't figure out if it was the oil they used or the actual fries that were so delicious. No biggie, amazing none the less.

We continued walking and eventually got to the Eiffel Tower. What a sight to see. It was so surreal. Here I am, boy from St. Clair Shores, standing in front of the Eiffel Tower. I don't know if I ever thought I'd be doing that. So, we of course got in the line to go up it. There's three floors, and you can either get a pass for the first, second, or all three; we got all three and it was only 12 Euros. So, we took the elevator to the second floor, checked out the sights, took some pictures, chilled, grabbed a sandwich and then got onto the other elevator to take us to the very, very top. We arrived up there, and I thought it would be cold, but it really wasn't. You could see soooo far into the horizon from here, apparently it's supposed to be 55 miles all around that you can see. Sidenote: we lucked out because it was a gorgeous day in the 70's with the sun out, not many clouds. Perfect day to go to the Eiffel Tower. It was cool because you could see so many things from up there - Arc de Triomphe, Notre Dame, Musee de Louvre, some church on a hill, Palace des Invalides - so cool to see things you recognize. We actually met a man, woman, and her child, and the woman graduated from Wayne State's biology graduate program back in the day and they now live in Sacramento. How cool is that to meet someon from Wayne State at the top of the Eiffel Tower? Love it.

(Random note: For those who don't know, the person we're renting the apartment from is also from Wayne State. Beth randomly found this apt. online, called him, and in talking found out he was from wayne state's med. school. He got excited we were from Wayne State, so we ended up getting the family discount. Pretty sweet, right? Wayne State's all over. Pretty sweet.)

In the Eiffel Tower there are some videos about the history, painting it, and the events that occured there. We went to leave the Eiffel Tower and took the elevator from the top to the second floor and then walked the 704 steps downt to the ground. Sweet!

We left the Eiffel Tower to go sit on the grass to watch it light up because it was now nightfall - which is when the lights start. The lights turn on for ten minutes every hour until midnight. The Eiffel Tower was accented witha blue light because of the presidential election here. It'll be lit that way for the next two months. Then the lights began. I thought the whole Eiffel Tower was going to light up, but instead, like a million little strobe light things were going off from all over the Eiffel Tower. It was so cool. it looked like tons of people were all over it taking pictures. I took pictures, but it didn't capture how cool it was, so I took a 6 second video of it so you could see also. :) I, of course, took some pictures next to it. Then, Beth and I decided to do our acrobatics stuff we learned in Russia in front of it too. Those pictures turned out sweet, but are on her mom's camera because mine was being dumb. They're pretty sweet. We're going to need to send them to our instructors in Russia.

It was a cool atmosphere on the lawn in front of the Eiffel Tower. People scattered all over with picnic baskets, wine, baguettes, pasta, just having a good old time. Can you imagine just getting some friends together and heading over to the Eiffel Tower on a random night and having a picnic? Must be nice, right? But that'll be me next year, but with Central Park instead. I already found my favorite place there. :)

So, we left the Eiffel Tower and headed back. Sarah and I thought we should go one way, but everyone else thought the other way, so we went the other way...which was the wrong way. So, we ended up back near the Eiffel Tower. We then decided to take the Metro, their version of the subway. So, we went over to the Metro, which just happned to be the train we needed (lucky), and I figured out how to read and use the machine to get the tickets (it was all in french). I then checked out the metro map hanging therea nd figured out which stop we needed - which was only 13 away (20 minutes). So, we went up the escalator and headed onto the metro once it arrived. We got off at the Place d'Italie stop. We could've transferred to the 7 train, but I didn't feel like dealing with a transfer for only a couple of blocks, so we walked. Cathie, Sarah, and kennikki didn't think we knew where we were going so they kept asking for directions. All we had to do, though, was go straight down the street and turn right. Well, Beth and I did it, but apparently everyone else fell behind. I don't know how that happened. When they arrived a half an hour later, upset because they got lost and we ditched them (which we didn't do), they jst wanted a beer. They were right behind us, Beth and I were honestly baffled as to how they lost us. However, everyone likes to stop and check things out without the people in front knowing, so that may happened. Oh well, they weren't really that mad, and they got back fine.

But, the moment I was most proud of yesterday: i navigated us on a metro in a different country in a different language, and got us back to where we needed to be. Beth also knew what she was doing too. I feel so cultured. And the funny thing is that I have never felt nervous or anything. It's actually exciting and exhilerating to search and find your way around. It's like an adventure, and it's amazing that I was actually correct in getting us around.

When we got back, we made some pasta, chilled, and I went to right to bed. It was an exhausting day with so much walking and everything.

Today, we're heading over to the Musee d'Orsee and the aftwerward taking a boat ride down the Seine River, which should be pretty cool.

Alright, well, I'm out. Hope you all had a great 4th of July!! :) Have a good day!