Sunday the three of us (I take that back Mere and JD woke up a bit before me to get breakfast goin) woke up around the same time and had a traditional French breakfast. Pancakes, Eggs and Yogurt. We're Amurican. We eat Amurican. I do like French toast tho (I do think it's funny you're supposed to sprinkle it with white powdered sugar...they must feed it to their army). Regardless of our breakfast endeavors we got all our gear and lunch packed up and hopped in the car (it felt great taking a road trip) to go to Paris! The ride to Paris is what you would expect in northern Ohio or the mid west minus big trucks, flat and lots of farm land. If you stared out the window for a while it was easy to forget where you were. We arrived in Paris around noon or so and got a parking spot and headed to go climbing. Shay and I used to climb ramsey all the time but it's been a while since then. Justin and Mere told me that they had come to the same place before but because they don't have anchors in the floor to strap Mere too (note: see weight difference between the two) she got catapulted when JD slipped. Needless to say they weren't able to climb much longer that day. JD has a bit of weight on me (we're pretty close in height though) but I was able to do just fine. The place we went to was called mur mur and it was under train tracks (no mom it's not a ghetto climbing place with bums). In paris they've got huge arches on their tracks and this company took 4 or 5 of the arches and closed them in and put 3 rooms of massive walls, a sauna, locker rooms, and a huge yoga room. I have to say I was a huge fan of the opportunity to go climbing in Paris. Although the French climbers had the french funk (thats code for saying they smell like trash day) we had a great time. We climbed for 4 hours and each got in as many climbs as we possibly could. By the end of the day our forearms felt like popeye (not the chicken fool, the cartoon that likes spinach). I did improve my skills as a climber though, I figured out what worked and didn't work which was great. We finished up the climbing and changed into our street clothes (it just sounds cooler than regular clothes) and decided to tour the city. We drove into the city and I first got to see their statue of liberty (the guy that delivered ours must have gotten the order wrong because theirs could fit in the pocket of ours). The Eiffel tower was easily noticeable in the distance, it was quite serene going into the city. Our first stop naturally was the Louvre. I had no idea what to expect, I've only seen the Louvre when Tom Hanks ran there in the Da' Vinci Code. It's massive. The outside is architecturally beautiful. The French do know how to treat themselves nicely. I'm sure you can guess what was the painting we went there for. That's right, the crooked smile creeper. The Mona Lisa. It felt weird actually seeing it, but the pictures I've seen in books seemed to get it exactly right. It was the exact same as the books actually, all we accomplished was the ability to say "I've seen that too grandma". Seriously though, it was pretty cool, she stares at you wherever you are. The Louvre looks like a pack rats house that loves paintings. It's crammed with stuff. I think it would take a year to really look at everything. My other favorite things were Egyptian artifacts and statues, those were real interesting to me. After the Louvre we booked it on over to the second thing I wanted to see, the Notre Dame. The sun was setting on the church, and it looked beautiful on the outside. Inside I'm not going to lie there was a service going on and it was creepy. I'm surprised the door to the church didn't open before my hand touched it like a horror film. It was dark and the pipe organs were playing minor key (I took music theory) very dark music. The priest was talking in monotone latin. It felt like nobody was really experiencing any sort of worship in there, just religiousness...On the bright side the stained glass window and the architecture was uncanny (I've been waiting to drop that word in my blog for a while). I was thoroughly impressed. I didn't get to see the hunchback ring the bells though, I was somewhat disappointed. Afterwards we headed out to the last item on my list of sights to see, the Eiffel tower. It was dark by this point, and on our way over it started to sparkle. Not in my eye, literally. Every hour it sparkles for 5 minutes. I think it was welcoming me to come check it out. The tower is massive. I am a huge fan of the architecture, it looks raw and beautiful at the same time. It's not decorated with plaster or glass, the metal itself creates the beauty. We snapped a few pictures stood in awe for a bit and headed out to dinner. Dinner tonight? traditional Sushi! I'll have to admit I've never been really exposed to much sushi, I have only been two or three times but it was a great and bittersweet ending to a unbelievable weekend. I thoroughly enjoyed the sushi (the portions we got were huge!) and the company wasn't too shabby either. Afterwards they dropped me off at the train station. They didn't know this but I may have had a minor heart attack after thinking that they dropped me off at a metro station rather than a train station. I walked down the wrong corridor and ended up in a metro rather than following the signs (lay off, they're french...I can read french toast, french fries and french bread. After that I'm lost.) to the train station. I met up with Eliza who took the journey with me to and from and we got our seats, departing for the short 18 hour journey home. Along the way we stopped in Cerbere where it was blizzarding. Not snowing. Like white out with snow flakes the size of birds. I've decided that hell froze over and they changed the name to Cerbere and forgot to tell tourists. I can say this because of the little scene we saw while hanging in the lobby. A man walks in with a dog (unleashed of course) with camo pants (not fatigues, like redneck camo) a camo vest and a communist tshirt of Che on under it. The dude had his own personal side kick that I believe was trying to help him take over the world. It made perfect sense that we were in Cerbere though. We arrived back on Monday afternoon around 3 and I may have just gone straight to sleep until the next day.
Pictures from Paris! (Me Climbing, JD and Mere gettin ready to climb, the tower, thats right, I gargoyled Paris as well, and our future communist leader of the world, I snuck a picture)
I have TON's of pictures and I'm trying to put them on facebook, but it's being funny with pictures at the moment.
Rapidness
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